Do You Know When Your ‘Friends’ Are Fraudsters?

You have to hand it to fraudsters, they are nothing if not up to date with their technology and that includes social media. I was really intrigued to see the demonstration that Mark Johnson (author of Demystifying Communications Risk and Cyber Crime, Security and Digital Intellgence) is running at MIS’ Social Media Risk Conference on 22nd and 23rd May; billed as a ‘live social media experiment’ Mark will be soliciting new ‘friends’ using fake social media profiles.

World Conference on Educational Media and Technology

The 25th – 29th June 2012 hosts the Ed-Media Conference in Denver, Colorado. This conference sees author Nicola Johnson giving two presentations:

• Internet addiction – the hype and the evidence
• Publishing from your PhD (doctoral stream)

The focus of her two presentations come from the research and information she put together in writing her books The Multiplicities of Internet Addiction (published by Ashgate, 2009) and Publishing from Your PhD (published by Gower, 2010).

     

The A-Z of Safe Children Online

Mark Johnson (author of Demystifying Communications Risk) has published (for free circulation) a wonderful guide for parents and teachers to keeping children safe online: The A-Z of Safe Children Online. The 32 page guide is beautifully illustrated by cartoonist, Corinne Blandin. If you are responsible for children, as a parent, aunt, uncle or as a teacher, then do download and share this guide.

The Velvet Revolution at Work

This year’s Simply Summit (26th/27th April, Prospero House, London SE1) looks very good indeed. Along with speakers such as Euan Semple and Jim Ylisela, there is a wonderful programme exploring emerging developments in employee engagement and organizational social media. Plus delegates will have the chance to hear John Smythe talking about his research and the subject of his forthcoming book: The Velvet Revolution at Work: The Rise of Employee Engagement, The Fall of Command and Control. Simply Communicate, who host the event put on extraordinarily good and thought-provoking events so I am looking forward to it. We’ll be exhibiting copies of The Gower Handbook of Internal Communication and offering a draw to win free copies.

 

 

Come and see us at Information Design Conference 2012

Gower is attending and exhibiting at Information Design 2012 (12th-13th April) at Greenwich University, London. The event has a very eclectic programme, reflecting the many aspects of information design: human factors, information management, design management, visual studies, architectural design … the list goes on. If you are planning to attend, do drop me an e-mail (jnorman@gowerpublishing.com) and call by the Gower/Ashgate bookstand. I’ll be delighted to meet you.

Intellectual Property and the Film and Music Industries

Following Wikipedia’s Blackout in protest to the Intellectual Property and Online Piracy acts being debated in America, many have begun wondering what the future could hold for the business models in the film and music industries and whether these business models themselves are outdated.

Jane Lambert, has written a number of articles on her blog, that give a good background to IP policy and the film and music industries:

IPC Policy: Does Hargreaves say Anything New?

Injunctions against ISPs

Injunctions against ISPs Part II: the CJEU’s Judgment in Scarlet

Jane is the author of Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights

The Social Brand Value of the World’s Biggest Brands

Social business is one of those ideas that hit the ground running and few are the organisations these days that aren’t devoting time and resources to social media. But how does this all translate into value? Niall Cook (Enterprise 2.0 and the forthcoming The Business Marketeer’s Guide to Social Media) posted the results of a research programme at the end of 2011 (The Social Brand Value of the World’s Biggest Brands) that ranks (and explains) the world’s largest businesses on the basis of their social value. The results in some cases are obvious, in others quite unexpected; the whole piece is well worth a read.

How to Be a Hacker – A Beginner’s Guide

Needless to say, you need to get into the mind of those people who are out to exploit loopholes in your corporate systems or processes to defraud you or otherwise damage your business. Ian Mann’s presentation for the Nottingham Branch of the British Computer Society on the evening of 21st March looks to teach you how to do just that. The event is free and open to non-BCS members. Ian Mann is author of Hacking the Human – Social Engineering Techniques and Security Countermeasures published by Gower.

2011 Social Media in a Project Environment Survey Results

I am a big fan of  Elizabeth Harrin (author of the forthcoming Customer-Centric Project Management) and she has been one of the leading lights on the topic of social media for project management. You can download her 2011 Social Media in a Project Environment Survey Results from her website - here are some of the key highlights:
- 20% more people are using blogs for business use than in 2010;
- Over 90% of respondents use social media tools to stay in touch with colleagues;
- A quarter of respondents use social media tools for managing project teams;
- Over 75% of respondents feel that social media tools can, or do currently, improve the way they manage projects, but this is down from 83% last year.

Mobile, Wifi and Cloud Integration – an invitation to fraudsters

The trouble with technology is that whilst it enables business, it also enables those clever and unethical criminals who seek to exploit business for their own gain. Mobile devices, wireless networks and cloud computing combine to present a formidable fraud control challenge. Mark Johnson’s article in Fraud Intelligence outlines the risks and suggests a response strategy. Mark Johnson is author of the forthcoming Demystifying Communications Risk: A Guide to Revenue Risk Management in the Communications Sector.