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IBM To Add 500 Workers In Boulder, Colorado

2009-12-22T11:05:40Z

BOULDER, Colo. — IBM Corp. plans to add 500 customer-service employees at its campus in Boulder.

City officials say the workers will be hired locally and trained by IBM. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company is expanding customer-service related jobs, supported with $35,000 in sales and use tax rebates from Boulder.

Read more: Boulder Colorado, Ibm, Denver News

Robyn Griggs Lawrence: Five Items You Should Always Recycle

2009-12-17T18:00:39Z

Recycling is one of the easiest steps you can take toward living green--but some recycling matters more than others. RecycleBank, a recycle rewards program in 24 states and the United Kingdom, compiled this list of five household items you should always recycle because they aren't biodegradable or they contain materials that could contaminate the environment if they wind up in landfills. Some materials can be hard to find recycle sites for, but don't worry--we have suggestions.

1. Electronics
Computers, cell phones and other home office electronics contain toxic materials such as lead, mercury and arsenic as well as materials that can be salvaged and reused elsewhere. Office Depot, Staples and Best Buy accept larger, desktop computers for recycling for a small fee (around $10) and smaller items such as cell phones for free. If you participate in RecycleBank's rewards program, you can earn points by recycling cell phones, laptops and iPods or MP3 players through RecycleBank's partners.

2. Rechargeable Batteries
Batteries contain heavy metals and chemicals, and recyclers can reclaim metals from them to make new batteries and steel. Cordless drills, digital cameras and power tools often have rechargeable batteries that can be recycled for free at more than 30,000 drop-off locations in the United States, including retailers such as Home Depot, Target, RadioShack and Sears. Check out Call2Recycle to find a recycling center near you.

Single-use, alkaline batteries are harder to recycle. Try Earth 911 or Battery Solutions to recycle these batteries.

3. Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
These light bulbs will save you energy (and money), but CFLs can break and release mercury in a landfill. Take your CFLs to an IKEA or Home Depot to recycle them, or check out Lamp Recycle to find other drop-off sites near you.

4. Plastic Bags
Even if you shop with reusable bags, chances are you still have some (or lots) of plastic bags hanging around your house. Plastic bags are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and take a long time to decompose. It's easy to find a recycling center that accepts them. Retailers such as Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger and others have large bins, often at the front of the store, to recycle plastic bags of all varieties (grocery, newspaper, dry cleaning and more).

5. Anything You Think Can Be Reused
If you think the item still has some use, recycle or donate it. For example, donate your prescription glasses to the nonprofit OneSight at any LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, Sears Optical or Sunglass Hut. OneSight hopes to collect and reuse at least 1.2 million pairs of eyeglasses to use at eye care clinics in developing countries.

Unused, unexpired medication is another good candidate for recycling. If you have leftover medication, mail it to Health Equity Project, a nonprofit organization that collects and distributes to needy people around the globe.

FTC Smacks Intel With Antitrust Suit

2009-12-16T10:39:56Z

SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Trade Commission piled on new antitrust charges against Intel Corp. on Wednesday, seeking to end what it described as a decade of illegal sales tactics that have crippled rivals and kept prices for computer chips artificially high.

The FTC's lawsuit contains the most wide-ranging allegations yet against the world's largest chip maker, which is also fighting a record $1.45 billion antitrust fine in Europe and separate cases in South Korea and New York state.

FTC Sues Intel For Antitrust Violations

2009-12-16T10:27:18Z

Bush E-mails Found: 22 Million Missing E-mails From George W. Bush White House Recovered

2009-12-14T15:25:26Z

WASHINGTON — Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.

The two private groups – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive – said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.

Cuba Detains U.S. Contractor

2009-12-12T00:51:26Z

HAVANA -- A United States government contract worker, who was distributing cellphones, laptops and other communications equipment in Cuba on behalf of the Obama administration, has been detained by the authorities here, American officials said Friday.

The officials said the contractor, who works for a company based in the Washington suburbs, was detained Dec. 5.

Brent Green: Barack Obama and Muhammad Ali: Ironies of War and Peace

2009-12-08T14:08:07Z

On November 19th, USA Today published a 64-page special tribute edition in homage to Muhammad Ali, honoring the 50th anniversary of his 1960 Olympic gold medal. Barack Obama wrote a lead essay, in which the President ignored the champ's divisive resistance to military conscription and incendiary unpopularity during the Vietnam War era.

Mr. Obama clearly faced a conundrum when authoring his commentary since he would shortly decide to increase troop strength in Afghanistan, escalating the conflict and irrefutably making the fight his administration's war.

This left me wondering how President Obama could reconcile his adulation for the champ while accepting Ali's widely differing views on war.

Understanding this complex and sometimes contentious athlete who has risen above the fray, disarming critics and reshaping his legacy, can tell us a lot about a nation struggling with conflicting values concerning war and peace embodied by a president escalating a war while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

To Boomer males and a young Barack Obama, Cassius Clay was Superman. The poetic pugilist was everything a typical male wanted to become: self-confident, physically powerful, intelligent, fearless, wealthy and famous.

He was also a black man, which spoke volumes to teenagers wanting to see the promise of Civil Rights fully manifested with the installation of African American heroes in the mythology of the growing counterculture. He represented the best and brightest of a new generation of trans-racial heroes beginning to emerge in sports, business, cinematic arts and politics.

Muhammad Ali, his adopted Muslim name, was black and belligerent; black and beneficent; black and bold. He quickly became one of the most recognized and admired athletes worldwide; a fact eventually cemented by his installation as the Sportsman of the 20^th Century by Sports Illustrated magazine in December 1999.

Born January 17, 1942, Cassius Marcellus Clay won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division of the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy. He soon captured media attention with his smooth-talking self-confidence and wit. In his own self-assessment: “Cassius Clay is a boxer who can throw the jive better than anybody.”

He helped catapult boxing to the forefront of spectator sporting events when he fought Sonny Liston in Miami for the world heavyweight boxing title. While promoting this match, he coined his famous rhythmic chant, “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” At the age of 22, he became the pretty prince of boxing.

During this time of rampant racism, and having been inspired by bellicose black activist Malcolm X, he decided to join the Nation of Islam and adopt the name Muhammad Ali, which in Muslim means “beloved of Allah.” Cassius Clay became a Black Muslim in 1963, and he also became a symbol of all that tradition-bound America was beginning to fear: Black Muslims, Black Power and Black Panthers. In doing so, he turned his back on mainstream America by rejecting the “slave name” upon which his early fame rested.

Defying the white establishment, this once powerful symbol of Olympic triumph and The American Dream picked up another burning torch that inspired the downtrodden, disfranchised and dispossessed worldwide. Ali was, as Eldridge Cleaver observed, “the black Fidel Castro of boxing.”

In 1967, he refused the draft on religious grounds, and the World Boxing Federation stripped him of his title and boxing license. The U.S. government charged him for violating the Selective Service Act. He told the media, “I have no quarrel with the Viet-Cong. No Viet-Cong ever called me nigger.”

In spite of his moral and religious objections, the get-Cassius faction across America condemned him as a traitor, and the courts sentenced him to five years in prison. Quickly released on appeal, his conviction was overturned in 1970.

It is not without irony that Muhammad Ali became a favored celebrity pitchman during the early years of this decade, plugging products for America’s mainstream, blue-chip brands.

In Super Bowl XXXVIII, aired on February 1, 2004, for example, Ali appeared as himself in television commercials not once, but three times for IBM, Gillette and as part of a CBS Network promotion to encourage Americans to vote. Around that same time, he also appeared in advertising campaigns for Apple Computer and Coca-Cola. Adidas athletic shoes hired him as spokesman to help solidify its new message in a print, television and Internet advertising campaign dedicated to the theme, “Impossible is nothing.”

David Schwab, director for marketing and media at Octagon, a sports agency owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, observed that Muhammad Ali could not be thought of as just a celebrity. “He’s an iconic brand. He himself is an IBM or Gillette.”

The IBM campaign was particularly noteworthy for its adoption of the Ali most fondly remembered, while unselfconsciously skirting the potential issues raised by Ali’s civil disobedience and alignment with revolutionary factions during the sixties.

In this television commercial, Ali is sitting next to a boy who is curious about the world. The boy represents IBM’s open source computer operating system called Linux, an “underdog, upstart software technology.” Ali plaintively declares to the boy, “Shake things up,” hearkening back to the time when the great fighter rattled the boxing world while shaking up the Moral Majority’s deeply held beliefs in the duty of all citizens to unflinchingly support their government during times of war.

Icons are eternal, no matter their flaws and foibles.

With a unique combination of skill, style and character, “The Greatest” became a three-time heavyweight champion and the world’s most acclaimed athlete. He became a symbol of conquest. He became the go-to retired athlete for companies revitalizing brand images of courage, character and charisma.

Through the magic of modern branding, he rose again as a powerful symbol of achievement in the face of adversity. Ali's “road less traveled” remains today a mythic Western value that continues to define the American experience.

Ali’s career was, in the end, iconic and ironic. So, it seems, is the career of a president who deeply admires this champ.

Dell: Twitter Promotions Scored Us $6.5 Million In Sales

2009-12-08T09:51:21Z

Dell Inc., relying on social- networking sites to drum up sales of personal computers, said its promotions on Twitter have helped generate more than $6.5 million in orders for PCs, accessories and software.

Manish Mehta: Isn't the Value of Social Media What Business Is All About?

2009-12-08T09:35:01Z

Today's corporate leaders are struggling to figure out how to use social media to further their business strategy. At Dell, we believe this is backwards thinking. Social media isn't a means to further a corporation's strategy, it's a means to help determine it.

The "Mom and Pop" businesses in our neighborhoods have always followed sound and pragmatic business practices, rooted in developing, maintaining and strengthening relationships with customers. The customers and the businesses valued those relationships because "Mom and Pop" offered convenience. They listened to their customers and used their suggestions to improve the business. They provided great service and found ways to thank their clientele. Social media is really nothing more than the simple application of these business practices in a digital form.

So if you are wondering about how to leverage Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums, and the company Web site to achieve your organization's goals, perhaps you are starting from the wrong point. As with the corner store, if your business uses social media to engage in conversations on a human level, you strengthen your business and allow your strategy -- both corporate and social media -- to evolve based on customer feedback.

At Dell, we have a longer perspective on the social media conundrum than most. We've been an active leader in the space since 2006, with a depth and breadth to our social media presence that has earned top billing among brands using social media to engage stakeholders.

What we've learned is that social media has transformed the large corporation of the millennium into the Mom and Pop shop of the old days. The emergence of social media simply makes it more possible to connect directly with customers every day. Dell's community goes well beyond our own forums -- it now extends to direct contact with more than three million followers worldwide. Even during a historically difficult time for businesses of all stripes, Dell has generated nearly $7 million in global product sales on Twitter.

"Mom and Pop" knew that their business was only as successful as their relationships with customers could make it. That's the value of the direct connection to your customer, and that's how every company can achieve success using social media -- by facilitating the conversation. No strategy necessary.

Dr. Hendrie Weisinger: A College Tour De Force

2009-12-03T17:19:08Z

It's no picnic waiting for a train on a chilly Sunday morning but that is exactly what I was doing at my local train station in Westport, CT when my attention was drawn to three teenagers who were in a close huddle a few feet from me. I knew they weren't standing around a fire, nor did I think they were designing football plays. I didn't smell any smoke either.

Since I didn't hear the train a coming, I started to banter. "What are you guys up to?" Without breaking their huddle, the big kid voiced, "We are visiting colleges."

"Oh, going into the city to see NYU and Columbia?" (two popular schools for Westport students)
"No. Right now I am leaving MIT and now I will tour Stanford."

The smallest of the pack broke the huddle, and before my curiosity could act, showed me his iPhone. "I'm going to Harvard. Look."

Easier than making apple pie, he pushed a button and showed me a hot new iPhone application that college bound students and their parents are sure to love -- college tours packed with "insider" information that familiarize students with the schools they wish to attend.

"Show me MIT. I've given a lot of lectures there." In a second, I was strolling M.I.T. campus.

The small kid continued to educate me. Watch what this does. Calling into play one of the application's innovative features, I could now read specific information about the specific location that I am viewing. Very sweet, I thought.

"It uses a new technology,"...but before the mall kid could explain, the train pulled up. I parted ways with the college bound students but not before I asked them to tell me the name of the application. It's called uTourX.

I had a good idea. In the next few weeks, I would be speaking to executives and managers from companies such as State Farm, Prudential, Medtronic, Attachmate, Nationwide, Merrill Lynch, United, Shire andBoeing, to name just a few. I've learned over the years that top executive from top companies like to hear about up and coming start-ups and clever applications of technology. I thought the company behind uTourX might fit the bill. I was also working on an article about management styles in startup hi-tech companies. Some would say I could kill two birds with one stone.

It was easy to find out that the company that created uTourX is called oSnapplications . Although I shouldn't of been surprised -- not in this day and age -- I was to find out that oSnapplications' corporate makeup was no more than a very small band of young entrepreneurs with hi-tech skill and savvy.

I remembered that the small kid from the train station told me uTourX used a new technology so using my investigative reporting skills, I tracked down 17-year old Chief Technology Officer Mr. Ian Cinnamon.

"Hello, May I please speak to Ian Cinnamon?"

"Sure, may I tell him who's calling?" The voice definitely sounded more motherly than receptionist.

"Yes, it's Dr. Weisinger. I'd like to speak to him about uTourX."

A half minute later, "Hi, this is Ian. Can I help you?"

I explained the purpose of my call and for the next twenty minutes, the young Chief Technology Officer filled me in about oSnapplications and uTourX. I learned that he had met his partner and president of the company, Max Uhlenhuth, when they both attended the Research Science Institute summer program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I also learned that Mr. Cinnamon ("Call me Ian," he reminded me several times) had developed other successful Apple applications but he was clearly psyched about uTourX.

"This is going to help a lot of college bound students. It will give them a preview of a school they may wish to attend but might not have the time or money to actually make the visit. The tours might also get a students interested in schools that were off their map. Also..."

It was refreshing to hear the passion, the conviction, the belief that Ian projected in explaining how uTourX would revolutionize college tours and in the process, help hundreds of thousands, (or was it millions?) of college bound students. Apple would love this kid, I thought.

He then went on to tell me that their business plan allows other students to make some easy cash. Naturally, I asked "How?"

"Well, we want students from colleges and universities all over the world to create their own college tour for uTourX. Students can put their unique "inside university/college information," on their tour -- it's a new technology called augmented reality. Every time someone views the tour, the tour creator gets reimbursed. In effect, their application becomes part of our application. We hope to get thousands and thousands of tour submissions. For some schools, like Michigan, Arizona State, UCLA, we could get a hundred tours each. Students who make the best, most creative, funniest tours, will probably go to the bank often. I believe we are investing in the creativity of our fellow students!"

On that note -- he did sound a little like Buffet -- I ended the interview.

Later that evening, I thought about uTourX, oSnapplications and my conversation with the "emotionally intelligent" CTO. Then, it suddenly hit me. I thumbed through my calendar, and it became very clear what the next two months had in store for me.

Why should students have all the uTourX fun and make all the money? My plan materialized. When I speak to Nationwide in Columbus, I would create a tour of Ohio State. In Seattle, after a presentation to Medtronic, I would knock out a University of Washington tour. Speaking to State Farm in Portland would give me the time to tour Portland State.

A seminar for the Institute for Management Studies in San Francisco, and Los Angeles, would add USF, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, and if time permitted, Santa Monica Community College. I was happy I was going to Atlanta to speak to the Federal Reserve Bank because I wanted Emory on my app too.

And so it went. An hour later, I counted close to 100 university/colleges and if I spent several hours in Boston, I could add twenty junior colleges! Furthermore, I realized that I could have two tours for each school -- one for students, one for parents. I just doubled my fortune.

I went to sleep excited about my new endeavor but I knew I had my work cut out for me. First step, I'd have to buy an iPhone! Then I would be able to give Mr. Ian Cinnamon, CTO of oSnapplications a college tour de force!

Google Public DNS: Google's Next Step To A FASTER Internet

2009-12-03T12:59:37Z

Google announced plans for Google Public DNS today, a new service that will provide consumers with a DNS service provider alternative.

DNS, or Domain Name System, deals with the conversion of IP addresses with vanity, easy-to-remember domain names.

The Google Public DNS service is part of Google's plan to make the Internet faster, and it will provide other benefits as well, including a more stable browser and boosted security against virus, spam, and malware sites.

Google announced in a blog post:

Our research has shown that speed matters to Internet users, so over the past several months our engineers have been working to make improvements to our public DNS resolver to make users' web-surfing experiences faster, safer and more reliable

Robert D. Atkinson, Ph.D.: Whack-A-Mole Security: Bad Policy, Bad Legislation

2009-11-20T20:15:16Z

Guest post by Daniel Castro, Senior Analyst, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

The recent disclosure of a confidential Congressional document has at least one congressman calling for a ban on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software, but a closer look at the problem reveals that this effort would merely be treating the symptoms, not the disease.

First some background. Last month the Washington Post revealed that more than thirty members of Congress and staffers were under investigation for possible ethics violations, including for "accepting contributions or other items of value... in exchange for an official act." While this revelation was shocking, perhaps even more shocking was the means by which this information was leaked -- the information was downloaded from the Internet. As detailed by the Washington Post and the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in the U.S. House of Representatives, a low-level committee staffer had saved a copy of a confidential House ethics committee report on her personal computer while working from home. Unfortunately, the staffer was also running a peer-to-peer file sharing program and inadvertently saved the file in a folder that was shared with other users. By saving the file in a shared folder, the staffer made the document available to all other users on the publicly accessible file sharing network. While only one report from July was reported by the Washington Post, the Standards Committee noted that the potential disclosure involved several confidential documents.

The initial reaction from House leaders was tempered. The Standards Committee issued a statement reminding House Members, Officers and employees to maintain good information security practices when handling sensitive materials and noted that "no matter how robust our cybersecurity systems are, they remain subject to individual error." The statement also emphasized that the disclosure took place on the staffer's personal computer, that the staffer was no longer employed by the committee, and that no House information systems were compromised.

Case closed? Not so fast. Some members of Congress are jumping on the media attention surrounding the ethics leak to enact a legislative ban on peer-to-peer file sharing software. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) has introduced the Secure Federal File Sharing Act which would prohibit the use of peer-to-peer software on all computer systems run by the Federal government or its contractors. In addition, the legislation directs the Office of the Management and Budget (OMB) to address the use of P2P software on the home computers of government employees used for work purposes. To be fair, this is not a completely reactionary move. Congress has held a number of hearings over the years detailing instances of sensitive and confidential information being revealed over peer-to-peer networks--including Social Security numbers, financial records, and even location information about a safe house for the first family. In fact, the latter incident spurred Rep. Towns to first announce his call for a ban on the use of peer-to-peer software on all government networks.

It is hard to fault the Congress for misunderstanding the problem when some of the press reports surrounding the incident have often been misleading or inaccurate. In fact, most of the press seems to blame the disclosure on the peer-to-peer software, rather than on human error or the bad policies and practices that led to the disclosure. And some reports are simply erroneous and reflect a poor understanding of the technology. For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, by using a peer-to-peer network the staffer "allowed someone to hack into her computer and obtain the document." That's like saying by publishing an article on its website, the Wall Street Journal allowed its readers to hack into their web server and read the news.

To be clear, using peer-to-peer file sharing software exposes users to a number of risks. First, P2P software is often used by Internet users to download and distribute copyrighted content, an illegal act for which individuals can and should be held responsible. Second, the files shared on P2P networks often contain malware -- viruses, spyware, and other malicious software that can steal the user's private data and turn an infected PC into part of a botnet. But peer-to-peer software, by itself, did not cause the confidential Congressional document to be leaked to the press.

Some have argued that peer-to-peer software presents a unique threat because users are often unaware that the software is sharing files on their personal computer. For this reason, Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), John Barrow (D-GA) and Joe Barton (R-TX) introduced the Informed P2P User Act (H.R. 1319) earlier this year which would require peer-to-peer software to give users conspicuous notice and obtain consent before sharing files from a user's PC. First, most file sharing software does not share your entire hard drive, but just a few select folders. In addition, P2P software is already evolving and responding to their users' demands for more control and notice over how files are shared and preventing accidental disclosure of private information. Finally, while more notice may reduce some accidental file disclosures, incidents such as the recent leak of Congressional documents stem from misconfigured settings or operator error, not a lack of notice.

But the legislative response from Rep. Towns is more troubling. The congressman has argued that "We can no longer ignore the threat to sensitive government information that insecure peer-to-peer networks pose. Voluntary self-regulations have failed so now is the time for Congress to act." However, the committee staffer revealed confidential information by mistakenly saving the document in a shared file folder. This mistake was human error. If the staffer had accidentally emailed those documents--say by inadvertently clicking on the wrong attachment--would members of Congress now be calling for a ban on email? Of course not. The underlying problem is not that the staffer was running a P2P program on her computer, but that the sensitive documents had virtually no access controls on them to prevent their unauthorized use. After the staffer was allowed to take the document home as an unsecured file, the confidential information could have been leaked in many different ways--from a lost USB drive to a stolen laptop to a snooping roommate. If the file would have even had basic password protections enabled, probably none of the ensuing drama would have happened. A properly encrypted file, even if lost or made publicly available, would remain secure and confidential.

Unfortunately, this type of response is typical when organizations face a data breach, as executives scramble to fix the immediate problem without taking time to understand the bigger issues. This whack-a-mole approach to information security problems is bad strategy for an organization and bad policy for the Congress. Good information security practices depend on IT leaders forming a solid understanding of risk and taking action to manage those risks. For example, in this case, the risk here is not peer-to-peer file sharing, but rather inappropriate disclosure of confidential information. A better approach would be to review the policies and procedures for access to confidential information. Questions to ask include:

Who should be given access to sensitive information?

Should employees be permitted to take sensitive documents out of the office?

If so, what controls are in place to ensure that the data stays secure?

If not, what controls are in place to ensure files remain in the office?

Are sufficient penalties in place to punish those who violate these policies?

Are the known risks acceptable, and if not, what else should be done?

Certainly people are not perfect and some data breaches will still occur even with better policies and technology. And prohibiting P2P software probably makes sense for most agencies, but it is only a small part of a bigger problem. Rather than narrowly focusing on P2P, policymakers should be promoting broad strategies for sound information security policies across government. For example, rather than legislate that government IT executives should have a full accounting of P2P use on their network, they would be better off mandating that these IT executives need to have information security programs in place that give them detailed network intelligence so they can inventory what applications are running on their computers and track suspicious outbound and inbound network connections. In addition, government-wide policies should be developed to promote secure teleworking. As teleworking becomes more common the perimeter for enterprise security becomes wider and the amount of control that IT administrators can exert over remote PCs becomes weaker, thus creating a new threat environment. Government best practices in this area would be helpful to small and large businesses in the private sector.

Policymakers should use this experience as an opportunity to push for substantial progress on information security practices, not merely small mandates banning a particular type of software.

David Sullivan: The Conflict Minerals Trade Act

2009-11-19T12:35:56Z

With the introduction of the Conflict Minerals Trade Act today, Congo activists now have bipartisan legislation percolating both in the Senateand the House of Representatives. To hear a bit more about this bill and why it's so important, check out the latest edition of the Ask the Expert video series, where I discuss why this legislation has catalytic potential to cut armed groups and rights abusers out of the supply chains for our cell phones, laptops, and other electronic gadgets:

Be sure to take action on this issue: urge your representative to cosponsor the Conflict Minerals Trade Act and ask your senators to cosponsor the Congo Conflict Minerals Act.

Pat Choate: Trying To Strangle American Innovation

2009-11-18T17:09:54Z

America is a far more creative place than other nations largely because it relies on "small entity" inventors -- independent inventors, small companies with fewer than 500 employees, research institutes, and universities -- for its major innovations. Other countries, such as Germany and Japan, rely on large firms with more than 500 employees, called "large entities," for their major innovations.

This difference is of vital importance because what large entity and small entity inventors create is startlingly different. Big corporations seek marginal improvements. Small entity inventors seek transforming breakthroughs. Now a handful of large, U.S.-headquartered Big Tech corporations are attempting to thwart economic competition from these small challengers by lobbying Congress to weaken U.S. patent laws.

The arithmetic of innovation explains why the big guys are worried. The Small Business Administration reports that small entity inventors receive 13 times more patents per employee than the larger enterprises. Their patents are more significant as measured by citations, originality, and generality. They are also more closely related to breakthrough technologies in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, information technology, communications, semiconductors, computer hardware, and software. Far more so than large entities, small entities are more prolific in their creativity.

A partial list of breakthrough innovations by small firms includes biosynthetic insulin, electronic spreadsheets, personal computers, digital recording and sound, Web TV, high-resolution CAT scanners, microprocessors, optical scanners, pacemakers, portable computers, and soft contact lens, among thousands of others. These innovations changed our lives for the better, expanded our national wealth, and created millions of new jobs. Many of these inventors, moreover, are still actively creating.

According to the National Science Foundation, of the 30,000 firms that made expenditures for research and development in 2000, almost half of the expenditures came from 167 giant corporations with 25,000 employees or more. The results produced by these giant corporations were greatly different from those of the small entity inventors. The big corporations focused on modest, predictable product improvements and new uses for their existing products, while small firms focused on breakthroughs. Greatly simplified, small firms make breakthroughs and large firms produce incremental improvements.

Herein lies the problem for large corporations everywhere, what economists call "creative destruction." For leaders of most large entities, creative people working either independently or at small firms, private research institutes, or universities are their worst nightmare.

"Innovation is a hostile act as it threatens the status quo and those who benefit from it," wrote Paul Heckle, an inventor and a co-founder of Intellectual Property Creators, an independent inventors' group. Indeed, an independent inventor can devastate an entrenched interest almost overnight.

One of the most startling examples of such "creative destructive" comes from the late 1970s when Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer and basically destroyed IBM's typewriter business, as well as dozens of other industries. Michael Dell, working out of his room at the University of Texas with a girlfriend assembling computers, invented a business model that enabled his tiny company, Dell Computer, to overtake IBM and Compact as the world's largest computer maker, in the process making him a multi-billionaire. A college student named Fred Smith wrote a thesis on how to create a "spoke and hub" overnight distribution system that was faster and more reliable than the U.S. Postal Service, raised financing, created Federal Express, and also became a billionaire. Invention is the magic of which such dreams are made.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that large corporations are now in trying to persuade Congress to weaken U.S. patent protections for small entity inventors? The heart of American innovation is a patent, which gives an inventor the exclusive right to the use of their creation for a set time and the means in federal courts to defend that right.

To weaken the economic challenge to them that a patent makes possible, a handful of large technology corporations led by Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and IBM are pushing legislation in Washington that would enable infringers to tie up patent holders in expensive and time-consuming litigation for almost the entire 20-year life of their patent. The law would also reduce what infringers would be forced to pay patent owners if a court finds them guilty, and, also, they want to change the 220-year U.S. rule that awards the patent to the first-person-to-invent. The proposed legislation would require the Patent Office to give the patent to the first-person-to-file -- a beat-the-clock race that would inevitably lead to much mischief, confusion and injustice.

The Big Tech corporations' political campaign is dangerous to inventors because patent law is one of the most complex areas of American law, and most Members of Congress know little about it. Moreover, most small entity inventors are unaware of the proposed changes, few have Washington lobbyists to present their case, and almost none make the deep-pocket political contributions that the Big Tech advocates do.

If Big Tech succeeds in Washington, a greatly weakened patent system is likely to destroy American innovation and invention-led job creation in the next decade just as banking deregulation a decade ago spawned a national financial collapse eight years later.

Cerebral Cortex: Cat's Brain Simulated By Scientists Making 'Thinking Computers'

2009-11-18T07:50:01Z

SAN FRANCISCO — Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in their pursuit of computers that "think" like a living thing's brain – an effort that tests the limits of technology.

Even the world's most powerful supercomputers can't replicate basic aspects of the human mind. The machines can't imagine a wall painted a different color, for instance, or picture a person's face and connect that to an emotion.

Don McNay: President Obama's Entrepreneurial Mindset

2009-11-16T14:07:48Z

I can give you
anything but time

-Elvis
Costello

I'm sometimes critical of President Obama because it often seems to me that he doesn't understand people like me – an owner of a small
business in a small town.

I have not seen much evidence of Obama being in touch with
small-town
Kentucky, but
after reading David Plouffe's new book, The
Audacity to Win, I have become
convinced that he knows what it takes to run a business.

I'm a devoted student of Dan Sullivan, the “Strategic Coach" for
entrepreneurs. I went through Sullivan’s program in Toronto. Dan has devoted
his life to helping entrepreneurs become better at their craft. I am convinced that President
Obama operated his 2008 Presidential
campaign with a classic entrepreneurial mindset.

Common
traits of successful entrepreneurs include setting
seemingly impossible goals and challenging conventional wisdom.

Planning to be President of the United
States is a pretty high goal.
Especially for a guy who had been an Illinois state legislator just five years
ago.

When history goes back to studying the Obama
campaign, it will compare it to the William Jennings Bryan campaign of 1896 or
Ross Perot's in 1992. Those unconventional
styles of
campaigning set the standard for every
campaign after them.

No one focused on Larry King before Ross Perot did.
Now,
all candidates find their way to Larry, Leno, Dave, Ellen, Tyra and Oprah.

Now, every campaign is going to organize and raise
money using the
Obama model.

Like a Steven Jobs or Bill Gates, Obama changed the dynamic.

But unlike
Bryan and Perot,
Obama won.

And he
did in classic entrepreneurial fashion. He developed a campaign plan that
exploited
opportunities that seemed crazy to "Washington insiders.”

It was the same way Steven Jobs and Bill Gates seemed crazy to IBM and Xerox. Or the way that Google seemed crazy to Microsoft.

A good entrepreneur takes what "the
professionals" see as disadvantages and turns them into advantages.

Jimmy Carter had one of the most innovative
campaigns of
the modern era. People laughed when an unemployed, former governor of a Southern
state decided to be president. Carter understood that being unemployed
allowed him to campaign full time, and that being Southern allowed him to connect to a large segment of
the population who didn't want George Wallace as the primary symbol of southern
politics.

Obama took the unconventional candidate theory to a new
extreme. We have not had many senators become president, and especially not many one-term senators. I can't think of another president who was raised by an unmarried,
single mother. I’m sure
Obama is the first president born in Hawaii. He’s younger than all but a
handful of presidents and has an unusual name.

Also, did I mention that
he is African-American?

As Plouffe's book points out, Obama's
"negatives," like Jimmy Carter's negatives, turned out to be
positives.

Plouffe noted that among people who voted in the 2004 George W. Bush- John
Kerry election, Obama beat McCain by only a 50% to 49% margin. Depending on how
the electoral votes would have played out, Obama could have narrowly won, narrowly lost or faced the
same fate as Al Gore.

Instead, a huge turnout by African-Americans and younger voters propelled Obama to a landslide victory.

Obama did not run the
campaign by conventional rules. He
developed his own rules and made them work for him.

It’s tough to challenge conventional wisdom. Everyone wants to tell
you what you are doing wrong.

Programs like the Strategic Coach teach
entrepreneurs to develop written goals and to have ways to measure how people are progressing
towards those goals.

Plouffe noted the discipline exhibited
by the Obama campaign in sticking to their game plan.
The early campaign was roundly criticized by "experts" who didn't see the same
vision that the Obama people saw.

I was impressed by how they were able to use matrices to measure
every aspect of the campaign, like fundraising, organizing and coordinating, to track how successfully the campaign was meeting its plan.

It has been said that anything that
can be measured, can be obtained. In Obama's case, that
included the Presidency of the United States.

Dan Sullivan built most of his
coaching philosophy around something called the "entrepreneurial time
system." An entrepreneur's time is the
most precious resource of any business, and it needs to be treated as such.

I've seen way too many political candidates and business people
try to be everywhere, doing everything, and who wind up being nowhere and
getting nothing much done.

Until I read The Audacity to Win, I had no idea how
much campaign focus was directed
to proper use of Omaba's time. Time was also scheduled for the
candidate to relax and spend time with his family. There was a lot of pressure
to have Obama go to outside debates and rallies, but the plan called for him to stay focused on the Iowa primary and never to waver from
his central message.

His highly favored primary opponent, Hillary
Clinton, did not manage her time as
well and had a litany of campaign messages. Obama against Clinton was like
watching an energetic start-up go against a bureaucratic
mega-corporation.

We all rooted for David over Goliath. Entrepreneurs are those who
can look at Goliath and recognize
that a giant can be taken down.

Just like Barack Obama took the Presidency.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is
one of the world's leading authorities in helping people deal with “Big
Money” issues.

McNay
is an award winning, syndicated financial columnist and
Huffington Post Contributor.

You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com

McNay
founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial
consulting firm, in 1983 and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC
in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com

McNay
has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the
Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

McNay
has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers
and What to Do When You Win The Lottery

McNay
is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four
professional designations in the financial services field.

Jenny Darroch: Can Strong Brand Management Practices Hinder Career Opportunities?

2009-11-14T11:00:00Z

A recent article in BusinessWeek (September 14, 2009) identified the organizations headhunters look to when trying to identify management talent. General Electric, IBM and Hewlett-Packard were cited as organizations that develop executives who thrive elsewhere, The Coca-Cola Company does not.

The reason given is that "the very attributes that make Coke a great company - an iconic brand and an unmatched global distribution system - also make it easy for young mangers to rise without having to develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary to compete in other areas."

What a fascinating contradiction. According to Interbrand, Coke is the #1 brand in the world. What makes a great brand? Interbrand suggests that a great brand contains a compelling idea, stays true to its core purpose and values, and is the central organizing principle that guides decision - making within the firm. While strong brands need to stay relevant, strong brands do not constantly change what they stand for. And those who manage the organization's brands need to ensure that the organization constantly delivers on its brand promise.

But here is another contradiction. In the same study, IBM was ranked the #2 brand in the world, General Electric #4 and Hewlett-Packard #11. What's the difference then between an executive from The Coca-Cola Company and one from these other three companies?

It seems that to excel in such an organization with strong brands means to develop a strong mental model as to what the organization and its brands stand for. Perhaps the difference then is that those working for organizations that face more rapid change due to, say, technological change, are more adept at changing the mental models they hold of the industry, the organization and its brands. This might then explain why some folk transition into new roles in new organizations better than others.

Jenny Darroch is on the faculty at the Drucker School of Management. She is an expert on marketing strategies that generate growth. See www.MarketingThroughTurbulentTimes.com

Public Porn: Technology Increases Chance To See Secondhand Smut

2009-11-12T07:52:03Z

But the increasing popularity of laptops and handheld devices, and the prevalence of wireless Internet access, means there's a greater chance of becoming a bystander to a complete stranger's viewing proclivities. Like being exposed to the cigarette smoke of a nicotine addict on the street, people are inhaling secondhand smut.

Black Friday Sales To Look Out For: Top 10 Finds

2009-11-10T03:50:49Z

Traditionally, Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving for the uninitiated) is when retailers truly slash prices. Early birds can shave hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off their holiday bills. We checked with a few elves, who gave us a sneak peek at what you can expect deal-wise this year.

Michael Russnow: Windows 7 Not so Great as Advertised and Has Compatibility Issues: Is Microsoft in Collusion With Manufacturers Like HP?

2009-11-06T07:18:20Z

A few weeks ago, I had a horrifying PC moment. For the first time in twelve years of Internet surfing, a terrible virus oddly named Total Security disabled my computer. No programs would open. Total Security left me in a total mess.

The price for excising the virus was $200. Since my XP computer was almost six years old, I thought that seemed excessive because I could get a new unit for about $700.

During my initial panic, Geek Squad Guru Julio Sagastume of West Hollywood's Best Buy kindly devoted lots of telephone time for free as I described my woes. Later he and colleague David McClay painstakingly advised me, and after shopping around I bought a Dell 3055 Inspiron computer. Julio and David also assured me all the files on my virus-laden XP computer would be transferred -- disease free -- for $99.99

Then I brought the new PC home, and suddenly there were problems. Understand, I've had computers for over twenty years, so I know how to set them up. However, Windows 7 didn't accept my HP LaserJet 1012 printer or Creative Cam Live! Pro! webcam drivers, nor my Transparent Language WordAce! German dictionary and True Fonts program, all on CD.

Oddly, it did embrace my Altec headset and Magic Spin DVD burner, both bought at the same time as my webcam in 2006. And the DVD burner CD driver said it was for Windows 98! Windows 7 also admitted my Movie Magic Screenwriter program, my Translation Language German tutorial and -- hold onto your hats -- my Microsoft '97 Office CD. Before I'm disparaged for not upgrading, I found no discernible difference in basic word processing over the so-called improved years, so my program suits me just fine.

More about the need to "upgrade" equipment in a moment.

Re the Windows 7 look itself, I was dismayed all my programs downloaded, including Mozilla, IE 8, AOL 9.5 and Skype suddenly appeared in miniscule font size. As a comparison I turned on my newly cleansed XP computer and everything seemed fine.

However, on Windows 7 if I changed display settings, some pages appeared better, while others' data drifted off the screen. Plus websites had overlapping type or showed words meant to be on one line suddenly hanging orphaned onto another all by themselves. This occurred on my personal website (which looks fine on XP) and also on professionally produced sites such as HuffPost.

So, I called Dell and was pleasantly surprised their offshore employees were mostly helpful. I'm not xenophobic, but I've suffered over several years dealing with folks who don't quite understand our language. Very polite but maddening to deal with. With Dell I got good support even with the 12 hour time difference.

A wonderful supervisor took over my computer by remote control. He saw what I was dealing with and I asked: "Why should I keep this computer? It's one thing to have to switch between the new one and XP for the occasional webcam use or printing, but Internet surfing is constant, and my other programs look horrible."

At first he seemed baffled, but then switched to the troubleshoot area of Windows 7 and found problems in "Add-ons" on Skype, AOL and Internet Explorer. Suddenly the fonts were better on my programs, but the Internet problems persisted. Explorer was far better than Mozilla, but neither pleased me.

He determined in our 3-hour session it might be due to my machine's 64-bit configuration. Haven't a clue what he did, but he did something with Explorer and then affixed the Explorer rendering engine onto Mozilla. In short, I now have a small icon in the lower right of my screen, and if I don't like the way a Mozilla page looks -- 2/3 of the time -- I click on the icon and it changes to the Explorer engine while staying on Mozilla, with its bookmarks and other tabs. Everything now looks great.

Strangely, when I go onto Internet Explorer 8 directly there are still problems, and I have no idea what version of Explorer or what engine he used to fix Mozilla's look. But it's better than it was, and, while not perfect, I'm able to function with more power and speed, while still able to use the XP as a sturdy back-up.

But why does this problem exist? Is there something wrong with Mozilla and Internet Explorer re Windows 7? Why does downloading major programs cause add-on issues that never presented themselves on XP? And if you're not having the same problem, why am I when all I did was turn on the machine only to confront this havoc?

Added to this is my primary beef. I have an HP printer less than six years old, and though I know we live in an age of get the latest thing almost every year -- read that to mean cell phones, cars and other gadgets -- how many of us do that? How many of us -- especially in these economic times -- don't hold onto products that still function well? Okay, if we want an improvement, such as an HDTV with mega-screen, that's one thing. That's something new.

But my printer works fine, prints at 15 pages/minute and is still on its original toner cartridge. I even bought a standby cartridge and have yet to open the box. Yet, despite the Dell technician's masterful attempts, he was not able to install the printer. The Hewlett-Packard website says it doesn't support my printer on Windows 7 and directs me to buy a new one for over a hundred dollars that prints 17 pages/minute -- hardly an upgrade when mine works perfectly.

My webcam is only 3 years old. What's Creative Cam's excuse? Why should I have to buy another one, simply because Microsoft doesn't want to include within its software earlier recognition applications as it used to? On the one hand, it still recognizes old MS Word programs, but not many other programs that did a technological handshake with earlier versions of Windows. Yet in the old days, the first Windows program recognized DOS, and, at least through XP, would not render most hardware and software shamefully obsolete.

My first laser printer (Panasonic 4410), bought in 1993 and used with my DOS computer, transitioned beautifully to Windows 95 and continued to work with my XP computer through today (though I bought the HP in 2004 to gain greater speed and operating RAM). On the one hand, a printer can work for 16 years, but the other functions for less than 6 due to incompatibility, not work performance.

What's the cause? Is it Bill Gates' fault for not incorporating into Windows 7 the driver information his company used to do in successive editions or is he in collusion with software and hardware manufacturers like HP, who also refuse to update drivers so that obsolescence becomes the order of the day and we are forced to buy things we really don't need?

If we get a new state of the art TV, we can still connect our old VCR. If we get a new CD or DVD player we can play our old disks. We can still use a dial telephone on a telephone system that has been transformed with fiber optics and satellite transmission. But a new computer forces you to discard perfectly good machinery.

There ought to be a law preventing the computer hardware and software industry from shortchanging consumers so that we get the full use of our equipment as we do for non-computer related appliances and products. Anderson Cooper should do a "Keeping Them Honest" report on CNN, as should other commentators on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and Fox News. There should also be an uproar on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

All in all this new computer experience has been disappointing, extremely stressful and a whole lot of needless hassle.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com.

David D. Burstein: The Case for the Internet: A Human Right

2009-11-05T18:00:04Z

In a little noticed story, late last month, Finland declared internet access to be a legal right for all its citizens, and come this July, the Finish government will be ensuring everyone in the country has at least a 1 megabit internet connection (and by 2015 the legal right will be to a 100 megabit connection). In addition, France made headlines in June by declaring internet access to be a human right. (Incidentally France also declared that all 18 year olds will get a one year free newspaper subscription for their 18th birthday), although they have yet to figure out how to enforce this. These two examples raise quite an interesting question, is the internet a fundamental human right? I'm going to boldly stand with the Finns on this one and say yes.

I might get some angry emails for this, and while today it might be difficult to make the case that internet access is as much of a basic right as food or shelter, in five or ten years, I believe there will be basic agreement on this. Those of us who have internet access now, don't know how we would live without it. Everything we do and everything we want to do is somehow linked to our computer and our internet connection. It's not a joke to say that those who have internet connections now need them to continue surviving. It's how we communicate with our relatives and friends, it's how we find phone numbers and addresses, it's how we get our basic goods and services, it's how most of us work and keep our jobs, and by extension provide for our families, and it's how many people find jobs. Many of us have jobs that would be impossible to maintain without the internet, without the ability to do research or send emails we would be fired in a day.

So if people who are online now actually cannot survive without internet connections, if it allows people to advance in their careers and life position, if it is an invaluable tool, shouldn't we afford everyone the right to have it? In fact, it seems not having internet access could be the biggest barrier to entry in just about any field or aspect of society today. If we want everyone to have the opportunity to advance in society, giving everyone internet access is a great way to make some progress.

Public libraries, one of our country's most vaunted institutions offer an interesting insight. Libraries in recent years have become most sought after for their free internet access. Librarians across the country have gone into new training to learn how to assist people with internet searches and usage. And during the economic crisis, what was the most prevalent reason for people coming into libraries to use the internet? To find jobs. Luckily--right now--we have functioning libraries, but what will we do when libraries start to shutter in major cities as they have already?

Add to that the seeming reality that basic government and functional services that are available in person, might soon be forced to shut down or go entirely online. Take the United States Postal Service as an example. For those of us who don't have internet access, and thus can't email people, we have to rely on the post office. With the postal service dying a slow but seemingly sure death, it is not unlikely that regular mail service will become greatly ineffective or perhaps defunct in the near future. If that happens, it will be more and more essential for people to have working internet connections.

But perhaps most fundamental, is that part of the human experience is that we interact with other people, we are social animals, we distinguish ourselves from all other beings by being able to speak and communicate in highly complex ways. For thousands of years that's meant speech, writing, radio, television, and now the internet. The internet has become without a doubt a fundamental part of human interaction, depriving some people who don't have access to the internet of that part of the human experience--because they can't afford it--is violating a human right. I hope that other countries, including this one, will follow the lead of Finland and France and grant internet access as a human right to their citizens.

Subhash Ghimire: One Man's Tireless Effort to Provide ICT Education to Nepalese Students

2009-11-02T11:56:09Z

With few exceptions, Nepalese business and political leaders often dismiss young people when they come up with ambitious ideas. Over the summer of 2009, I was in Nepal with a mission to run a summer camp for war-affected children and to establish a library at a public school at my remote village in western Nepal. With limited resources, I was under heavy pressure to find people and organization willing to endorse and support my idea. One of my close friends introduced me to Allen Bailochan Tuladhar, the Nepal country manager of Microsoft Inc. I was hesitant and little nervous to meet Allen by the thought of him dismissing me as naïve and too ambitious. Only did I realize later that he not only liked my idea but also sent three of his computer experts to help run my summer camp. I also had an opportunity to attend a training camp with him in Panauti town. Moreover, he walked for hours to visit the summer camp site to encourage our team and assess the situation of the place. Allen's humbleness and kind reception speaks volumes about his work ethic and successes.

The creator of the biggest database for Microsoft to this date, Allen Bailochan Tuladhar is a leading IT professional in the beautiful republic of Nepal. He developed Nepali spell checker with 59 thousand root words from which two to six million words can be created. He also supported the development of Maithili and Kirati fonts; Nepal's two among many ethnic languages. During the heyday of Microsoft, he gambled to return and start the arduous process of localizing Microsoft software to the Nepalese consumers. Employing more than 45 IT professionals in his Nepal office, Tuladhar proudly announces to add more than 110 over the next six months.

Tuladhar has been working in developing local language computing for more than 18 years. His focus is on localizing the Microsoft tools and enabling Nepalese people to be able to use the resources and compete in the international market. His ambitious mission of establishing 1,500 tele-centers as per Nepal's current five-year development plan is bringing together the government agencies, INGOs, NGOs, educational institutions and civil society and aid in reducing poverty and also meeting the Millennium Development Goals. He hopes to have an ICT development center in Nepal within next five years. Other plans include building MSN in Nepali and localizing contents that are relevant and interesting.

He stresses the need for making people understand the value of having computer with genuine software to expand market and outreach just as mobile phone and TV did. Working in a country with 99% piracy and the problem of product imitation, Tuladhar has his own way of measuring Microsoft's success in Nepal. He has been able to successfully invest resources in expanding information technology outreach in remote areas of Nepal. His Nepal based organization is called FIT. Nepal has established 89 tele-centers and hopes to add five and 15 more school based tele-centers this year alone.

Allen initiated one laptop per child project in one of the government schools in Panauti, a small town few hours of drive from Kathmandu. He recounts bitter experiences of working with the government officials in implementing such programs in other public schools. The then minister asked for a laptop before she could approve the project in 2008. Frustrated and angry, Allen went ahead and started the project on his own.

His team in Kathmandu is feverishly working on developing contents that accelerates the process of e-learning in Nepali schools. Allen passionately explains me how with one computer, a USB hub and tons of mouses, one can involve many students at a time in class works. From donating books from Nepali, US and Indian publishing houses to school libraries across the nation to running a weekly radio program, Yak Sansar Yak Awaj (One World One Voice) in six FM stations, Allen epitomizes ideal entrepreneurs that this war torn nation is looking for. The radio program brings about the indigenous knowledge but there is a problem on how to validate such information. Reducing digital divide and knowledge gap through local language computing and rural tele-centers is the most effective way to combat poverty in more than 15,00 Nepalese villages.

In 2008, Allen went to the Constituent Assembly and discussed the idea of using OCR (Optical Character Recognition)-the electronic translation of handwritten, typed or printed images into a machine-editable text. As more than 30% of Nepal's Constituent Assembly (CA) members are illiterate, Allen's idea was to provide a MP3 with Wi-Fi and once CA members get inside the hall, all the documents could be listened to or read. His idea was put aside by the speaker of the house citing his enormous work-load and technological complexities of the process.

Despite constant the political glitches, Allen is working with Intel, Sysco and IBM to identify their interest for ICT development in Nepal and work together. His sole purpose to bring Microsoft to Nepal was to increase Nepal's capability to customized software, invest in higher education and pushing government for IT friendly policies. Hoping to encourage and gear Nepalese politicians towards more IT friendly environment, Allen even took a team of 150 people, including 27 prominent politicians, to show rural tele-centers in India in 2007. The visit did not help gather momentum to gearing towards including ICT component in Nepal's development initiatives.

Allen does not look very hopeful about Nepal's coming days. He says that there is no delivery to the people and unless the leaders change their attitude, Nepal's future remains gloomy. In the meantime, he continues to push the government and other parties to expand computer outreach to remote Nepali villages.