A good leader knows his employees' strengths and plays to them!

By CJ Rhoads

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of JDEtips Journal and is reprinted with permission from Klee Associates, Inc.

Is your staff technically adept, non-technically adept, or a mixture of both? Leveraging your staff members' individual skill sets (and corresponding personalities) is often the key to improving your business health through technology...especially when you consider that all the hardware and software in the world is only as good as those who use it! Companies can improve their business health by understanding the human part of human resources. See if you can identify your staff in these descriptions and then read my tips for successfully managing these greatly varying personalities!

The U.S. is in a recession, massive layoffs are occurring at an alarming rate, and the trend will continue into 2009. So it's time to party like it was 1999. Right? No!

By Maria A. DeGiglio

In early December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that 533,000 jobs were lost in November and the unemployment rate rose from 6.5 (in October) to 6.7 percent. The National Bureau of Economic Research also announced that the U.S. has been in a recession for about a year.

Fortunately, the BLS provides a reasonable definition of a recession. I found this enlightening (we do endeavor to educate where possible):

By Christopher Jones

"Baby, check this out. I've got something to say." That's probably the mantra that first comes to mind when someone mentions social networking. People posting their opinions, their photos, what they ate for lunch. But if that's your image of social networking, you haven't looked lately. The MySpace-dominated virtual dormitory has given way to truly useful networking sites that have a place in the new business world. Whether you're an individual or a company, there's something in the new social networking for you.

If your virtual team is spread far and wide, how can you help them to be a real team?

By Colleen Garton

Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Managing Without Walls, published by MC Press.

Virtual teams are a growing phenomenon in today's business world. It is becoming more and more unusual to find an organization that doesn't have some virtual aspect to it. Sales teams have been virtual for decades. They just didn't have such a fancy title! Today, organizations have more than sales teams scattered around the country or the globe; virtual teams exist in practically every part of the organization. IT isn't immune from this movement. With the advent of newer and more mobile technology, virtual IT teams are becoming increasingly commonplace.

The breakdown of San Francisco's network administrator Terry Childs serves as a warning sign to us all.

By Chris Smith

Reading about the fall of network administrator Terry Childs in San Francisco sends a chill down my spine.

Childs currently is in jail on $5 million bond for commandeering the city's FiberWAN fiber optic network. The network carries most of the city's network traffic, including employee emails, personnel information, and even law enforcement documents. Childs finally gave up the passwords following a visit to his cell last week by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

How is an organization or an ISV supposed to keep up in these challenging times?

By Mark Duignan

The IBM Power System marketplace is in decline.

Some in the IBM i user community petition and plead with IBM to "market the IBM i server" so that it is acceptable within their organizations. However, the level of IBM marketing is not the real problem. Most IBM i users got involved with the platform simply because their organizations purchased an ISV solution that executed on it (e.g., BPCS, MAPICS). No matter how much they love the IBM i hardware and OS now, the marketplace was built by ISV solutions, not by the wonderful iSeries hardware/OS combination.

Old habits can be hard to break, but sometimes it's worth the effort.

By Susan Gantner

Are you as productive in your programming as you could be? If you're still using the same toolset you used five or 10 (or more) years ago (i.e., PDM, SEU, SDA, and a green-screen debugger), then almost certainly not. Maybe it's time you gave some modern tools a try.

If you want to know how SOA works in the real world, this is your book.

There's a lot of hype and fanfare surrounding service-oriented architecture (SOA), but the authors of SOA for the Business Developer have obviously gotten their hands dirty participating in real-world SOA projects. The content of their book reflects that experience.

They begin by pointing out the simple truth that "SOA includes ideas that have been around for decades." Comparing and contrasting new concepts with old, familiar software design principles quickly brings the reader up to speed with the overarching principles of SOA.