As a leader in a growing business, you understand how important it is to keep your data secure. The real question: Why don't some of the world's biggest corporations have this same understanding? In fact, some of the best-known companies have had some of the most astounding breaches of security managable. Here's a list of what I think are the five worst offenders:

OFFENDER 1: CITIGROUP. 

In 2005, Citygroup made news when they revealed that their carrier, UPS, had lost the personal data of nearly 4 million consumers. While 50,000 of these had already closed their accounts, the vast majority still had active accounts. Contained in these records were the consumers' names, social security numbers, loan information and account history. Seven years later, the data still has not been recovered.

OFFENDER 2: CARDSYSTEMS SOLUTIONS. This one also happened in 2005 (a really bad year for data security). In January, CardSystems announced that the Visa, Mastercard and American Express card numbers of 40 million customers had been compromised. This was the result of a hacker's use of a malicious computer script. Following an investigation, regulators found that CardSystems was not complaint with security standards within the industry.

OFFENDER 3: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS. I suppose it's no real surprise that even the U.S. government has had an egregious data-security breach. In this case, in 2006, a Veterans Affairs employee took home a laptop computer without proper authorization (but without being stopped). On the laptop: The personal data of more than 26 million people who had been discharged from the military since the mid-70s. Think it's bad enough that the laptop was taken home? It gets worse. Once the laptop was in the employee's home, it was stolen by a burglar, giving the criminal access to names, birth-dates, and social security numbers.

OFFENDER 4: AOL. Somewhere between March and May 2006, the Internet giant AOL accidentally made 20 million keyword searches public. These searches had been performed by several hundred thousand users who had no idea that their searches were going to be exposed. At first, AOL said that no personal identification information had been compromised. That was the official story until an editor for TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, revealed the data and told us that these keyword searches had contained social security numbers, credit card numbers, and even private individuals' physical addresses.

OFFENDER 5: TJX COMPANIES. The parent company of retailers such as TJMaxx, AJWright and Marshalls announced in January 2007 that an "unauthorized intrusion" into its networks had revealed  more than 100 million customer records. Fortunately, the person behind this breach was caught and given a five-year prison sentence.


The important lesson here, of course, is that nothing is more important to your customers than feeling
that they can trust you when they give you their account information. And since your customers keep
your business alive, you owe it to them to make their data security one of your top priorities.

If only you could get paid to browse the web all day, am I right? Well, thanks to a new  Google project called Screenwise, that dream has become a reality — provided your online privacy isn’t worth all that much to you.

The first and more lightweight Screenwise option is currently recruiting panelists  (although it looks like they’re full up as of the time of this writing). As a Screenwise panelist, you agree to install a browser extension that tells Google all about every site you visit via Chrome. In exchange, you get a $5 Amazon gift card for signing up, plus another $5 gift card every three months you remain with the service, to a maximum of $25.

The second option is currently invite-only and will both earn you a lot more money and  lot more invasion of privacy. Participants in this program — who must be invited to join — will earn $100 up-front and an additional $20 each month. In exchange, users have to install a special Cisco router that will report all browsing data back to Google. Except when web surfers use incognito tabs or secure sessions, all browsing data will also be personally identifiable to Google. The company is also allowed to provide aggregated data to “academic institutions, advertisers, publishers, and programming networks,” they state in their user agreement.

Still, for those with nothing to hide and no qualms about feeding Google’s massive marketing machine, it could be an easy way to make a few extra dollars each month.

Entrepreneurs, successful ones at least, are always at the cutting edge of their field. To remain there,
there needs to be a constant flow of fresh ideas and innovations. Brainstorming remains a time tested
strategy that can engage partners, employees, experts and customers as well as produce the dynamic
creative energy needed to keep the business moving and growing. However, done poorly, and it can be
a draining process.

So what is brainstorming? It is a way of releasing the creativity in any like-minded group. This is done
by assembling the group and putting the problem or challenge before them. You then invite the group
members to think of any conceivable way of addressing that problem. Every suggestion, whether
realistic, is acceptable. As an example, perhaps the problem is how to draw a larger breakfast crowd at
your restaurant. In your brainstorming session, lowering the prices is an acceptable contribution--but so
too is taking a rope and lassoing passersby and pulling them into the restaurant.

Brainstorming in the Internet Age has taken on a new dimension. Today, there are numerous "Cloud
Based" services that can help with your session. Here are a few of the best:

VOIP Telephone Services. These are telephone services that operate through the Internet
rather than over telephone wires. One of the best examples is SKYPE, which makes it possible for
several people to participate at the same time in a single conference call.

Online Office Suites. Services such as Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) and Zoho (http://
business.zoho.com) don’t merely offer you tools such as word processors and spreadsheets. They also
offer the ability for many people to collaborate on the same project with one another. This means you
could create a brainstorming document and invite all of your staff to add to the document.

Online White Boards. As the name suggests, this is the Internet’s version of the white board
that you would typically use for your brainstorming session. These are quite handy. To see how
they work, go to http://www.scriblink.com. A good online white board allows you to send the log-in
information to your employees or contractors and then you can write information and each participant
in the session will see what you’re writing in real-time. Likewise, they’ll see every change you make.
And so that the others in the meeting can take part in the brainstorm session, there is usually a chat
feature. This is as close as you can get to having an old-fashioned brainstorming session in the Cloud.
Other popular white boards are http://www.scrible.com and http://www.dabbleboard.com.

Data centers use technical terms to describe the various routes of data and storage. Each storage solution has different benefits and tradeoffs to fit different storage needs. When considering which route is best for your storage needs, there are several questions to consider.

How much storage capacity will you need? Will you be able to add additional storage on-demand? How much data availability are you going to need?

Direct Attached Storage (One-to-One): DAS is adding an external storage device to an existing server or PC to extend storage capacity. DAS is suited for newer small businesses with limited storage needs. Examples of this type of storage are portable USBs, thumb drives, zip drives and the PC external hard drive.

Network Attached Storage (One-to-Many): NAS makes stored data and files available to multiple users in multiple locations, using different operating systems. NAS servers utilize file level transfers, while DAS and SAN block level transfers. Example of this type of storage are file servers, email archiving and storing media files for web apps.

Storage Area Networks (Any-to-Any): SAN makes all storage devices available to any server on the network. Most businesses use SAN for over half of their storage needs. SANs are more complex to manage, but the ability to share the storage on multiple servers allows you to configure storage capacity as needed. Examples of this type of storage are entry-level virtualization, supporting interrelated resources, databases and centralizing enterprise storage.

Cloud (Masses-to-Masses): Cloud is pooled server resources that house massive data stores in remote data centers able to scale on-demand. Examples of this type of storage are serving rich media files, content delivery networks and web hosting. The major differences between all four of the storage solutions are cost, whether storage is shared or dedicated and whether additional storage can be added on-demand.

1. Maximize Physical Space Efficiently

This often takes the form of consolidation. Consolidation encompasses not just large, glass-house facilities, but also small server clusters and wiring closets. If there are too many data centers supporting the organization, they add unnecessary cost, are less controllable and lead to power inefficiencies. Also, small facilities suck up power unnecessarily, tie up inventory and burn cash out of an IT organization’s budget.

2. Maximum Server Efficiency Through Virtualization

Virtualization is a fast spreading concept. Virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage virtualization helps the storage administrator perform the tasks of backup, archiving, and recovery more easily, and in less time, by disguising the actual complexity of the storage area network (SAN). Its benefits extend beyond merely improving the efficiency and usage ratio for central servers and storage systems. They also include faster provisioning of new projects, applications or users, as well as greater reliability and business continuity thanks to fast replication of virtual machines as backups.

3. Utilizing External Cloud Computing

A number of organizations are migrating select applications, mainly e-mail and other utilitarian functions, to cloud environments run by third parties. That frees up staff and infrastructure for more mission-focused work such as application development.

4. If It Provides Flexibility, Deploy Internal Clouds

To support a wide range of users and services with easy scalability and rapid provisioning, many organizations have launched their own cloud computing infrastructures. Internal cloud strategies force a rethinking of hardware architectures, utilizing consolidated, converged or data-center-in-a-box approaches.

5. Optimized Power Use

New form factors, mainly blade servers and converged infrastructures, need up-to-date cooling strategies. Instead of simply chilling the interior of an entire facility, the latest cooling technologies focus concentrated cooling where and when it is specifically needed within racks and aisles to radically reduce cooling costs.

Sometimes it’s hard to conceptualize the vastness of disk storage. It’s easier to look at a bookcase full of rare first editions and understand the amount and value of information. Here’s a break down on the size of different forms of data as defined by the IBM Dictionary:   

Bit: A Bit is the smallest unit of data that a computer uses. It can be used to represent two states of information, such as Yes or No.

Byte: A Byte can represent 256 states of information, for example, numbers or a combination of numbers and letters. One Byte could be equal to one character. Ten Bytes could be equal to a word. 100 Bytes would equal an average sentence.

Kilobyte: One Kilobyte would be equal to this paragraph you are reading, whereas 100 Kilobytes would equal an entire page.

Megabyte: Fifteen years ago, a Megabyte was considered a large amount of data. Today a 500 Gigabyte computer hard drive is common. An old 3-1/2 inch floppy disks can hold 1.44 Megabytes or the equivalent of a small book. 100 Megabytes might hold a couple volumes of Encyclopedias. 600 Megabytes is about the amount of data that will fit on a CD-ROM disk.

Gigabyte: One Gigabyte could hold the contents of about 10 yards of books on a shelf. 100 Gigabytes could hold the entire library floor of academic journals.

Terabyte: One Terabyte could hold about 3.6 million 300 Kilobyte images or about 300 hours of good quality video. A Terabyte could hold 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Ten Terabytes could hold the printed collection of the Library of Congress. That's a lot of data.

Petabyte: One Petabyte could hold approximately 20 million 4-door filing cabinets full of text. It could hold 500 billion pages of standard printed text. It would take about 500 million floppy disks to store the same amount of data.

According to the MGI Big Data Report, the United States Library of Congress is storing around 235 Terabytes of data and 88% of industries have more data than that. Enterprises are in someway liable for nearly 80% of the digital universe. Businesses have steady daily file creation and the amount of information stored within the company will quickly amass. Precious items should be kept in a safe place and your data is no different.

Three successful  entrepreneurs returning home to Oklahoma from stints outside the state  have launched a venture accelerator in Oklahoma City that will develop local startups by providing investment, mentorship, office space, free services and access to further venture capital. Called VentureSpur and modeled on successful venture accelerators throughout the US, the new Oklahoma City accelerator launches on February 1, 2012. 

Founders include David Matthews, a partner in VC firm Trailblazer Capital and manager of the Oklahoma Opportunity Fund; Gabe Bass, managing partner of Bass Law, a law firm with offices in Oklahoma City and El Reno; and Kraettli L. Epperson, owner of Black Mesa Consulting, a new Oklahoma City information technology consulting company.

“Over the last several years, venture accelerators have become the leading tool to develop startups that are lean, fast, focused and efficient investment vehicles,” said Epperson. “We’re taking the lessons learned at other successful accelerators and applying them to Oklahoma. Our job is to spark the innovation economy by building businesses that keep and attract talent and investment in Oklahoma, and that  produce in-demand goods and services,” said Epperson.

The accelerator aims to host two groups of three startup companies each year, which are selected through a rigorous screening process. Winning companies are admitted to a three-month “boot camp” program that provides a free office, weekly mentorship and workshops, development of prototypes, polishing of presentations, and culminates in a “Pitch Day” during which the teams will present their company to angel investors and venture capitalists.

“We think Oklahoma is ripe for an accelerator,”  said co-founder Gabe Bass. “VentureSpur is modeled on Y Combinator, TechStars, Capital Factory and Tech Wildcatters, which have seen quick success with multiple companies receiving substantial follow-on investment or acquisitions. We want to do the same in Oklahoma,” said Bass.