- TechRepublic Author Biography
Toni has been in the publishing industry for 20 years, with concentration in IT-related topics. She has edited newsletters, books, and web sites pertaining to software, hardware, and IT management issues.- more about Toni Bowers »
TechRepublic Resources
- Negative reinforcement: Charging for non-compliance
- WalMart has developed a reputation as quite the corporate bully for its poor labor and development practices. And if you're a retail competitor, you can't hope to compete with the mega chain's low prices (that some say were achieved through intimidation of suppliers). So you'd think that...
- Tags: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Supplier, Pallet, RFID, Channel Management, Wireless, Security, Biometrics, Marketing, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-09
- Job loss scare brings out the suck-ups
- As I've mentioned before, I worked alongside several other middle managers at a former company. We were generally cooperative with each other, armed with the knowledge that we all had the same goal -- to make the company successful. And we were successful. About five years into...
- Tags: Job, Professional Development, Recruitment & Selection, Team Management, Career, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Management, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-08
- CIOs' problem-solving skills can translate into bigger roles in the company
- CIO Insight's 2008 CIO Role Survey reveals that 29 percent of participating CIOs manage another department or business unit in addition to IT. A Forrester analyst says you can expect that situation to become more common. This development is a positive career offshoot due to the perception...
- Tags: CIO, Real Estate, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Strategy, Business Operations, Investment, Finance, Management, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-08
- Don't expect these five high-tech skills to bring you more money
- If pay rate for a skill is any indication of its value, there are some IT skills that look to be well on their way to extinction. A recent piece from Networkworld listed the five high-tech skills that don't command the pay that they once did: 1....
- Tags: Skill, Help Desk, Programming Languages, Development Tools, Call Centers, Strategy, Middleware, It Operations, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Management, Enterprise Software, Software, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-07
- PDAs and labor laws
- The Canadian paper The Globe and Mail ran a story last week in which it stated that a union representing government workers was going to make the use of pocket-size electronic devices such as BlackBerrys a bargaining issue. In other words, it's advocating that the government pay its employees for...
- Tags: RIM BlackBerry, Negotiation, PDAs, Handhelds, Free Trade, Hardware, Finance, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-06
- The value of information security certs
- It's hard to believe now, but just a few years ago, only the largest organizations were concerned with the need for network security. Now, of course, even smaller organizations are seeing the importance of security. According to a just-released report from Global Information Security Workforce, there's been a 10%...
- Tags: Information Security, Hiring, Certification, Quality, Recruitment & Selection, Security, Business Operations, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-01
- Dealing with employees who want to run the show
- It's a phenomenon you don't hear a lot about: That staffer or club of staffers who want to "run the show" and will sabotage your management efforts. These are the people who think they know better than you and can make your life miserable. I've been on...
- Tags: Behavior, Team Management, Quality, Management, Business Operations, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-05-01
- Control shadow IT in your organization
- When departments other than IT set up their own IT systems or applications, they can place an extra burden on IT personnel who may already be stretched thin, such as Help Desk folks and network administrators. The people who create this "shadow IT" problem don't understand that to effectively troubleshoot...
- Tags: Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-30
- Is there no career opportunity for the Help Desk pro?
- In a piece published today on Computerworld, Thomas Hoffman writes that people look at the career opportunities for Help Desk pros two ways: One, that the Help Desk is a dead-end job and two, that it is a perfect opportunity to see how a company works and flex your people...
- Tags: Help Desk, Call Centers, Professional Development, It Operations, Career, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-30
- Job ad scam artist pleads guilty
- It seems at least one Internet scam artist will be spending some time behind bars. Frantzy Morisset recently pleaded guilty to posting bogus Microsoft job ads. The poorly written ads, which ran on Monster and CareerBuilder, read "Microsoft Corporation is now seeking for [sic] bright jobseekers who think big and...
- Tags: Job, Advertisement, Social Security, Government, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-30
- How to deal with an unhappy employee
- Bill Stronge, a veteran IT pro, gives IT leaders something to think about in a new download: Would you be surprised to know that some of your employees dread getting up for work in the morning? Most of your team members probably like to do a good job at...
- Tags: Employee, Leader, Team Management, Leadership, Strategy, Management, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-30
- Buzzwords and jargon: Surviving the trite
- If you read my blog with any consistency, you know that I am the mortal enemy of the buzzword. (Do your career a favor: Stop the jargon!) I think we've all had our fill of the meetings with company leaders who spew clichés like there's no tomorrow....
- Tags: Tool, CFO, Productivity, Blogging, Internet, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-29
- The 10 hottest IT jobs
- Through analysis of some recent employment studies and interviews with IT professionals and recruiters, Baseline Magazine determined the hottest IT positions today. Here is the list from Baseline Magazine: 1. Senior Level Java/J2EE and .NET Developers "Most headhunters agree that finding lead developers with Java/J2EE or...
- Tags: Job, Application Development, Information Technology, Software Development, Strategy, Web 2.0, Software/Web Development, Management, Internet, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-28
- Be prepared for the hindsight critics
- You know the worst thing you can do? Ask for general input after an app or design project is just about final. Something happens to people when they hear the words, "Take a look and give me your feedback." An invitation to criticize is like catnip to...
- Tags: Feedback, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-25
- Almost worthwhile: A follow-up to AlmostEverest
- Eight years ago, some people at TechRepublic decided it would neat to equip two TechRepublic editors (Michael Jackman and David Bard) with the most rugged of mobile equipment, and send them up Mount Everest to see what would happen. John Sheesley talks about the "AlmostEverest" project in this blog. ...
- Tags: Juice Box, Blogging, Advertising & Promotion, Wireless LANs, Internet, Marketing, Wireless, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-25
- Beware the unmanaged risk of e-mail and IM
- According to a recent survey, 65 percent of companies lack e-mail retention policies. Only 54 percent of the corporations surveyed conduct any kind of formal e-mail policy training. One in five U.S. companies has had employee e-mail subpoenaed in the course of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation. ...
- Tags: Lawsuit, IM, E-mail, Instant Messaging, Online Communications, Internet, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-25
- An emerging career no one knows about
- I was reading a piece on Yahoo's Education today that talked about some new career paths that no one's ever heard of. While most were not directly connected to technology, one was: Nursing Informatics. The article pointed out that, ironically, hospitals are way behind...
- Tags: Patient, Health Care, Professional Development, Healthcare, Career, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-24
- Indicted Samsung Group Chairman resigns
- Lee Kun-hee is resigning his position as chairman of Samsung Group, the South Korean company that produces everything from memory chips to ships. He steps down amidst charges of evading about $120 million in taxes. Although reports say he is "resigning in disgrace," it doesn't look like...
- Tags: Chairman, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., South Korea, Lee Kun-hee, Kun-hee, Government, Taxes, Semiconductors, Memory, Free Trade, Vertical Industries, Financial Planning, Finance, Hardware, Components, Enterprise Software, Software, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-22
- 8 tips for creating your personal brand
- Remember back in the old days when deciding what color paper to put your resume on was the one of the most challenging tasks in your job search? The good news is that there are now 4,126 zillion new tools for getting the word out on your...
- Tags: Job, Brand, LinkedIn, Web Site, Gunn, Professional Development, Public Relations, Web Site Development, Recruitment & Selection, Career, Marketing, Corporate Communications, Internet, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-22
- Hiring help at your fingertips
- You've all seen IT hiring kits advertised. The ones that include 80 job descriptions for only about a grand? They may be useful if you're the CIO for a company big enough to house 80 IT positions. But for most of us, our personnel needs are a little more focused....
- Tags: Hiring, Job, Kit, Microsoft SQL Server, Information Technology, Recruitment & Selection, Strategy, Databases, Enterprise Software, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Management, Software, Data Management, Toni Bowers
- Blog posts 2008-04-22
