NetSuds November 2002 Monthly Report

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        1.0 Heard on the Net
        2.0 Jobs in the "com and .com" Market
        3.0 NetSuds and MedicalSuds Calendars
        4.0 Tidbits
               4.1    NetSuds on Tour - Virtucom Content Solutions
               4.2    Email Advertising
               4.3    FIRST - For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology
               4.4    Upper Great Plains Technology Conference & Trade Show
               4.5    Minnesota and Small Businesses
               4.6    University of Illinois Gets $$$ For New Tech Center
               4.7    Free World Dial-Up
               4.8    Minnesota Virtual Academy
               4.9    E-Law: Website Info Requests
               4.10 Upside Magazine Shuts Down
               4.11 Commercial Real Estate Market Report - 3Q2002
               4.12 Wall Street Journal: Son of Frankentobacco
        5.0  Calendar of Events
        6.0  The Next Big Thing
        7.0 IT and Mortal Security
        8.0 Telecom: Then and Now
        9.0 The Four Steps of Securing Corporate Networks
       10.0 IT Performance Measurement
       11.0 Guest Writers for this Report

1.0 Heard on the Net

1.1 People on the Move:

Please email: people@netsuds.com to report a change in your job status if you are moving from or to a company in the "com or .com" space. Include your new work contact information, not just your personal contact information.

NetSudser Paul DeBettignies is the new Director of Sales for Larry's List. Paul was formerly with e-Strategies Group where he has been a partner and technical recruiter for four years. Paul can be contacted at Paul@LarrysList.com or by phone at 612.375.0060.

NetSudser Ted Stockwell has joined Vernier Networks at a satellite office in the Twin Cities. In fact, Ted is looking for a small amount of office space in the Twin Cities. Contact Ted at tstockwell@mesabi-tech.com.

NetSudser Jesse Singh joins 3M as Executive Director of Marketing for 3M's Industrial Business. Jesse may be reached at either jsingh1@mmm.com or 651.737.0773.

2.0 Jobs in the "com and .com" Market

Please email: jobs@netsuds.com to report job openings in the "com and .com" Market. In the body of the message, give the name of the company and a URL link to the job postings.

The web calendars for NetSuds and MedicalSuds continue to grow in popularity as more and more people use them for the definitive place to find high-tech events in the Twin Cities. The Calendars are accessed at

and are free to use. If you want to post your events, there is a charge of $100 and you can post as many events as you like - if they are your own - for 2002 and 2003.

4.3 FIRST - For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology

FIRST - www.usfirst.org - inspires in young people, their schools and communities an appreciation of science and technology, and of how mastering these can enrich the lives of all.

Corporate America provides economic and professional support to FIRST. Many Fortune 500 companies have significantly helped FIRST grow and are committed to its continued progress. Government organizations such as NASA are key partners in this worthwhile cause. FIRST represents a cooperative team effort by students, teachers, communities, corporations, and our government.

NetSuds and MedicalSuds will be working to promote FIRST in Minnesota where only Benilde-St. Margaret's and Hopkins High Schools are current participants in the FIRST Robotics Competition. If you or your organization would like to get involved, visit www.netsuds.com/first/. Details will follow in the coming weeks.

4.4 Upper Great Plains Technology Conference & Trade Show Report

Fargo was the hot spot for technology October 14-15. The Conference was a great showcase of keynote speakers although the inclusion of BellSouth CEO F. Duane Ackerman was a major disappointment. HandSpring CEO Donna Dubinsky and Segway CEO Dean Kamen were highlights. Dean Kamen was worth the price of admission all by himself. More on Dean Kamen in future Monthly Reports.

4.5 Minnesota and Small Businesses

The following link came from NetSudser Scott Mosley of The Primary Group, smosley@prgpartners.com

http://www.bcentral.com/articles/harper/141.asp

4.6 University of Illinois Gets $$$ For New Tech Center

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=6775

4.7 Free World Dial-Up

The Free World Dialup Network is a global community based telephone service leveraging broadband (DSL, cable modem, etc) Internet access. FWD no longer requires telephone numbers to be shared. http://pulver.com/fwd

4.8 Minnesota Virtual Academy

Bill Bennett was in Minnesota recently to help launch the Minnesota Virtual Academy - www.mnva.org. eLearning for K-12 is a growing trend. Minnesota is now the sixth State to offer this educational choice.

4.9 E-Law: Website Info Requests

By NetSudser Linda K. Hopkins, Attorney at Law, Intelliware International, lkhopkins@intelliwareint.com

Do web sites that allow users to submit information requests create court jurisdiction exposure?

Does a Web site that has no mechanism for online sales but does allow users to submit requests for information create sufficient connection to Plaintiff’s home state to meet the due process test for personal jurisdiction by Plaintiff’s court in a trademark/domain dispute?

A trademark owner can bring an action against a domain name registrant if, among things, the court has personal jurisdiction over the current owner of the domain name. Here, the Irish domain name owner had a Web site allowing New York residents to submit requests for information online but it did not allow for online sales. The company would then mail the information to requestors. Defendant company never sold products or services in New York State. Plaintiff claimed that federal court for New York had jurisdiction over the domain owner based on the New York long-arm statute and/or under the test for personal jurisdiction.

The U.S. District for the Southern District of New York held that neither the federal due process test nor the long-arm statutes of New York met the due process test for the court’s jurisdiction over the domain owner.

Why? There was insufficient connection between such a Web site and Plaintiff under the New York long-arm statutes or the test of personal jurisdiction required to meet the due process test. Without sales of the product in the forum state, the court could not connect the Web site owner sufficiently to New York for jurisdictional purposes.

Lesson Learned: Plaintiffs must prove defendants have connections to state through agents transacting business in state or contracts formed to supply goods or services in the state in order to satisfy most states’ long-arm statutes. Web sites that merely provide information do not satisfy the requirement.

4.10 Upside Magazine Shuts Down

Once a big name in the "new economy" Upside Magazine has shutdown due to a lack of advertising revenue. http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/021008/media_upside_closure_1.html

Back in 2000, NetSuds did a barter with Upside to advertise the National Entrepreneurs Conference. A 1-page ad in Upside Magazine was $30,000 at that time.

4.11 Commercial Real Estate Market Report - 3Q2002

From NetSudser Brian Fogelberg, J.D., CB Richard Ellis, 952.924.4609, bfogelberg@cbre.com.

OFFICE PROPERTIES

Vacancies continue to rise. The Metro-wide vacancy rate is up two more points to 15.68%, and when sublease space is incorporated the vacancy rate rises to 19.26%. In the Northwest sub-market, Landlords are getting desperate because the vacancy rate is now up to 26%. Across all sub-markets, Class B tenants continue to upgrade their space to Class A properties at the same or reduced rates.

Negative absorption continues. Negative absorption jumped from 149,749 square feet last quarter to 1,074,739 square feet this quarter. A big part of this increase came from downtown Minneapolis where the remaining build-to-suit properties came on line (discussed below).

Asking rates remain relatively stable, but effective rates continue to slide. While the average asking gross rates for properties again remained almost the same from last quarter, the effective rates to landlords after backing out free rent, larger tenant improvement allowances, moving allowances and other incentives, continued to drop.

Transaction Highlights. Downtown Minneapolis was hit doubly hard again by the completion of the last round of large build-to-suit properties causing huge vacancies in multi-tenant properties, as well as the ongoing corporate downsizing.

· US Bank vacated approximately 476,000 square feet at 225 South 6^th Street and moved into US Bancorp Center

· Fredrikson & Byron vacated almost 135,000 square feet in International Centre and moved into Pillsbury Center

· Arthur Andersen vacated 71,000 square feet in Plaza VII when it ceased its local operations

· American Express vacated roughly 300,000 square feet in the Baker Block and 350,000 square feet in the Northstar Center when it moved to its own building

INDUSTRIAL PROPERTIES

Vacancies rising. The availability of industrial space has increased another tenth of a percent over last quarter to 7.77%. After factoring in sublease space, the availability increases to almost 9.5%.

Surplus space. This quarter reversed the past year’s trend of negative absorption by positively absorbing 1,263,539 square feet. Year to date, industrial properties have absorbed 1,272,923 square feet.

Rates declining. Average asking rates for warehouse space declined slightly, down to $4.07 per square foot. However, the effective rate reductions continued with free rent, tenant improvement allowances and other financial concessions to attract tenants.

Transaction Highlights.

· Colonial Craft leased 118,000 square feet of office warehouse space in the Mounds View Business Park

· Upsher-Smith has moved ahead with construction of Phase I of its corporate HQ consisting of 350,000 square feet of office research & development and distribution space located near I-494 and Fish Lake Road in Maple Grove

· The 60,732 square foot Argosy building in Eden Prairie was acquired by TAGS Gymnastics. The price was $38 per square foot for a total $2,350,000

· Hillcrest Development purchased the 55,000 square foot Northwest Tennis Club in Edina for $29 per square foot for a total of $1,600,000. Hillcrest plans to convert the property into an office / warehouse building

4.12 Wall Street Journal: Son of Frankentobacco

A copy of the editorial on Telecom Antitrust activity is available at: http://webreprints.djreprints.com/607661251946.html

Those who would tell you what the next “big thing” will be to change the world are better off leading the charge than pre-reporting it. They remind me a little bit about TV fortune-tellers whose talent – if it were real – would better be used predicting the stock market. With that said, let me humbly tell you what the next big thing the technology community will provide mankind.

Advances in biotechnology and medical technology are poised to change our lives. Unlike the technology revolution of the 1990s, there will be more ethical and moral considerations to consider. Stem cell research could provide us with biologically-derived replacements to failing organs rather than what will someday be seen as clunky mechanically-derived heart, lung and kidney devices. Unlike the silicon revolution which brought us 2.0 Ghz. PCs, they way we approach stem cell research may have an effect on our immortal souls.

The same moral implications might not be true of another very exciting field, nanotechnology. The use of atomic building blocks in electronic technology has been present for a long time as materials science engineers crammed millions upon millions of transistors on integrated circuits to make computer processors and memory devices. The use of atomic building blocks in mechanical design promises astounding results. Diamonds from coal and implantable surgical instruments working via remote control are but two of many such applications.

Research in biotechnology and medical technology will be aided dramatically by the computer technology revolution. Drug research which took years may take weeks or months with high-speed simulation of drug compounds on massively parallel computers networked together. Food production techniques will leave only political problems from solving the starvation of a single person on the planet.

Gigahertz, Gigabytes and Gigabits per second all imply a technology landscape which is still evolving and lending acceleration to all that we know and experiment with. More gigahertz (processing speed) allows us to process data faster. Gigabytes allow us to store more and more data. Gigabits per second allow us to share that data over vast distances faster and faster. All this raw electronic power controlled by software has truly incredible implications. Add in high-speed wireless and mobile technology and the implications are multiplied nearly beyond imagination.

For pure entertainment value, consider a football fan at a game with his $50 videocamera transmitting wirelessly to a web-connected server (does not exist at present) at www.mattnoah.com/football/vikings/2006/8.avi which can be seen anywhere in the world. For something more serious, consider an emergency trauma doctor in Chicago assisting at the scene of an earthquake in China via satellite. When that same doctor can manipulate a remote-controlled surgical unit in China to save someone’s life, the world will indeed be a small place.

I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. It’s time to exercise. My implantable nanotech sensor has detected a rising cholesterol level and increased blood pressure. Twenty minutes on my web-connected stationary bicycle will bring me back to a healthier level and record my workout in my health file. I can either watch an archived Mel Gibson movie, read any newspaper in the world or download a song to keep me busy during my workout.

It's October 11 and I'm watching a ballistics expert of FOX News report on the recent sniper homicide in Maryland. Naturally, my heart turns towards the family and friends of all these serial killing victims. I find my head turning towards ways to find this homicidal maniac or maniacs. Technology is a key. Ever since Cain killed Abel we've had had homicide and other violent crimes. Cain thought he could hide his act from God but God sees all. Unfortunately, we are not all knowing and need help.

I am convinced that cell phones have led to a decrease in crimes more than any other technical innovation in the last five years. In essence, a cell phone allows anyone witnessing a crime to report it easily and without fear of retribution from the perpetrator.

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) could be used to effectively track convicted felons who have been released from serving their jail time. First, let me say I make no apologies to the ACLU and their interest in protecting the rights of criminals. A convicted felon currently loses his voting privileges for the rest of his life. I propose implanting a GPS transmitter in every convicted felon upon conviction. His whereabouts would be known to a criminal GPS tracker available to all law enforcement. A crime is committed in location X at time T? Search the database for all GPS-tracked ex-cons in location X between T-To and T+To.

GPS could also be used to track missing children. Without having researched the topic, the issue would probably be cost. But mass deployment also brings the cost down. Of course, children in the system would be entirely up to the discretion of their parents. I would enroll my 4 young sons. My boys are always supervised by an adult when they are outside. There are too many missing children in this world. No neighborhood is safe.

Webcams are everywhere. There are better uses of webcams than peering in to some hussy's bedroom or shower. Webcams are used at some daycare facilities so parents can "check in" on their kids during the day. Webcams are used to show street corners at famous places. Webcams are used for security monitoring in buildings everywhere in the world. How about webcams monitoring the perimeter outside schools? Parks? Shopping malls? Grocery stores? Disneyland? (anywhere children are likely to be abducted) Webcams combined with high-capacity disk drives networked together are a true and viable way to monitor and record activity in a certain area.

Satellite monitoring of key locations is also viable although on a much smaller scale. We monitor many secluded parts of the globe via satellite.

Videocameras will be ubiquitous in everyday life within 5 years. They will start to have high-speed interfaces which can be connected to communications equipment a la high bandwidth cell phone or fixed broadband technology. We saw a little bit of this recently when a mother beat her child on a surveillance camera in a shopping mall parking lot. Imagine when the same could be picked up quickly by a private citizen on a compact videocamera which could be deployed within seconds.

Video, image and signal processing could be deployed on volumes of data stored to quickly identify people, places, etc. We're moving from fingerprints to DNA to "videoprints", "imageprints" to "voiceprints".

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Law-abiding citizens would have nothing to fear. Criminals would have everything to fear. Crime would go down. Technology can help lead the way.

NEC @ Shirky.com, a mailing list about Networks, Economics, and Culture, Subscribe at http://shirky.com/nec.html

The text of the letter appears at the end of this issue, and is also at http://netparadox.com/, along with supporting links.

NEC - Clay Shirky's distribution list on Networks, Economics & Culture NEC@shirky.com http://shirky.com/nec.html

Today, every organization needs to create a security policy and action plan, regardless of its size, location, industry or method of connecting to the Internet. Though security details vary for different company sizes and industries, the basic steps are the same—prevention, detection, forensics and response—and the order of using these steps is critical.

The first step in security is to prevent a problem. Prevention begins with assessing the vulnerabilities of your own organization and installing appropriate defensive, or preventive, measures. Every business, whether a one -person shop, or a multi-national corporation, needs preventive measures in today's online economy. Preventive measures include firewall systems, behind which you can hide your personal computers, servers or networks, and special email filters and virus scanners that detect and eradicate malicious software such as computer viruses, worms and Trojan horses.

Increasingly businesses are being found legally liable if their computers are breached, exposing private client, employee or supplier information. Liabilities may also arise if their computers or servers are used as launching pads for attacks against other organizations. Often, this happens without the business having any knowledge that its systems have been compromised.

If the first line of defense, prevention, fails, the attempted or successful attack must be detected and reported. This is part of the “alarm system” built into firewalls and virus scanners. A firewall, or similar defensive system, can provide information about the source and nature of an attack that is vital to assessing possible damage. Even a small home-based business can see dozens of attacks every hour from university networks, high school students, professional hackers or even terrorists.

These attacks can be either ad hoc or targeted. Either type of attack can adversely impact business operations, but detecting the type of attack, and often the source, provides critical intelligence. An ad hoc attack is not aimed at one specific business or individual, but is more generic in nature, perhaps probing the vulnerabilities of all users of a certain Internet service provider, or all businesses using DSL lines or the systems of a specific cable company.

A targeted attack, on the other hand, is aimed at a specific individual or organization and may take many forms with the same objective in mind: exploiting or damaging the data or operations of that target. Very often a broad and virulent ad hoc attack is used to hide a targeted attack.

Computer/network forensics is a complex area, including tools and techniques that can help identify the perpetrator(s) of an attack. But most often, forensic techniques are used to assess the extent of damage and determine an appropriate response.

One important forensic step involves comparing different versions of files. If the payroll file is supposed to be updated only on Wednesdays but changes were made over the weekend, what changes were made, and why? Are they valid and authorized? A key tool here is backup data. Restoring saved copies of files is often the only way to recover from some security breaches.

Forensics can also discover "electronic fingerprints" and examine the intruders' methods of operation that might point to a specific attacker, or narrow down the list of suspects and/or motives.

Forensics is as important to business as it is to law enforcement. At a minimum, forensics may identify exploited vulnerabilities in computer defenses; at the maximum, forensic evidence can win legal prosecution of the attackers, though this is very rare.

Response is just that: your organization's reaction to the attack. In most cases the response is to fix the vulnerabilities that were exploited by the attackers and monitor for future attempts to exploit those vulnerabilities. In some cases, however, organizations retaliate against alleged attackers. This practice, known as a "hack back," does not always achieve the intended result, as hack backs can be misdirected at unknowing targets and open an organization to legal problems.

Armed with this general approach, organizations of all sizes should assess their own vulnerabilities, attempt to prevent problems, detect and report them when problems do occur, use forensics to learn more about what happened and respond promptly and legally to known threats.

This column is an excerpt from an upcoming book by James P. Cavanagh, Don Flanagan and James Mecsics entitled Threats & Vulnerabilities: Security and Your Business. Don, Jim and Jim are pre-publishing condensed chapter excerpts as a series of management-focused free security white papers. You can retrieve the free security white papers from: www.consultant-registry.com/cgi-script/CSMailto/forms/freewhitepapers.htm

This article is intended to give an overview of some of the major conclusions that were derived from an international conference on IT performance measurement held from June 24^th to June 26^th, 2002 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The focus of the conference was aimed at answering questions and exchanging experiences around performance measurement for IT services and solutions. Based on contributions from ABN Amro Bank, University Management School of Antwerp, the IT Governance Institute, ING Group, Great-West Life, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Royal & Sun Alliance, Cranfield School of Management, Swiss Life and Nordea IT, the conference covered issues around measuring, managing and improving the performance of IT services in today’s organizations.

The IT “Right of Existence”

It is clear that the expectations of organizations towards their internal IT suppliers have changed dramatically over the last decade. More and more IT managers are confronted with challenging questions around the actual value their IT services provide for their companies. Successful IT managers have succeeded in making the shift from an internal supplier of networks and services to a partner delivering “tailor-made” solutions for internal customers.

Since the majority of the benefits they provide for the organization are so called “intangibles”, IT managers need to redirect their strategy and performance management to a more customer-oriented approach, in order to be able to prove the value of their existence. Making the shift from a technical perception to a solution and customer-oriented one demands a different kind of performance management.

Building a partnership with internal customers and displaying accountability starts with focusing on added value and investigating all stakeholders’ expectations. Agreed upon service level agreements (SLAs) allow for the development of a proactive strategy and aligned processes. Based on this strategy, defining the vital few indicators to measure and manage IT performance provides the IT manager with a solid base to increase customer satisfaction.

However, building and implementing an IT scorecard puts three major issues up front:

· What are the most common enablers and pitfalls for implementing the IT scorecard?

Which framework to choose?

In most cases, the multitude of available frameworks for quality and performance in our business environment simply adds to the overall confusion. Many managers have difficulty identifying the right framework for their performance management.

The best way for managers to get through the multitude of frameworks is to assess their individual purpose and their strengths and weaknesses and then combining those elements from the different frameworks into one that best meets their needs.

For instance, the IT Balanced Scorecard can be used to incorporate the management of causal relationships between performance drivers and outcome measures, combine it with Activity Based Costing to manage the cost breakdown of IT processes and use the Economic Value Added model to visualize the true business contribution of IT services.

The following graphic lists some of the existing frameworks and methodologies for performance and quality management that can be combined with or integrated into the IT scorecard.

The most important message is that the framework that is used should be a clear translation of the organization’s IT strategy and that it uses causal relationships to focus on all stakeholders’ expectations.

Can the IT scorecard co-exist with audit and accreditation?

The answer is clearly yes, since both entities cover a different need. While the IT scorecard has a strategic focus, is owned by IT management and functions as a “daily” management tool, audit and accreditation provide snapshots of the performance road the organization is driving on. Also, audit and accreditation are usually owned by audit departments or even external service providers and are often rather tactically oriented.

Using audit and accreditation models next to the IT scorecard, provides an excellent set up to avoid tunnel vision, touch base with best practices and to perform a reality check of the IT scorecard at regular intervals.

What are the most common enablers and pitfalls for implementing the IT scorecard?

Building and implementing an IT scorecard are two dramatically different issues. In those cases where IT managers succeed in building an excellent framework for performance, the most common challenge is to get the IT scorecard accepted and supported in the organization.

From a change management perspective, five different areas of enablers and pitfalls for successful implementation of the IT scorecard were identified.

The first and most important component for success is a solid management commitment. Executive management needs to have and display a commitment to the company’s IT strategy, based on an in-depth understanding of the business. To achieve this, the IT manager may need to educate the CEO and other operational managers on the latest available IT technologies and areas to deploy them.

Being personally committed as a manager does not necessarily mean that people recognize this commitment. In order to make this commitment visual, IT managers will need to manage by example and accept the consequences of their IT strategy based decisions.

The second enabler for success is clear ownership. Involving people by communicating frequently around the IT scorecard implementation and usage and by spreading ownership of the key performance indicators throughout the company is paramount to guarantee the best acceptance of the IT scorecard and its results.

The IT scorecard should reflect a focused and balanced view of performance. This means translating data into information through a thorough selection of the “vital few” indicators. Only those indicators that actually help to improve IT performance should be retained – measuring is a means and not a goal in itself. It is also important to incorporate performance drivers and outcome measures, as well as both financial and non-financial indicators into the IT scorecard.

Successfully implementing an IT scorecard can be strongly facilitated by maintaining a high pace of building and integrating. There is no such thing as a “perfect” plan, so it is better to design a good plan in a short timeframe, launch it and then learn from using it. Designing and implementing the initial IT scorecard should be a matter of weeks, rather than months. Once implemented and actively used, it can be improved along the way.

The degree to which the IT scorecard gets actively used depends on many criteria. Some of the more important criteria include the strategic relevance of the IT scorecard, the connection to the actual improvement actions that drive change and the user friendliness of the tool in which the IT scorecard is operated.

ASP.Consulting is sponsoring an IT Balanced Scorecard seminar on December 11^th – 12^th at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN. This seminar will incorporate many of the findings discussed in this article. At the end of the seminar, participants will be ready to immediately implement their IT scorecard in their own organization. For details, see www.netsuds.com/scorecard/.

ASP.Consulting is a leading service firm in creating true competitive advantages for its customers. To ASP.Consulting, "leading" means content leadership as well as working for corporations who are market leaders. ASP.Consulting understands a true competitive advantage to be one that cannot be matched by the competition in less than 12 months.

With their longstanding international experience, expert skills and high social competence, they support their customers in building high performance organizations. According to their principle of value based pricing, ASP.Consulting’s reward is directly related to concrete and measurable results.

11.0 Guest Writers for This Report

I have opened up the Monthly NetSuds Report to guest writers. If you have a passion for a topic, and you can write (at least no worse than me), send an email to me matt@netsuds.com. You can even send copies of your work. It needs to be on "com and .com" topics and can include entrepreneur/investor activities. Good information from our service providers and vendors is also welcome so long as it is not a "commercial" for any one company or individual.

If you are aware of others who would like to receive the NetSuds Report, ask them to visit http://www.covc.com/mail.htm to subscribe or unsubscribe.

Please send your comments and feedback regarding this issue of the NetSuds Report to matt@netsuds.com.

Matt Noah

980 Lake Susan Hills Drive
Chanhassen, MN 55317

612.279.2154
fax: 425.795.2019
matt@netsuds.com

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