Latest column, on the intersection of technology and international justice.

Commentary

Organization That Fights Slavery Stretches Its Network

David F. Carr, 07.13.10, 06:00 AM EDT

International Justice Mission and the importance of centralizing and optimizing.

When John Lax joined International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org) to manage its IT systems, he stepped into another world after 30 years in the software industry.

The IJM combats child sex traffic and slavery, working to identify instances of these practices and convince local authorities to crack down. By contrast, his previous job involved product development at Intuit ( INTU – news – people), the company behind Quicken and QuickBooks. Lax says he made the jump so he could be “working on something with meaning, rather than adding another $100 million to the company’s bottom line.”

In his new job, he faced an extreme version of the same technology challenges faced by many organizations, large or small. IJM has about 340 employees, 80 at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. and the rest overseas. Like every other organization, IJM needs to maintain communications with its branch offices. The problem for Lax, though, is that many of those offices are in developing countries, where network bandwidth is scarce, expensive and unreliable.

>> Read More at Forbes.com

Commentary

Deciding Which Cloud Services To Trust

David F. Carr, 07.06.10, 06:00 PM EDT

A security expert evaluates Internet business apps.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a seductive concept for the small, cash-strapped business. No software to install or manage, minimizing the need for you to hire your own IT staff or contractors. Pay a monthly fee, with little or no long-term commitment. And trust that the service you are hiring will do a better job of managing or protecting your data than you could yourself.

But are you sure about that last point? Ronald Knode, a director of global security solutions at the consulting firm Computer Sciences Corp. ( CSC – news – people ), suggests taking your time to make sure. (Read the rest at Forbes.com)

Nice folks, and a great story of doing business in your own style.

Technology

Running A Subscription Website From The Road

David F. Carr, 06.11.10, 06:00 AM EDT

GeeksOnTour.com founders teach tech skills from their motor home.

“We’re flabbergasted!” Chris Guld exclaimed on her blog a few days ago, shortly after she and her husband, Jim, rolled into the RV Lifestyle and Safety Conference in Bowling Green, Ky. “This is a metropolitan area and yet, we have NO Verizon data service.”

The Gulds run GeeksOnTour.com entirely out of the back of a 1998 Safari Class C motor home. Having to fall back on a shaky Wi-Fi connection at an RV park is just another day at the office.

The nation is full of IT consultants but none like the Gulds. They target not the executive suite but instead the trailer park, moving from park to park all over the country offering advice, selling videos and signing up mobile-home-owning tech buffs for $39-a-year subscriptions to the Gulds’ website. (read the rest at Forbes.com)

My take on what’s new and what’s hype, along with a slideshow on cloud computing leaders.

Enterprise

What Cloud Computing Means

David F. Carr, 06.04.10, 06:00 AM EDT

New wave of technologies is the same–only different.

In Pictures: 10 Cloud Computing Leaders

Read the story at Forbes.com

Some people are fun to write about.

Commentary

Why Companies Don’t Need Headquarters

David F. Carr, 06.03.10, 06:00 AM EDT

Working remotely from home or at a customer’s office can boost your business.

James Sinclair, head of the hospitality industry turnaround firm OnSite Consulting, says one of the biggest challenges his employees have had adapting to the way he runs his business is answering the question, “But where is your company based?”

The answer: Wherever the work needs to be done. “We have 65 people, and we have no office,” Sinclair explains. Headquarters is a post office box; he also has an Internet-based phone and unified communications system.

Read the rest at Forbes.com

Mr. Roy wrote me after this was published to say that when reading the story, “I can hear my frustration being presented with such clarity.” Glad I could be of service.

Commentary

Bypassing IT Bottlenecks

David F. Carr, 05.24.10, 06:00 AM EDT

How some firms take charge of their data.

Don’t get between Jay Roy and his data. For an information technology person, that’s a good way to get fired.

Roy is CEO of AWPRx, a Florida company that provides pharmacy benefits management services in workers’ compensation cases. It’s a 25-person firm with about $15 million in revenue, and it runs on data. (Read the rest at Forbes.com)

This is a little rant I wrote up for my Forbes.com column.

Commentary

Breaking The ‘Brochureware’ Mindset

David F. Carr, 05.18.10, 06:00 AM EDT

Seek out opportunities to automate your website.

Is your business website stupider than it needs to be? Or, to put it another way, is it doing everything it could to make you look smart?

The term “brochureware” was coined early in the Web era to refer to business websites that were nothing more than online marketing brochures, typically presented as a set of static pages. If you’re selling online, or using a content management system, you’ve probably gone beyond that initial brochureware stage.

But you still may not be taking advantage of all the power the online world has to offer.

For example, that Web server you’re renting space on can do more than just serve up pages. For one thing, it can tell time. So why do many sites advertise an event that has already occurred, or hawk a special offer that has expired? Because they rely on very manual processes for updating. And if someone doesn’t get around to making the fix, the old information stays up. (read the rest at Forbes.com)