Over 40% of Britons received a bill or statement addressed to the wrong person in the last six months, according to dsicmm’s latest study into the customer data standards underlying transactional communications.

Interest and activity in transpromo [Transactional Print and Proactive Marketing, Ed.] is on the rise, with analyst firms predicting meteoric growth over the next few years. These predictions embrace both the use of bills and statements for cross-selling offers from the originating company, as well as selling the ‘white space’ to suitable third parties or affinity partners. As an advertising medium, transpromo is substantial, valued at some £0.5 billion in the UK alone.

However, underlying standards in the management and updating of customer records, unless improved, stand to undermine this emerging opportunity. To gauge how widespread data quality problems are within the transactional market dsicmm commissioned a survey asking to what extent people had experienced the worst of data quality offences – receiving a bill or statement for the wrong person.  ■
www.dsigroup.com/

DQM Group, the data value management expert, has launched its Data Information Pack - a new product, which helps data owners understand the value, threats and opportunities with their data ahead of a merger or acquisition. The service analyses the commercial databases, and in order to provide a credible, benchmarked valuation of this asset. Operationally, the DQM Group analysis also helps implement effective strategies to improve data quality standards, increase volumes of permission data, improve data security and drive value and enhance future profitability.

The marketing services industry is not only historically rich in merger and acquisition activity, but it has also more recently seen an increase in consolidation. In such an environment data owners need to be aware of the quality of their data. Is it fairly collected? Is it properly held? Is it fully compliant with the Data Protection Act? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’ then a potential buyer will have to think twice about acquiring a company whose principal asset is in any way substandard. At the very least, non-compliant databases will be valued significantly lower than their compliant equivalent.  ■
Read more here

Traditional Web CMS vendors are increasingly touting their "Web 2.0"-style interaction services, but enterprises looking to roll out comprehensive social computing services will likely need to bring other tools into the mix, according to research released today at the Gilbane Conference by CMS Watch, a vendor-independent analyst firm that evaluates content technologies.  ■
Read more here

A recent poll by Hypertec, the specialist supplier of memory, storage and personal workspace solutions has found that 70 per cent of mobile workers worry about commuters viewing private work whilst travelling on a train. 16 per cent of respondents stated that fellow passengers often look at their screen, whilst 40 per cent stated that they would simply not work on busy trains because of the potential risk.

Hypertec also polled rail commuters on whether they would look at a fellow passengers screen and a massive 98 per cent admitted that they would. 65 per cent of these said it was ‘human nature’ to have a sneaky look, and 33 per cent said they would look if they were bored or if the screen was in full view to them.

The findings come as Hypertec announces that it has introduced a new range of security laptop screens from Dicota. Using the latest microlouvre technology, the screens restrict viewing to just 60 degrees (30 degrees either side of the perpendicular), preventing unauthorised viewing.

The Dicota privacy protectors black out displayed information unless the viewer is directly in front of the screen, it also protects eyes and laptop screens by blocking UV rays and reducing glare. The screen is easily removable for non-private applications such as presentations.  ■
www.hypertec.co.uk

Company acquisitions by Crownlea have driven installation of Filestream to improve efficiency across the group. Over 500,000 documents are now managed electronically as a result.

Eastman Kodak Company have announced that Crownlea Group, a major supplier of products to the construction industry, is installing the latest version of Filestream’s electronic document management (EDM) software, along with 40 simplex Kodak i30 workgroup scanners at its 16 locations throughout the country. In a deal worth £30,000, this has created a centralised storage system for all business paperwork generated by the various operating companies within the group, resulting in improved staff and organisational efficiency and faster response to customer queries.

With turnover in excess of £30 million, Crownlea Group employs 500 staff and is made up of various companies in the UK, Ireland and France specialising in servicing specific areas of the construction industry throughout Europe.  ■

www.kodak.com

www.filestreamsystems.co.uk

M&G, has managed to strip over 40 tonnes of print production out of its bi-annual investor updates, using an innovative solution developed with direct communication company dsicmm. Using the latest colour printing technology, it is believed that this is currently a unique concept in the investment management market.

The personalised updates present investor reporting in a more concise and user-friendly manner, improving client satisfaction (measured by an immediate reduction in call centre queries), while also substantially reducing the carbon footprint of each investor update mailing. Further reductions in paper usage are to be targeted in future investor update mailings through the integration of additional documentation.

Rather than receiving a number of separate sheets showing the value of their investment, along with potentially numerous generic inserts about their funds, investors are now sent a fully integrated and personalised “Investment Update” booklet.  ■

www.dsigroup.com

What's in a name? Quite a lot apparently! Read the full story in the centre column here.  ■

www.idmionline.com (Statement)

The first in a series of [UK] Ministry of Defence UFO "X-Files" have been released to the National Archives, with the help of RapidRedact.

Thousands of pages relating to UFO sightings are being released, and RapidRedact has been used to redact information exempted under the Data Protection Act.

Since the FOI Act came into effect, the MoD has been overwhelmed by a deluge of Freedom of Information Requests relating to UFO sightings. The MoD has decided to release the documents, because they receive more FOI requests on the subject of UFOs than any other.

Although a small percentage of the sightings continue to defy rational explanation, the release of these documents shows that the existence of alien life forms cannot be confirmed absolutely.

However, it can be confirmed that if the MoD had relied on manual redaction with scalpel and marking pen, UFO-spotters would be waiting a lot longer for access to the British “X-Files.”  ■

www.rapidredact.com

www.redacta.co.uk

The Information Security Awareness Forum (ISAF) the cross-industry initiative founded by the ISSA-UK to raise awareness of information security, has formally opened its Web site.

Located at www.theisaf.org, the site seeks to act as a resource that will over time develop in to a focal point for IT security education, news and other relevant information from the Forum.

Launched in February of this year, the ISAF is backed by a number of key organisations, including the ISSA, ISACA, GetSafeOnline, (ISC)², ASIS International, the British Computer Society, Infosecurity Europe and the Institute of Information Security Professionals.

Announcing the opening of the site, the ISAF's chairperson, Dr David King, said that it will help members, as well as the industry generally, pool their expertise and help co-ordinate the Forum's development.  ■

www.theisaf.org

WorkLight™ Inc. today launched a new product that allows employees, for the first time, to securely access and update Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 information using popular Internet consumer tools.

Titled WorkLight for SharePoint, the new offering combines the consumer web experience and Office SharePoint Server 2007 to deliver secure, enterprise-class collaboration tools with an easy-to-use interface of familiar tools like Windows Live, iGoogle, Facebook, and others.

This announcement, made at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston as part of a new strategic relationship between WorkLight and Microsoft, marks yet another milestone in the introduction of consumer Web 2.0 technologies into the corporate world.

WorkLight for SharePoint addresses both enterprise and employee needs by combining the collaborative capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007 with popular consumer social networks such as Facebook, personalized homepage gadgets, desktop widgets, RSS, mobile devices and more. Companies can now take advantage of SharePoint Server 2007’s collaboration, portal, enterprise search, enterprise content management, business intelligence and business process capabilities using popular consumer web-based gadgets; the same type of gadgets they use in their personal lives.   ■

www.myworklight.com/sharepoint

The Jouve Group, an international company specialising in information technology and ABBYY Europe - a worldwide provider of artificial intelligence technologies for document recognition, data capture, and linguistics - have formed a partnership which combines their expertise to offer a comprehensive digitalisation solution for national libraries.

This strategic partnership is focused on mass digitalisation projects (conversion of scanning and conversion of text into searchable and editable file formats), and has been initiated by European libraries wanting to enrich their heritage collections and enhance their abilities to search and access information within their collections.

A recognised leader in this market, the Jouve Group, who has strong culture and reputation for excellent service, was looking for the best possible partner in Europe, in order to ensure the same level of excellence for its clients.

To this end, Jouve Group and ABBYY Europe are collaborating to offer a conversion solution which is ideally adapted to the specifications and characteristics of the various documents available in the libraries (Multilingual recognition of more than 190 languages, text in old European fonts - including Gothic).  ■

www.abbyy.com

Now in its 8th year, Storage Expo 2008 is the UK’s definitive event for data storage, information and content management. Held on the 15th – 16th October, Olympia, London, this event will help you discover the most effective tools and methods to meet your storage, information and content management needs. ■

Register for FREE at www.storage-expo.com