Power to investigate the government mustn’t be erased: Susan Shelley

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, shown before
he testified to a Senate committee on another
matter in April, is the target of impeachment
proceedings.
    

Here are two important questions which

are often obscured by the noise and

spatter from the blood sport of electoral

politics.

Does honest government matter?

Can anything be done to prevent

dishonest government or clean it up?

The answer to the first question is yes, it

matters. Voters make choices based on

the information they have. A

government that makes dishonest

statements cannot claim to have the

consent of the governed. Instead, it’s

governing by force and fraud.

The answer to the second question is yes,

unless the government is dishonest.

The tools for preventing and cleaning up

dishonest government include laws like

the Inspector General Act of 1978, which

created internal watchdog offices in

government agencies, Justice Department

prosecutions, and congressional

oversight.

It’s easy to dismiss congressional

investigations as politically motivated,

but the Constitution gives Congress

broad authority to conduct oversight, per

the language of Article II, Section 4: “The

President, Vice President and all civil

Officers of the United States, shall be

removed from Office on Impeachment

for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery,

or other high Crimes and

Misdemeanors.” The House of

Representatives “shall have the sole

Power of Impeachment,” and “the Senate

shall have the sole Power to try all

Impeachments.”

A necessary part of the power to

impeach is the power to investigate.

The House has just initiated

impeachment proceedings against IRS

Commissioner John Koskinen. He’s

accused of failing to respond to a lawful

subpoena for documents, obstructing a

congressional investigation, giving false

and misleading statements under oath,

and failing to competently oversee an

investigation into “Internal Revenue

Service targeting of Americans based on

their political affiliation.”

Because the definition of “high crimes

and misdemeanors” is left to our elected

representatives, impeachment is

completely different from criminal

charges, which the Justice Department

declined to bring against anyone in the

case of the alleged IRS targeting of

conservative groups seeking tax-exempt

status.

“Our investigation uncovered substantial

evidence of mismanagement, poor

judgment and institutional inertia,’’

Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik

said in a letter to Congress. “But poor

management is not a crime. We found

no evidence that that any IRS official

acted based on political, discriminatory,

corrupt or other inappropriate motives

that would support a criminal

prosecution.’’

They may have found no evidence

because 422 back-up tapes containing

the e-mail correspondence of IRS official

Lois Lerner were degaussed

(magnetically erased) by IRS employees.

The Treasury Department’s inspector

general said the destruction of the tapes

happened “on or around March 4, 2014,

one month after the IRS realized they

were missing e-mails from Lois Lerner,

and approximately eight months after

the House Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform requested ‘all

documents and communications sent by,

received by or copied to Lois Lerner,'

Was it a misunderstanding or a

successful cover-up?

Consider this: Last year, 47 inspectors

general signed a letter protesting that

three agencies, including the Justice

Department, were obstructing

investigations of alleged wrongdoing.

Then in July, the Justice Department

issued a new policy that blocks IGs from

gaining access to certain kinds of

evidence, including grand jury and

wiretap information, unless they first

obtain the permission of the head of the

agency they’re investigating.

Nixon was run out of town for less.

If an administration won’t investigate

itself, there’s no tool in the toolbox

except congressional oversight and, if

necessary, impeachment.

The only other check on dishonest

government is the ballot box. But first,

voters would have to believe that honest

government matters.

Read More

How Much Does It Cost To Build An App?

One of (if not) the most prohibitive hurdle to
developing your own app is cost. First off, you
have to make a concrete calculation weighing
anticipated business gains against the cost
outlay for development and support. According
to many market research studies, including
leading firms like Forrester, development costs
are can represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Once you take the time to spec out and build
your dream app, you’ll find little things that
you could have done better; or U/I updates
that would make it more intuitive; or Google
released a new update to Android; or Apple
changed the resolution on the newest
generation of iPads. Whatever the case may
be, more than 80% of IT personnel polled in
2012 by AnyPresence found that their firms
were updating their apps at least twice per
year. A third of the respondents were pushing
new updates every month. Forrester estimates
that only 35% of any app’s lifetime cost is
covered in initial development. This is a major
stumbling block for many companies, and
rightly so.
       

Apps are not an experiment that you can play

around with and just see how the market

responds. The future of enterprises is mobility

and only companies that fully embrace and

integrate mobile strategies effectively will

thrive in this landscape in the months and

years to come. So, swinging and missing on

app development is unacceptable in the

modern business atmosphere.

In addition to development representing but a

portion of an app’s full cost, most companies

looking to work with a mobile solutions partner

(or even app developer if you want more of a

vendor/client relationship) don’t know what

type of cost ranges within which any given

app could fall. There are a huge number of

factors to consider, and every app is different

in some way or another. As such, there are no

perfect predictions to be had. However, we

can provide you with some general cost

brackets broken down by complexity and,

therefore, required development effort.

At their most basic levels, apps come down to

hours. Whatever feature you want, whatever

U/I style you desire, whatever working

relationship you want with your developer or

parter will all affect the number of hours that

a firm needs to complete the project. Some

companies might quote their rates based on

features you request, others might take your

specifications and simply give you a flat cost

amount, while others will just estimate the

total number of hours required to complete

the project, break that down by employee

type, and give you a granular estimate that

way. Regardless of the method employed,

each company is making an internal

calculation about how many hours they

anticipate the project will require (based

mostly on the feature requests and the

complexity of any external hardware/software/

API integration) and which resources that

company will have to utilize to accomplish you

goals. So, we can break down the cost

buckets similarly.

Every feature your app incorporates equals a

certain number of design, programming,

project management, QA, and revision hours.

The more features you request, the more

hours required to deliver all of them, and the

more the app will cost. The more complex the

feature, the more hours required, and the

more the app will cost. As such, the ideal

working relationship with any vendor or partner

is with someone willing and able to itemize

each feature by the hours required to develop

those features, cross referenced with the

respective cost per resource hour. That way,

you can obtain a granular overview of where

the largest cost factors are. If your partner

can do this for you, you can make informed

decisions about which features are the most

important or which features you might think

about scrapping to save costs.

Most market research I’ve seen categorizes

mobile app costs into three buckets:

Lower-level complexity, smaller feature list,

generally one mobility platform: <$50,000

Medium-level complexity, medium-sized

feature list, 1-2 mobility platform(s):

$50,000 – $150,000

High-level complexity, large feature list, 3+

mobility platforms: $150,000+

The cutoff between the medium and high

complexity buckets can vary some depending

on the study at which you look, but it’s

generally $100K+ or $150K+. Being more

realistic for an enterprise context, high-

complexity mobile solutions will generally run

$150,000+. But, this categorization might not

clear much up if you don’t know where your

app falls in the spectrum to begin with.

For example, if you want to build an app that

simply interfaces with your backend database,

parses and analyzes that data, and then

displays the information you want via a native

tablet app on only one platform, that’s a

relatively simple app (assuming your back end

is well designed and any legacy hardware or

software isn’t too hard to integrate into).

If you want to build a field sales application

that supports offline data collection and

caching, third-party hardware integration for a

credit card reader, API support for payment

and credit card security protocols, backend

database integration, and social sharing?

That’s going to fall into the second bucket

and run you anywhere from $50,001 to

$149,999 based on how many total features

you deem necessary.

If you decide to completely overhaul your CRM

and you want to build a new solution from the

ground up, including microphone and camera

integration into the application, learning

algorithms, backend integration, custom

performance metric reporting, shareable and

group editable files, individual device

management, individual app management,

individual logins, varying security protocol

levels based on employee department, division,

title and seniority, custom VPN requirements

by device or by app, you’re looking at a very

complex application. Many of these things are

absolutely necessary for your ultimate app,

but you have to know that every feature you

add, and as each of those features requires

more and more expertise to deliver on, the

higher into zone three you’ll climb. That’s not

a bad thing by any stretch, because you’re

building a more comprehensive, safer and

more useful solution. But as your solutions

become better, it simply requires more to build

them.

So long as you can find a mobile solutions

partner with the discipline and forethought to

forecast each feature by hour and resource on

the front end, you’ll be able to choose the

features you can’t live without and which

features can wait for v2.

A word to the wise, though — even if you find

such a firm and make the best choices for

your business, always beware that support,

updates and continual improvements often

require far more capital than building the v1 of

the app in the first place. Know that choosing

to build a mobile app is a long-term

investment to solidify your place within your

target consumers’ digital lives and stick to

that mindset. It’s not about the extra few

dollars you spend now, but rather how can you

build an integrated solution that will stand the

test of time and generate business returns for

years and years to come.

Read More

The Future Of Work: 10 Skills You Will Need To Be Successful

Jen Cohen Crompton
With all the predictions about the future of
work, we are constantly painting a picture of
how the future workplace will look. But, what
most of us should focus on is what the
workforce will need to look like – meaning,
what skills employees need to have to ensure
continued success into the next decade?
The Top 10 Online Colleges website has the
answer. They’ve done the research and
compiled a list of skills that all employees will
need by 2020 (which is only six years away!)
and the drivers of the new skill set.
First, we must understand what is driving
change and molding the future of work.
The six key drivers of change include:
1. Extreme longevity: People are living
longer.
2. The rise of smart machines and systems:
Tech will augment and extend our own
capabilities.
3. Computational world: There will be an
increase in sensors and processing that
will make the world a programmable
system.
4. New media ecology: There will be new
communication tools that will require
media literacies beyond text.
5. Superstructured organizations: Social
technologies will drive new forms of
production and value creation.
6. Globally connected world: Diversity and
adaptability will be at the center of
operations.
Because of these global changes and
technology being the catalyst for many of
these forces, the future work skills we will all
need in 2020 are a combination of changing
how we act and think, and how we use
technology as an extension of our daily lives –
even more than we do today.
So what are the skills you should be working
on today to ensure you’ll have a job tomorrow?
They include:
1. Sense making
2. Social intelligence
3. Novel and adaptive thinking
4. Cross-cultural competency
5. Computational thinking
6. New media literacy
7. Transdisciplinary
8. Design mindset
9. Cognitive load management
10. Virtual collaboration

Read more about how each drive relates to

the skill and what that skill really means in the

below infographic.

Read More

87% of managers need to be able to analyze data quicker in…

Fueling Finance’s Need
For Speed With
Technology,........

CFO Research found that 87% of senior
finance executive responders said managers
need to analyze financial and performance
data much more quickly in order to meet their
companies’ targets for profitable growth. But,
despite this “need for speed,” only 12% of
survey respondents indicate that their finance
function can respond to requests from
business managers in “real time.” More than
half say it typically takes finance staff up to
one day to respond to business units’ requests
for information and analysis, and more than a
quarter say that it takes longer than a day.
         Technology is the logical and proven path to
reducing response times but needs to keep
the end use firmly in mind. Eight in ten survey
respondents believe that their ability to meet
growth targets would improve if their
information systems were easier to use—
despite two-thirds of respondents saying that
their systems had already become largely
“self-service.”
Many businesses have developed their
information systems to the point where
management has access to more information
faster. Now, reaching the next level of
performance requires even closer collaboration
with skilled finance analysts to work out what
to do with all that data. As the CFO of a
Mexican electronics firm put it in his survey
response, “Technology is a good ally…if you
know how to use it.”

Read More

Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to his haters: 'I need the enemy…

The most iconic Real Madrid player of the last
decade has been, without a doubt, Portuguese
forward Cristiano Ronaldo. Yet he, like any in his
profession, is often at the receiving end of less-
than-kind sentiments.
Whether he's being compared unfavourably to his
rival at Barcelona, Lionel Messi , or attacked by
those tinged with envy for a man who seems to
have it all and then some, Ronaldo is one of the
most divisive figures in sports.
But, Ronaldo explains, that hate isn't an obstacle
in his professional career.
"I don't mind people hating me, because it
pushes me. When I go to play away, they are
always against me, but it’s good," Ronaldo told
The Times, as quoted by FourFourTwo. "You
have to see the good things from the haters. I
need the enemy. It is part of the business. They
start screaming when I touch the ball. It had
started already when I was 18 or 19. It is not a
problem for me. It is a motivation."
In particular, it is in comparing Ronaldo against
Messi that many see a line divided; Messi strikes
a modest figure, a player who was blessed with
talent and isn't big-headed for it. Ronaldo,
conversely, commands the attention of a player
who has an ego to match his skill.
It's a perception Ronaldo acknowledges, but not
one he sees as an accurate measure.
"I am not the humblest person in the world, I
admit that. I am not fake," Ronaldo explained.
"But in one way I am very humble. I like to learn,
I want to learn from other sports, the best
athletes. What are they doing? You can improve
on this, on that. I think it is interesting. A person
who is like that, they are humble – because they
like to learn."

Read More

Russia sends anti-aircraft missiles to Syria to protect jets during airstrikes

MOSCOW – Russia has sent anti-aircraft
missiles to Syria in order to safeguard its jets
involved in airstrikes against militants in the
war-battered Arab country, the commander of
the Russian Air Force was quoted as saying
Thursday.
Russia has been carrying out airstrikes on
Islamic State fighters in Syria since the end of
September at the request of President Bashar
Assad, Russia's long-term ally.

Russian officials have insisted that their military
involvement in Syria will be limited to an air
force operation.
Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev said in an interview
with the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda that the
anti-aircraft missiles are there to project
Russian fighter jets from a possible attack or
hijack while on mission.
"There can be different emergencies, such as
hijacking the jet on the territory of a
neighboring country or an attack on it," he said.
"We should be prepared for that."
Bondarev did not specify the type of missiles
Russia provided.
Russia and Western nations have been engaged
in intense diplomatic talks in the past few
weeks, aiming to bring about a political
settlement in Syria, which has been torn by a
civil war since 2011 that has killed 250,000
people and forced millions to flee.
A Russian deputy foreign minister said earlier
this week that Moscow is aiming to host a
round of talks between Syrian officials and
opposition leaders next week. He said the
Syrian government has agreed to participate
but it's unclear which opposition groups might
come.

Read More

Governor Fayose Of Ekiti Apologises To Teachers

In a rare show of respect for the teachers and understanding of their plights, Governor Ayodele Fayose has apologised to primary school teachers in Ekiti state over the mix-up in the payment of their September salary.

According to a statement by the chief press secretary to the Governor, Idowu Adelusi, the governor said: “Even though the mix-up was from the state accountant general’s office but as the State governor, he takes responsibility

Fayose“I want to

Read More