The CFO Landscape is Changing

During the economic recession of 2008 into part of 2009, there was a high demand from top-level companies looking for CFO's whose backgrounds were deeply rooted in pure financial theory and application. The reasoning that the shareholders of these companies used was mainly that they needed someone to fill their top finance position who would be able to make keen, strategic decisions in a time when everybody's finances were failing.

But now the economy is recovering nicely, and businesses in every industry are exploring different candidates to run their financial sectors. Instead of searching for people with purely financial experience, many companies are targeting candidates with operational and managerial backgrounds, in addition to a financial one. According to William M. Bulkeley's article on CIO.com, since CFOs are among the first in line for the succession within the company, "operational experience is a must."

Another reason that businesses are looking for more operationally oriented CFO candidates is that the role of the COO is being steadily spread out to the jobs of the CEO and CFO, and the position is fading away. With this in mind, more finance majors are pursuing job offers not just in the financial sector of businesses but also in the operations and IT areas in order to get the proper experience needed to become a CFO in the future.

After reading this article, I am glad that I have decided to add a double major in Operations to my current Finance major. While I do not know if I will pursue being a CFO as my career, it appears that from senior management down to operational management, it is necessary to have some background in management and operations in order to have a successful career in the field of finance.

Security Update on LinkedIn

This past week, LinkedIn remodeled its security features to make them more accessible to their rapidly increasing clientele. This change has been requested by members of LinkedIn for the last year or two, and was very overdue. The interface for the security settings have been changed from a listed form, where every customizable setting was illogically aligned in different lists across the screen, to a more dashboard-like model, that is much more efficient for users and more in line with the standard model for user profile homepages.

The new features of the dashboard are quite useful, especially when compared to the previous layout. Now, the settings are organized into categories based on the users preferences and the similarity between different actions. For example, the top half of the page, according to Kristin Burnham’s article on CIO.com, “highlights information about you and your account. You can view how long you’ve been a LinkedIn member, change your primary e-mail or password and upgrade to a paid account.” Other features include the ability to view remaining ‘InMails,’ intros, and ad campaign statuses, if the user manages one. Under the top half is where the down and dirty account settings are stored, in a much more accessible form than the previous homepage.

One of the most lauded new features is found on the right side of the page. Here, links to the most frequently asked questions regarding all of the possible settings about your LinkedIn profile are listed for easy access that does not require you to dive deep into the LinkedIn sitemap to find.

As a LinkedIn user myself, these new features are greatly appreciated from the LinkedIn management. In the past, I have had trouble accessing certain features of LinkedIn that I have seen on other people’s profiles, and now with the new, more effective layout, I too can have a very professional LinkedIn profile.

Google's Chrome OS: Now or Never?

Many companies before releasing an updated version of their product or software will sometimes release beta versions of their product before rolling out the actual thing. These beta versions are inherently not perfect and filled with glitches and other imperfections that the company will fix between the beta release and the actual release. However, most companies that offer these types of "test drives" are smaller, lesser-known companies, who are still trying to build good relationships with their clientele. So when a huge super company like Google offers the general public the opportunity to test out not just a beta version, but a beta version of an entirely new concept - the browser operating system, it truly is a rare occurrence.

The concept of "cloud computing" is becoming quite popular today. A lot of daily activities in the business world have already been taken online, such as e-mail, word processing, and photo editing. But the idea that Google has come up with, a computer that's operating is only a web browser with all applications running through it, is not catching on as quickly as it was expected. In Shane O’Neill’s article on CIO.com, Mr. O’Neill points out that the desktop-oriented operating system of the present and past did not stick around because there wasn’t something new developed. The operating systems include “a desktop, a taskbar, a file and folder system, offline access to applications, a Start menu, etc….because PEOPLE LIKE IT THAT WAY.”

I can’t decide which side I’m on in this debate. While I, along with most of the world, has grown up and become so accustomed to the desktop-oriented OS, I think that cloud computing is definitely the future of information systems across the board. As a musician, I have a lot of offline applications that I use to record and write music. For me, I would not be able to comfortably switch to a browser OS until the application capabilities are significantly improved. However, once this happens, I think the speed and efficiency of being able to access anything and everything you will need on a computer from one central hub (the browser) will become the standard for computing across all disciplines.