Deadline for leads is 3rd February 2012. Email me if you'd like to contribute.

How will Apple's iBooks Author affect the education textbook market?
I'm writing a piece on Apple's entry into the textbook-writing and distribution market with iBooks and iBooks Author, which promise whole new levels of interactivity for textbooks. How will this affect education publishers? Is this something big or simply an addition to the market? Will publishers adapt to take on board this new technology? Or will publishers from a multimedia background steal a march on them?

I'm looking to speak to education analysts, and representatives of education publishers, both 'old school' and 'new school'. Interviews will be by phone in the weeks commencing 30th January and 6th February.

From newly launched franchised businesses to opportunities for potential franchisees, Business Franchise magazine is the unmissable guide for anyone looking for their first or next franchise adventure, featuring an invaluable A-Z directory of franchisors, in-depth articles and important updates from the franchise industry, providing hot off the press franchising news, advice and essential information.

Deadline for leads is 6th January 2012. Email me or leave a comment below.

Retail franchises
A look at retail franchises for someone wanting to set up a franchise, as well as some of the things to bear in mind when setting one up. Will also look at some of the recent innovations in retail franchising, including co-locating, and feature four case studies of people who have set up retail franchises.

Deadline for leads is 8th January 2012. Email me or leave a comment below.

What do education technology companies expect to gain from the government's new schools ICT strategy?
With Michael Gove now saying that computing science needs to be taught in school and "I believe we need to take a serious, intelligent approach to educational technology if our children are not to be left behind," what do education technology companies hope and expect to gain from this change of heart and what should the government be looking at?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/06/michael-gove-computer-science

http://www.agent4change.net/events/event/1338

http://www.education.gov.uk/a00200484/michael-gove-speaks-to-the-schools-network

Deadline for leads is 11th November 2011. Email me or leave a comment below.

Is Intel and McAfee’s DeepSAFE technology any good
McAfee are making much of the promise of its DeepSafe technology which allegedly protects PCs and other devices “beyond the operating system”. What are the implications of this and does the industry think this will work? Is it a genuine step forward? Will others have to copy?

I'm looking to speak to vendors, end users and technical experts in particular to answer the following questions among others:

• How does it work?
• Is it genuinely new?
• Will this work
• Is it scalable?
• Can you really protect the rest of the system by building the protection further down the stack?
• Is Intel a viable security partner?
• Has McAfee genuinely innovated here?

From newly launched franchised businesses to opportunities for potential franchisees, Business Franchise magazine is the unmissable guide for anyone looking for their first or next franchise adventure, featuring an invaluable A-Z directory of franchisors, in-depth articles and important updates from the franchise industry, providing hot off the press franchising news, advice and essential information.

Deadline for leads is 29th July 2011. Email me or leave a comment below.

Mobile franchises
A look at the attractions of mobile franchises for someone wanting to set up a franchise, as well as some of the things to bear in mind when setting one up.

Deadline for leads is 29th July 2011. Email me or leave a comment below.

Governance, compliance...who cares?
A look at the regulations, public and private that are putting more pressure on the information security professional. Plus: Trends in GRC Systems

The article will discuss the trends that are affecting the information security professional. These will include PCI-DSS, Basel 2, SOX as well as new regulations, including the new powers of the ICO - but any others?

Questions the article will look at include

• Has compliance pressure increased in recent years? Have other pressures such as reduced resources and the poor economy meant that CISOs and others may have taken their eyes off the ball, just when they can least afford to?
• Are CISOs actually generally aware of their GRC commitments - are they aware of just how much they should be compliant?
• Is GRC just something that larger enterprises need to think about - how much do SMBs need to pay attention? Are there specific laws that apply to SMBs?
• Do CISOs know the difference between what is legally compliant and what may be good ethical practice?
• Is there an argument that GRC may be beneficial to the wider business in terms of efficiency and process?
• What is the "Risk" factor in GRC - what are the risks of not being compliant?
• Or is it just generally regarded as a pain in the arse - a bit like taxes, you do it begrudgingly? Only do it when you really have to
• Would CISOs benefit from a little reading of the law?
• What are the technical solutions on the market that can provide a degree of automation to GRC?

I'm also going to be writing a case study for the piece so I'd like to speak to an organisation that has put in place GRC policies/systems. How did they do it? What were the lessons learned, the benefits etc?

I'll be doing phone interviews from the 25th July to 3rd August so spokespeople will need be available during these dates.

Deadline for leads is 7th July 2011. Email me or leave a comment below.

Social and mobile learning
I'm writing a feature on how social media, e-learning and now mobile learning have changed the face of learning and what impact this has had on human interaction and people learning from one another directly. What challenges has such fast-moving technology brought to learning and do we need to take a step back and go back to basics, rather than constantly find new ways of using the latest trends in learning?

I'd also like to speak to people who are implementing e-learning in their workplace - or who have chosen not to.

Deadline for leads is 18th February 2011. Email me or leave a comment below.

Mobile revolution
This is going to be a comprehensive analysis of mobile security trends and threats including smart phones, tablets and other portable devices and will factor in trends such as consmerisation and remote working. However, the aim is try to focus on the technical solutions rather than state that people often leave laptops on trains etc

Questions the article will answer:

• Issues, trends and solutions -- how are CISOs dealing with the creep of consumer purchased smartphones into the enterprise?
• What are the issues and challenges as more and more people use personal phones for work related activity?
• Do CISOs see a real shift in employee behaviour brought about by smartphones. How are they dealing with the issues?
• What are the best steps to ensuring that your workforce is able to take advantage of mobile working and remain secure -- more importantly how can they do it securely without compromising productivity?
• What are the long term trends in secure mobile working
• What are the social and economic effects of the switch to mobile working?

Box 1
What are the main mobile providers (eg Orange, Vodafone, O2) doing about securing their business and consumer customers

Box 2: App World
What are the ten best iPhone Apps for business? WebEx, DropBox etc...

Box 3: Mobile malware
Talked about endlessly but never seems to actually happen. But is the open nature of Android and the ever increasing popularity of the iPhone about to change that?

Box 4 Mobile commerce comes of age?
With the rumoured Near Field Communication technology coming to the next iPhone it could be that mobile banking and transactions are about to take off. But what are the security implications for banks, providers and end users? What are the commercial opportunities for retailers and others. Are the public ready for this -- given the relatively low acceptance and use of contact less payment cards like Barclays Connect?

So I'd like to speak to analysts, consultants, vendors of mobile security solutions, CISOs, customers, representatives from the various mobile phone companies, and other industry experts for the article, as well as get a few recommendations for business mobile phone apps.

I'd like to speak to people before the end of the month, the 4th of March at the outside. All approaches by email please!

Deadline for leads is 18th January 2011. Email me or leave a comment below.

Professional workshop: Secure virtualisation
This article will be a walk through the tools and techniques needed to adopt a secure virtualisation strategy and the relevant policies for the enterprise. I'm interested in talking to analysts, consultants, vendors, security experts and particularly end-users.

• What are the attractions of virtualisation?
• What are the challenges?
• What are the questions CIOs and CISOs need to ask before embarking or extending a virtualisation policy?
• What then are the latest technologies available to deploy virtual machines and desktops?
• How do you stop employees abusing VM technology?
• What are the latest technologies for secure virtualisation?
• Will virtualisation become the dominant technology in enterprise computing and business processes?
• What is next for virtualisation -- will hard drives on mobile devices disappear?

There are also two boxes:

Box 1
How can secure virtualisation work with consumerisation, cloud and BYOC policies?

Box 2: A case study
An example of a secure virtualisation deployment at a major site. Pros and cons, lessons learned etc.

Deadline for leads is 1st November 2010. Email me or leave a comment below.

Open Educational Resources

With finance for universities being cut, universities around the world are

looking more and more at OER content published by other universities,

companies, training organisations and students as a way to save time and

money. Does this present a real threat to to creators of textbooks and

course materials in the same way open source and Linux has threatened

proprietary software, or are the obstacles too great? Could OER even present

a revenue opportunity for some universities and organisations?

Deadline for leads is 3rd November 2010. Email me or leave a comment below.

Professional workshop: Risk management
Risk management is increasingly seen as an essential part of any modern information security strategy. This extensive workshop will look at theory, design and practice of risk management allied to data management and security in the enterprise.

I'm looking to speak to consultants and experts in the field of risk management as it relates to IT security. I would also like to speak to someone who has implemented risk management at a company, as well as someone from a business school, a tier 1 vendor or a professional organisation (ISSA, ISACA, ISC2) about how risk management is now being seen as an essential skill for information security professionals.

Part Two
How do you develop a risk management strategy? Is it the same as risk management as applied to other disciplines or other risks to the business?

Part Three
How do you implement risk management across the enterprise? Discuss the steps needed to successfully implement and some of the pitfalls to avoid.

Part Four
Keep your eye on the ball, risk management will not stop bad things happening. How, once a risk management strategy is in place, you still need to maintain vigilance and you need to constantly modify your strategy. You can't relax.

Box 1
CASE STUDY
How one person/department/company implemented risk management.

Box Out 2
Mini-interview
An interview with someone from a business school, a tier 1 vendor or a professional organisation (ISSA, ISACA, ISC2) about how risk management is now being seen as an essential skill for information security professionals

The government should set a good example when it comes to information and data security but the HMRC debacle of 2007 showed that processes across the board were going badly wrong. How has government and public sector been raising its game since? How much has really changed? What processes and procedures have government departments put in place to prevent a re-occurrence? Has anything really changed? After all civil servants are still losing laptops and mobiles on a regular basis. Can the private sector now learn from it?

PLEASE NOTE: THIS FEATURE IS SPECIFICALLY FOCUSED ON GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS RATHER THAN THE PUBLIC SECTOR AS A WHOLE

So I'd especially like to speak to people closely involved with working Whitehall on security, people in Whitehall, consultants (especially those in the big consulting firms) or people who have had recent (post 2007) experience in this area.

I'll also be looking in detail at the following areas:

1) What is a SIRO?
As part of the inquiry after the HMRC event it was decided that every Whitehall department would appoint a Senior Information Risk Officer. But what is a SIRO and how does it differ from a CISO. What are their responsibilities? Has it been successful?

Ideally, I'd like to speak to a SIRO if possible

2) HMRC Since 2007
How has HMRC improved its processes and procedures since 2007. And whatever did happen about those missing disks?

3) The coalition
What is the new government's position on data security in its own departments? Does it have any particular policies? Does it care?

Ideally, I'll like to interview the relevant minister or someone from that minister's office.

INTERVIEWS
I'd like to arrange interviews for any of the following dates in September: 2, 3, 9, 10, 15, 16 or 17th. My absolute deadline for this piece is the 18th September.

HOW TO REPLY
Send an email to pr@robbuckley.co.uk or leave a comment below

Deadline for leads is 21st May 2010. Email me or leave a comment below.

Distance learning
The idea that university is going to have to change to something more like the OU model is something that's been around for a while. But what would it mean in practice and who would make money from it?