It's virtually impossible to escape the excitement surrounding the new iPad, whether it's the long lines snaking around Apple stores, front-page reviews in hundreds of publications or references to the new product in monologues by late night TV show hosts.

But all this coverage of the new iPad (from $519) doesn't mean the product can live up to the tremendous hype.

After spending 10 days with the third-generation iPad, I do agree it's pretty awesome – but it's definitely more evolutionary than revolutionary. In fact, if you have last year's iPad 2 then I'd suggest to wait to uprgrade. That being said, the new iPad does offer a number of improvements over its predecessors and I firmly believe it's the finest tablet on the market – despite some amazing Android tablets and the aggressively-priced BlackBerry PlayBook.

Here's what you need to know about the new iPad:

• The first thing you'll notice is the new "Retina display" technology, meaning its pixel density is so high the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Quite simply, the new screen is stunning. In fact, the iPad delivers four times the number of pixels – the little dots that make up the image -- than the screen on the first two iPad models. In fact, the new iPad's 3.1 million-pixel display offers one million more pixels than your HDTV. Photos are vibrant, text is crisp and videos look more sharp than in the previous iPad (now with support for 1080p movies, too).

• Speaking of 1080p resolution – the top-of-the-line video quality available today -- the new and improved 5-megapixel camera on the back of the iPad can shoot 1080p video (up from 720p in the iPad 2), and with image stabilization and facial detection, too. I shot a few videos and snapped some high-resolution photos with the new camera and they both looked quite good. OK, so you typically wouldn't reach for your tablet to capture memories but it's a convenient feature to have.

• Another major new feature of the 2012 iPad is support for 4G LTE networks. “Long Term Evolution” is the next-generation in wireless technology, allowing for cellular speeds in select cities that rival if not exceed your home's broadband Internet connection. That's right, Telus, Bell Mobility and Rogers all offer LTE add-on data plans as low as $15, so you can surf, download and stream at incredibly high speeds (up to 72 Megabits per second downloads, though this number is "theoretical" opposed to somewhat slower "real world" performance). In areas without LTE support, the iPad will revert to HSPA+ (up to 21 Megabits per second downloads) or in the case with Telus and Bell, dual-carrier HSDPA for download speeds of up to 42 Megabits per second. The new iPad can also be used to create a personal hotspot, allowing other nearby devices to get online wirelessly via the tablet. The LTE-enabled iPads start at $649.

• A few other thoughts: Apple's new A5X chip with quad-core graphics delivers faster and smoother video game performance, as experienced with Namco's aerial combat simulation called Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy. I was also able to test the new dictation feature; it's not Siri – a full-featured voice-activated personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S – but you can tap the microphone button while composing an email, writing a note or searching the web and iPad will transcribe your words into text. Despite all the new features, the new iPad offers the same industry-leading 10-hour battery (9 hours on LTE) and for the same price as the iPad 2. But be aware it's a smidge heavier (1.44 pounds for Wi-Fi or 1.46 pounds for Wi-Fi + 4G) and thicker (9.4mm) compared to the iPad 2 (at 1.33 pounds and 8.8mm thick).

So, what's the bottom line?

While these are somewhat minor updates over last year's iPad 2, the new screen and 4G LTE speeds really help solidify Apple's lead in the highly competitive tablet space. Once again, the company has raised a bar when it comes to its specs, but also excels in the overall experience thanks to smooth synchronization with iTunes and iCloud, support for more than 585,000 apps and a major hardware ecosystem including thousands of accessories like docking stations and cases.

If you're a skeptic, at least pop into an Apple store in your local mall to see and touch the new iPad for yourself.

Here's an informal video walkthrough of some of the new iPad's core features:

In entrepreneur Stephen Jagger’s recent post for TELUS Talks Business, he said something very apt: “Change is the one constant in a business.” And I think this is something, no matter the size or scope of our business, we can all agree with.

Sure, major changes – whether internal or external – can be tremendously difficult to manage. But it’s the nature of the life of an entrepreneur, and it’s our duty to take the bull by the horns and manage accordingly.

There are two major types of change:

• Internal changes are things like staff movement in and out of the company and policy changes. Interestingly, a recent study by Ipsos Reid on behalf of TELUS revealed that 20 per cent of Canadian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) believe managing growth or the expansion of their business is the biggest internal impact that they face.
  

• External changesare things that come at you from outside of the walls of your business. For example, over the last few years we’ve all been working within a volatile market. In this vein, 26 per cent of Canadian SMBs said the external change that would have the greatest impact on their businesses is the strength of the economy.
  

Canadian SMBs are slightly less likely to feel prepared to deal with external changes (73%) compared to internal changes (81%). The struggle, it seems, is all about control; it’s difficult to feel confident about that which we cannot regulate.

Because TELUS is in business of providing office and mobile communications solutions to more than 250,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Canada, we regularly talk about best practices for change management with our customers, partners and colleagues.

So if there’s one thing we can tell you it’s this: you’re not alone.

Check out this short chat I had with Tang Phoonchai, owner of the Vancouver-based Maai Living Furniture.

1.      What do you find more challenging, external or internal changes?

As a private business owner with no staff or partners, I find external changes to be much more challenging. The economy, of course, is a big example of that. Understandably, when things aren’t going well, my customers are much more careful about how they spend their money – but no matter the financial climate, I need to keep my business moving.

2.      What do you think are the key attributes of a business leader who can respond well to change?

I believe that in order to be nimble, business leaders need to stay up to date with the latest technology and trends.A great example of that is social networking. To put it simply: your customers are online having conversations so you need to be right there with them. Also, chances are the challenges you face are also faced by someone else, so social media is a great space to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry and find resources and contacts that can help you react effectively to change.

Another quality of a strong business leader is flexibility: in my business especially, you need to be able to react and respond to changes quickly. No matter what, the most important quality is that you be passionate about your work: this will always be the key ingredient to success.

3.      We found that 72 per cent of SMBs in Canada said they are not afraid of change; how do you feel about it?

That’s interesting, but it doesn’t surprise me because there is no reason to be afraid of change when you know it will happen anyway. My job as an entrepreneur is to ensure I’m prepared to guide the business back on the right path when I face external or internal change, the question I need to always ask myself is, do I have what I need to make that happen?

4.      What advice can you offer to other SMBs with respect to managing change?

I think my story is a great lesson in change management. My shop is just two years old, and although I started off very local, I’ve grown to be servicing clients all over the globe. As a result, I’ve had to learn how to advertise more effectively, ship internationally – and I’ve had to do this quickly.

My advice to you, if you’re going to run your own business, it is simple: You have to be prepared to take on changes head on. Without this, you will not adapt and grow, and neither will your business.

For additional findings from the survey, please visit telus.com.

I was the morning keynote speaker at the @marketplace conference in Kitchener, Ontario yesterday, a gathering of 150 small business people from the community and surrounding area. Here I am getting started. If you weren't able to travel to what was an excellent conference, part 1 of the the virtual presentation is below.

“You can’t institutionalize a social experience on your own. Nor can you ‘convince’ others to have a particular experience...

You must live it out, together, within the community, until it becomes a part of how that community encounters the world.”                        

                         W.O. Nilsson, Ph.D. and Professor, McGill School of Management

This is one of my team’s favourite quotes, and one that we’ve truly come to live and understand in our social media experience at TELUS.

It really speaks to the value that building a social media community brings. Be it via your own website, Linkedin, Facebook  etc., it is shaped and developed together with your customers and to influence it, you must become a part of it. You must live it.  Be where your customers are and truly be a part of its ecosystem. That’s what social media is all about.

This has been our corporate vision and our mission since day one.

At TELUS we have a belief that if our customers have a preferred channel of communication with us, then the onus is on us to connect with them that way. Our social media journey started in late 2008 when we saw a desire from our customers to interact and connect with us using social channels. At the same time, we saw the incredible value in getting input and feedback from them in a new and unique way.

B2B customers were then gravitating online, whether it was for information or to engage with peers and other experts in both public and private forums.  Conversations were happening about us and our brand - with or without us. So we decided to be a part of them.

The social matrix

When you see the options available to you in the “social media matrix,” it can be extremely overwhelming, even to us at TELUS.

We had two options available to us: position our messages in as many channels as possible and increase the list as new social media channels are launched, or start with a focused approach and build out over time.

We decided to take a focused approach.

We’ve built telustalksbusiness.com as a place for Canadian businesses to come and talk to peers and experts, but more than that. It’s the hub of our social media strategy, driving traffic from our social media sites like Facebook and twitter directly to the site, and allowing us to draw insights and grow relationships with our customers by being active participants in conversations to enhance customer experience.

Tomorrow: Why a b2b community and tips for getting started?

Nancy Kay is, director of web and social media for TELUS business.

www.TELUStalksbusiness.com

Follow us: @telusbusiness

Engage with us: www.facebook.com/TELUSbusiness

Watch us: www.youtube.com/TELUSvideos

As we've discussed in Send in the Cloud: A limited series to help you develop a cloud storage strategy, the Cloud - and by extension Cloud Storage - offers numerous benefits. But they don’t come without risks.

Whether it’s long term archiving, online backup, live web content or other content delivery, whatever the use-case for cloud storage in your business, the potential should be weighed against the possible downsides. I know it sounds corny (and probably dates me) but to paraphrase the Joni Mitchell song, if you take a balanced look at both sides of the cloud the net result will help you determine if Cloud Storage yields a possible and better alternative to the status quo or your company’s traditional course of action.

In our final instalment in this series next week I’ll offer an extensive checklist of considerations for you to use when looking for a Cloud Storage service. For now, let's consider a selection of the high level promises and pitfalls of Cloud.

Financial and operating flexibility VS total cost of ownership (TCO)

Whether the cost savings that cloud technology and service providers alike claim are attainable is too complex to calculate and grasp. Whatever the promise of TCO, it is certain that renting infrastructure capacity through the Cloud via a pay-per-use model eliminates the need for upfront capital investments and provides the financial and operating flexibility many organizations seek. The challenge (and associated risk) is that increased consumption of cloud capacity may reach a point where the overall cost and complexity to manage the cloud reaches a state where the financial case is harder to make.

Rapid scalability VS control

Cloud storage provides unlimited and available capacity for an organization to consume as it needs to grow. If such growth is pursued in an uncontrollable fashion, both storage volumes and costs may surpass the original intentions and budget of the initiative this service was originally designed for. While cloud storage may be the most suitable and cost effective storage alternative you have for the particular application, it is not free. An extreme use of a cheap service will have an impact on your bottom line; therefore planning and controls are required.

Accessibility VS Security, Privacy and Compliance

Cloud storage is predominantly an Internet-accessible and device-independent service that delivers unsurpassed accessibility to the applications (or devices) that store or consume the data.

Depending on the infrastructure supporting the cloud service, and the mechanisms to support protection of the data both in transport and at rest (e.g. encryption or obfuscation), it may be exposed to unlawful access.

Depending on the location of the cloud storage service or the provider's jurisdiction of incorporation, your data may be subject to regulations that are not in line with your responsibilities to your stakeholders, including employees, customers and the Canadian law (mostly privacy law).

Flexibility VS Freedom

I would argue that one of the most promising traits of Cloud is flexibility. The flexibility to consume as much service as needed and easily upload data to a storage cloud service is what makes it so appealing.

Users should, however, realize that in some cases the systems supporting the service are mostly designed with one thing in mind: to to get you in, not to get you out. Data objects that are added to the cloud service either on a gradual basis or through one time bulk migrations does not mean they are easily extracted and migrated off the cloud service when you expect to exercise your data freedom. Lock-in should be a real risk worth considering.

I hope this gave you a taste of both perspectives and that you'll come back to read the complete list of Cloud Storage considerations.

Shawn Myron is the director of products and services for TELUS hosting and data centres.

Questions about the cloud and whether it's right for your company? Ask them here via comment.

Outsourcing is essentially the movement of functions undertaken within an organization to an outside provider. Although one often associates outsourcing with the movement of such activities to far away countries like India or China, in fact a majority of the world's outsourcing takes place domestically, such as the movement of IT functions, including security, to a local outsourcing provider.

The benefits of outsourcing are many, but there are two that top the list. The first is costs. What would it cost an organization to undertake the activities that can be provided by a specialized outsourcing provider at the same level of quality? It is most often the case that the organization cannot do the activities as well as the outsourcing provider - after all, the outsourcing provider specializes in the activities being outsourced. Hence it would be prohibitively expensive and therefore infeasible to produce at the same quality level as the outsourcing specialized provider.

But the second benefit is perhaps more important. All organization (ie. corporations) have core competencies that it should focus on - it should not do everything! By focusing on the activities it does well, it allows the organization to drive a profit in the marketplace. Activities that are not within its core competencies are candidates to be outsourced.

IT security is most often an activity that is not a core function to organizations - that is, this is not a function that most organizations knows how to do relatively well, nor is it a function that directly relates to the company's profit model. While critical for the its survival and hence success, it is not a driver of profits.

Our survey evidence is consistent with the evidence for the broader economy. Organizations that have outsourced their IT security functions have experienced better IT security outcomes, and these companies also have higher levels of satisfaction with their IT security posture. Since the IT aspect of their organizations is being taken care of by a specialized outsourcing provider, they are left to focus on their core functions, and hence work towards enhanced financial performance.

In addition, to being more satisfied with their IT security posture, companies that outsource IT security also tend to have a good understanding of their risk profile and security posture. It is often thought that those that outsource are companies that don't understand the functions being outsourced. This tends not to be case. Once a sufficient understanding of the function (in this case security) is obtained, organizations will therefore be in a better position to both partner with, and hold to account ,the outsourcing provider. The evidence of our research clearly bears this out.

This summer, TELUS Talks Business bring you Security 360, a one-of-a-kind limited series on information security from Dr. Walid Hejazi, professor of international business at Rotman School of Management and a world-renowned expert on IT security. Dr. Hejazi has primed the TELUS-Rotman Joint Study on Canadian IT Security Practices on behalf of Rotman since its inception and has unique perspective and insight into IT security in Canadian business. Your comments and questions are welcome here.

Attention IT security professionals– your perspectives matter. For the fourth straight year, TELUS Security Labs and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, are partnering to conduct a study on Canadian IT security practices. It’s the only original Canadian research of its kind. Add your perspective to the research (input is anonymous) and you could win a BlackBerry Playbook and receive a complimentary copy of the results. Click here to take the survey: www.telus.com/securitystudy

I’m intrigued by the results of the third annual study of Canadian IT security practices from the Rotman School of Management and TELUS.

Let’s talk about the results as they pertain to social networking. They may have you, your boss or your employee thinking twice about allowing it in the workplace.

This year’s results uncover a misconception:  One in four Canadian organizations are blocking access to social networking sites, citing security as the primary reason. Today, 66 per cent of employees in the government sector have access to social networking in the workplace, as do close to 80 per cent of private and public sector employees.  In both cases, organizations that block access to these sites actually bring productivity and security issues upon themselves as employees spend valuable time trying to circumvent the block or surf the sites through their mobile devices.

What does this say? As trends and technology continues to develop in this ever-changing environment, from the popular engagement with social networking to the proliferation of smartphone usage, there needs to be an increased focus on education and awareness across IT, development and employees to ensure security risks and responsibilities are understood by all.

Mobile phones

In keeping with the theme of security to the endpoint, we also asked respondents to share their thoughts, potentially concerns – with the proliferation of the mobile phone in the corporate space.

In our 2009 survey, we noted that mobile-related breaches - to specify, any corporate data that was shared as a result of mobile devices and laptops falling into the wrong hands or unauthorized people accessing files from employees working remotely -  were the second largest breach category.

At the same time, we noticed a growing interest in these technologies.  The main concern that has come out of this year’s data and is representative of government, private and public feedback, is the loss of a mobile device with corporate data.

But with this year’s data, we believe that the adoption of this technology does not expose companies to more breaches.  The technology is in place to ensure a secure experience, but only as long as users are educated on best practices on how to keep their devices secure.

Budgets

Another interesting finding from this year’s results is the budget variances between years.

Budgets are still well below 2008 levels, in effect, carrying over the severe measures implemented in 2009 that resulted in average budget cuts of 10 per cent.

In 2010, it was reported that security budgets were on average slightly above 6.5 per cent of IT budgets, similar to the nearly 7 per cent IT budget touted in 2009.

It is especially important to recognize the need for investment in security budgets, as the proliferation of mobile devices and social networking drive the need for new, more secure technology, governance and education. While the investment in up-to-date technology does represent a large part of the security budget, it’s necessary to allocate adequate funding to the staff and resources as well.

• Findings indicate that many security professionals have broader roles with specialization in teams diminishing. It is crucial that organizations are staffed with enough experienced leadership, backed by strong executive support to ensure the best security strategy possible.
  

• In 2009, the majority of respondents indicated that the financial crisis had not forced them to cut staffing levels; however, contractors were impacted by austerity measures.  This year, respondents note that internal staffing levels decreased.
  

• 50 per cent of organizations are more likely to report to teams of 1-5 full-time employees and only 12 per cent reported that they report to teams of 6-10.
  

• A potential explanation is that while these employees were employed in 2009 to oversee     contractors, in 2010 when their contracts expired, the full time employees overseeing the work were also no longer needed.
  

This week, TELUS and the Rotman School of Management released their third annual study on Canadian IT security (TELUS.com/securitystudy)

Dr. Walid Hejazi is a professor of business economics at Rotman School of Management.

This past year, I made the leap into a telework environment. I manage a team of people across Canada who also telework. They work from home, or wherever they’re able to be the most productive. A single established physical office location is a thing of the past for all of us.

To make the leap, I found I had to take my comfortable office routine that I’ve grown so accustomed to over the last 20 years and toss it out the window. I've now made a complete transition to managing a team in a virtual world.

The list of what I don’t miss about working at the office is just about as long as what I do. I don’t miss the morning rush hour commute. Getting into my car and crawling along at 15 km an hour every morning was no fun. Not to mention the associated stress that goes along with that kind of commute.

Even when I was trying to be environmentally friendly by switching from automobile to subway, I still had to deal with the stress of hundreds of other people standing on the subway platform with me. You’d get caught in that never-ending sea of people trying to cram their way into subway cars, nudging and squirming around to get that extra inch so the train car door can close.

Reclaiming commute time

Now I spend my commute time as my quiet time first thing in the morning. I go through outstanding emails and organize my day. It’s amazing what a productivity difference this extra time savings can make.

I do miss the contact with people. Voices over the phone from one day to the next just don’t make up for the in-person experience. So I make it a point to get into the office 1 – 2 days/week. I do miss everything being within a few seconds of where I was sitting. So for that, I have a brand new set of management tools that I have adopted into my new daily routine.

For a manager of a teleworking team, what are the fundamental infrastructure requirements necessary for steady, successful communication?  I’m going to shamelessly salute my employer a few times to better describe my virtual office. Without these services, my team would never be able to perform the way we do.

Essential telework tools for managers

My day gets going with my first meeting on my audio conference bridge line.Even if you don’t telework, you’ve probably used a conference bridge line. My conference bridge is the virtual meeting room I use most often. I had my personal passcode committed to memory after the first day on the job. Anytime you want to speak to one or more team members, just have them dial into your bridge line. It’s quicker than trying to arrange an impromptu meeting in a physical meeting room and my team can call in from anywhere across the country to one easy access number.

But it’s more than just about talking. We do a lot of planning. And for this type of activity, a picture is worth a thousand words. More difficult in a virtual world you say? Actually, not. We use web conferencing services. I can have a presentation running on my laptop, and with my team logging into our web conferencing service, they can see exactly what I’m seeing. We work together, in real-time, as we discuss and make changes to presentations on the fly. In fact, we can even white board during our brainstorming sessions.

During the course of any normal work day, I always need to consult with other team members. In an office environment, working in proximity of almost everyone, I could simply get up and have a chat, even if it meant visiting another floor in the building. But working with a virtual team left me little choice. There was no avoiding the addition of one more communication channel: Instant Messaging.

For many, including me, this can take the most getting used to. I resisted for a long time because I was already challenged at keeping up with the voicemails, emails and meetings. Now that I’ve given in, I have to admit, it’s not that bad. In fact, it’s made my life easier in one way: I manage much less voicemail. One of my colleagues compared the start of an IM chat with someone stopping by your desk a physical world for an impromptu chat. Yes, it took me a bit of getting used to. But now that I’m there, I’m not sure how I managed before IM.

As a converted teleworker, I’ve come to rely on these basic services. Whether you work remotely, or in a physical office location, they can dramatically improve your daily productivity. I know they did for me.

Nancy Kay leads the web and social media team for business solutions at TELUS. Nancy has been leading teams of marketing and web professionals for the last 15 years and has extensive experience in marketing, in both traditional and digital mediums.

What’s the coolest technology your remote teams use regularly? Join the conversation.