08.18.10   eCampus News Not Getting the (Text) Message Today, technology plays a pivotal role in emergency alert systems. An effective system uses existing data and voice networks to deliver pre-recorded or live messages to alert the community of emergencies and give residents instructions, such as evacuating a building or going to pre-assigned shelters. Learn more ... 08.06.10   Government Computer News 5 Ways to Ease Desktop PC-induced Pain A recent study by CDW Government suggests there is potential for widespread deployment of desktop virtualization. The study reported that 84 percent of all government agencies are considering or implementing client virtualization; however, most agencies were grouped in the learning phase of the adoption curve. Learn more ... 08.03.10   Federal News Radio How to Leverage Your Data Center with Virtualization Data centers are proliferating in the federal government. We now have more than 1,000. We all know that virtualization reduces capital costs, allows for a scalable environment, reduces your energy footprint and speeds up setting up testing sites. Learn more ... 07.26.10   Tech & Learning Wireless Lab Contest Winners Announced CDW-G and Discovery Education announced the winners of the eighth annual Win a Wireless Lab sweepstakes. Each school will receive a state-of-the-art 21st-century classroom, complete with wireless notebook computers or tablet PCs, an interactive whiteboard, student response system, projector, printer, document camera, video camcorder and more. Learn more ... 07.19.10   The Chronicle of Higher Education What Belongs in a 21st-Century Classroom? Faculty and IT Staff Disagree Faculty members and Information Technology staff members alike say technology is useful for teaching and learning, but professors take a narrower view of what technology belongs in today's classroom, according to a report released by CDW-G. Learn more ... 07.16.10   InformationWeek Government Sees Virtualization Benefits Government agencies are reaping the financial and efficiency benefits of virtualization technology, but still lag behind the public sector in adopting it, according to a new report by CDW-G. Seventy-seven percent of Federal, state and local agencies are implementing at least one form of virtualization, and of those, 89 percent are benefiting from the technology, according to CDW-G's 2010 Government Virtualization Report. The report is based on a May survey of 600 Federal, state and local IT managers. Learn more ... 06.25.10   Converge Teacher Training Lays Foundation for Digital Learning In 2004, Hunterdon Central School District gave every teacher a tablet computer and set up wireless projectors and multimedia speakers in their rooms. The district worked with CDW-G to figure out what hardware was needed and what tools would fit well with the district's goals. Through its partnership with CDW-G, the district was also connected with staff at other school districts. Learn more ... 06.10.10   9-1-1 Magazine NOAA Predicts Near-Record Hurricane Season for 2010 A well-managed disaster preparedness plan can help prevent costly downtime and help maintain important citizen services. CDW-G outlines seven habits of highly resilient organizations that state and local government officials can adopt to best prepare their IT systems for a hurricane. Learn more ... 06.01.10   University Business Sustainable IT When colleges and universities start assessing their carbon footprint, the IT department is likely to come under fire by virtue of having oversight of much of the energy consumption on campus. Just how much energy do IT functions account for? CDW-G's 2009 Energy Efficient IT Report shows that IT executives who are responsible for the IT energy bill are twice as likely to place high importance on energy efficiency in the purchasing process as executives who do not own the IT energy bill. Learn more ... 06.01.10   T.H.E. Journal Nothing to LOL About To dodge potential security threats and keep students safe, districts are choosing an unfortunate solution to social media – blocking technology that has substantial educational value. Nick Teplan, CDW-G networking and security specialist, and Brad Sandt, director of technology, Park Hill School District, provide insight on allowing access to social networking sites, while simultaneously protecting networks from vulnerabilities. Learn more ... 05.25.10   Washington Technology CDW-G Seeks New Small-biz Partners CDW-G is seeking partnerships with small businesses to go after new Federal contracting opportunities. The company issued an immediate request for proposals soliciting small businesses as partners. Successful respondents will join CDW-G's Small Business Partner Consortium, which was established in 2003. Learn more ... 05.20.10   Government Technology Spring Cleaning Can Be Time for Optimizing the Data Center Springtime is a good time for housecleaning, as that well worn adage goes. The same can be said for IT, according to CDW-G, which recently released a checklist of suggestions for optimizing data centers. Learn more ... 05.14.10   Educators' Royal Treatment 7-Step District IT Checklist While educators are thinking about summer and continuing education workshops, technology and IT professionals are thinking spring maintenance, summer work, and the first day of the new school year. Learn more ... 05.01.10 eSchool News Schools Turn to Unified Communications to Save Money, Streamline Operations More K-12 schools, colleges, and universities are turning to unified communications as a way to streamline campus communication and save much-needed money in unpredictable economic times, a new survey suggests. Learn more ... 04.21.10 Government Computer News Giving Hackers a Dose of Their Own Poison Hackers who attack Federal Web sites may soon be in for a dose of their own poison. The government is able to use hackers' own malware to strike back, and some may already be doing so, according to reports. Learn more ... 04.15.10 Government Computer News NY County Cashes in on Unified Communications Broome County, situated in New York's Southern Tier along the Pennsylvania state line, has fewer than 200,000 residents but serves as a hub for police departments in several surrounding counties to connect with state police. Learn more ... 04.01.10 Campus Technology Calculated to Save Money…and Energy One of the easiest ways IT can lower its energy consumption is to buy ENERGY STAR-qualifying equipment. In surveying higher ed institutions about energy-efficient IT practices, CDW-G found that more colleges and universities are getting on the ENERGY STAR bandwagon. From 2008, the first year of the survey, to 2009, the percentage of survey respondents who reported buying ENERGY STAR-compliant devices jumped from 31 to 57 percent. Learn more ... 03.30.10 eCampus News Colleges Turn to Unified Communications to Save Costs, Boost Productivity More K-12 schools, colleges and universities are turning to unified communications as a way to streamline campus communication and save money in unpredictable economic times, a new survey by CDW Government suggests. Learn more ... 03.25.10 Government Computer News Is Cybersecurity Underfunded? Many Feds Think So Ninety-four percent of government and related information technology professionals believe federal agencies and networks get attacked every day, but 47 percent believe their organization does not have the funding it needs to meet its security requirements, according to a poll of FOSE attendees at CDW-G's presentation of its November 2009 Federal Cybersecurity Report. A further 27 percent were unsure whether they had the funding needed to support their cybersecurity efforts. Learn more ... 03.12.10 Converge Does Your School Communicate Effectively? At Normandale Community College, the phone system just isn't clicking with the faculty, staff and students. At 10 or 12 years old, it's not exactly antique, but it doesn't meet the needs of users – it will need to be replaced down the line. Learn more ... 03.02.10 Campus Technology Higher Ed Sees Dramatic Ramp-Up of Unified Communications Two-thirds of institutions of higher education institutions--66 percent--have prepared a business case or strategic plan for implementing unified communications (UC), citing reduced operating costs and distance learning as the top benefits. That's up from 41 percent in 2009. Public institutions were more likely to have prepared a business case or strategic plan for UC than private institutions. Those are the results from a new survey published by CDW Government (CDW-G), which sells technology products and services. Learn more ... 01.01.10 Campus Technology Calling All Community Colleges Two-year schools lag in implementing emergency notification systems – but all higher ed institutions need to boost awareness of these life-saving systems. All may not be equal on college campuses when it comes to emergency notification systems. According to a 2009 CDW-G nationwide survey of higher education institutions*, community college denizens are less likely to know if their campus has a modern notification system than faculty, students, and IT staff at four-year schools. (The survey defined a "modern" system as one that uses a combination of mass e-mail, text-messaging, loudspeakers, and sirens.) Learn more ... 12.07.09 Government Technology CIOs Weigh Security Opinions with Federal Counterparts in CDW-G Report Recent survey results reveal that federal IT professionals grappled with more cyber-attacks in 2009 than they did in 2008, and that more than half of their agencies experienced a cyber-security incident at least weekly, but when one city chief information security officer (CISO) read that, he wasn't sure if the respondents were in agreement over what an "incident" actually is. Learn more ... 12.04.09 Processor Boosting Energy Efforts Making a move toward energy efficiency is on the minds of many IT professionals. In fact, CDW's 2009 Energy Efficient IT Report indicates that 52% of organizations actively working to reduce energy consumption have cut IT energy costs. Although this initial effort is underway and yielding results, there remains plenty of opportunity to reduce energy consumption even further. Learn more ... 11.12.09 InformationWeek Government IT Confronts Security Threats Daily External attacks, malware, lost devices, and internal threats pose ongoing security challenges for many federal agencies, according to a new report. Nearly a third of federal IT pros say their agency experiences at least one cybersecurity incident each day, according to a new survey. Learn more ... 11.05.09 InsideHigherEd.com Technology Gap Professors think they are doing reasonably well when it comes to using technology in the classroom, according to a survey released here this week by CDW-G at the annual meeting of Educause. Not everyone agrees with the faculty view of things. Learn more ... 10.27.09 Government Computer News DHS Needs Outreach Program for Emergency Responders, Survey Concludes CDW-G says coordination would help fulfill National Emergency Communications Plan. The Homeland Security Department should launch an outreach initiative to ensure that state and local agencies are working toward the emergency management communications goals the agency outlined in the National Emergency Communications Plan, according to a report issued by CDW Government. Learn more ... 10.27.09 Government Computer News DHS Needs Outreach Program for Emergency Responders, Survey Concludes CDW-G says coordination would help fulfill National Emergency Communications Plan. The Homeland Security Department should launch an outreach initiative to ensure that state and local agencies are working toward the emergency management communications goals the agency outlined in the National Emergency Communications Plan, according to a report issued by CDW Government. Learn more ... 10.19.09 Healthcare IT News Cerner, CDW Announce Deal to Push EHR's to Physician Practices In what has been an ongoing trend over the past year, two healthcare IT giants are joining forces to help physician practices adopt healthcare technology. The latest collaboration, announced Oct. 19, has the Cerner Corporation and CDW Healthcare partnering to offer Cerner's electronic health records system to CDW clients beginning November 1. Learn more ... 09.01.09 Campus Technology Report: Energy Programs Driving IT Savings, But Fewer Execs Emphasize Efficiency The majority of colleges and universities that have energy management strategies in place are experiencing cost savings as a result of their efforts. But, according to new research released this week, IT executives are de-emphasizing energy efficiency as a priority in their departments. Learn more ... 08.10.09 Government Computer News Nine Tips for COOP Planning Officials at CDWG, along with industry observers and others interviewed for this report offered several recommendations to assist federal government organizations in their ongoing continuity planning efforts. Learn more ... 07.31.09 Homeland Security Newswire Eleven Questions to Ask – and Answer – About Your Organization's Crisis Plan The outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus, or swine flu, has caused anxiety as businesses, schools, and governments contemplated the prospect of widespread quarantines and shutdowns. Many organizations which already have crisis-response plans used the occasion to dust off these plans, and many that do not have such plans used the pandemic prospect to start creating one. Preparedness is a good thing – especially as pandemics are only one kind of crisis that can disrupt an organization on such a scale. Learn more ... 07.01.09 Washington Technology New Virtualization Solutions Can Cut Desktop Costs Maintaining employees' computers is one of the information technology department's most thankless responsibilities. The desktop and laptop PCs that are fixtures of today's workplace eat up IT staff time and a good slice of the department's capital budget. But usually, the IT department hears from users only when the devices are broken or tied to a security breach. Learn more ... 07.01.09 Healthcare Informatics Eco-nomics Prior to the economic downturn, the movement for environmentally friendly or "green" practices had begun carving out a small but noteworthy niche in the healthcare IT industry. According to a 2008 survey by CDW Healthcare, 57 percent of providers had plans to actively pursue energy-efficient IT/recycling practices by 2009, and 21 percent said green IT policies guide the majority of their purchasing decisions. Learn more ... 06.16.09 Virtualization Journal Federal IT Managers Identify Significant Potential in Virtualization CDW Government, Inc. (CDW-G), has released its 2009 Federal Virtualization Report, an assessment of client, server and storage virtualization in Federal civilian and defense agencies. The report, based on an April survey of 377 Federal IT managers, reveals that while 73 percent say the technique, a broad term used to describe the abstraction of computer resources, is integral to improved efficiency in IT operations and reduced costs, just 20 percent indicate that their agencies are harnessing virtualization to the fullest extent. Learn more ... 05.19.09 T.H.E. Journal School Districts Increase Emergency Alerts, Surveillance on Students School districts are saturating their campuses with surveillance cameras, with nearly four in five (79 percent) reporting that they use cameras at their schools--an increase of nine points over the last 12 months, according to a new report. But overall, according to CDW Government (CDW-G), which conducted the survey, schools are not keeping pace with "increasing threats." Learn more ... 04.08.09 MedTech Journal Survey Finds Hospitals That Make Balanced Infrastructure Investments Enjoy Better Performance CDW Healthcare, part of the public sector subsidiary of CDW Corporation and a leading provider of technology products and services to healthcare organizations, today announced the results of the IT Checkup, a survey of more than 500 IT and clinical healthcare professionals from across the United States. The study reveals that hospitals with stronger IT infrastructures enjoy significantly better performance and results from their clinical applications than providers who deploy applications without concurrent investments in infrastructure. Learn more ... 03.13.09 Campus Technology Emergency Mass Notification Revisited Sometimes you need a wake-up call. Mine came at 8:12 a.m. Thursday, March 5, when a massive natural gas explosion blew out four historic buildings in downtown Bozeman, MT, just 50 miles away. Earlier in the week I had received a press release from CDW-G about a "Mass Notification Toolkit" but had been too busy to pursue it. "Just another vendor sales piece," had been my assumption. With fire departments from around the county rushing to the scene and a multi-block evacuation underway, I decided to take a closer look. Learn more ... 02.27.09 Federal News Radio DoD Out In Front with Unified Communications The Defense Department chief information officer, John Grimes, signed a memo in January calling for the military to begin testing using the Internet for all communications. The Unified Communications Strategy describes DoD's end state and how they were going to get there, according to Cindy Moran, the Defense Information Systems Agency's director of network services. Learn more ... 02.02.09 T.H.E. Journal Pennsylvania Ed Tech Initiative Shifts Students to Project-Based Learning Pennsylvania's three-year Classrooms for the Future (CFF) initiative has borne fruit, according to a recent study conducted jointly by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and education IT provider CDW Government. Learn more ...