Brainstorming is a popular working method which is commonly used by UX design teams. It involves a group of designers meeting (whether offline or via video call) and generating as many ideas as possible to find the best solution to a specific problem or come up with creative design ideas. Brainstorming sessions are usually held at the start of a UX project so that designers could use the ideas they think are the best later in the process of product creation. These sessions can vary in duration and form depending on which problems need to be solved, how many people participate and how many ideas need to be generated.
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BCM & Operational resilience: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Where has it come from and what comes next?
Recently, The BCI, one of the leading institutes working in the field of organizational resilience and business continuity, issued its regular report BCI Operational Resilience Report 2023 in collaboration with Riskonnect, who work with risk management solutions.
One of the questions they asked the respondents was if there was a difference between organizational resilience and operational resilience. As the answers demonstrated, for most respondents (and in most companies) these terms were used as synonyms. Having studied the report, the colleagues brought up another matter – The BCI introduced the new term of "organizational resilience" in addition to "business continuity" and "operational resilience".
If we search Habr for "Business Continuity", "DRP", "BCP", or "BIA", we’ll find quite enough posts by my colleagues (I’ve met some of them face to face and worked with the others) about data system recovery, data system testing, fault-tolerant infrastructure, and some other things. Yet, hardly any of them explain where all of it has come from, how it is changing, where it is heading – and why.
I thought the time has come to change the situation for the better and answer some of the questions like where business continuity provisions and operational resilience has come from, how they are changing, and where this trend is heading and why. To share my thoughts about development of the industry and its current de-facto state in case of a mature (or not too mature) introduction level – some things I’ve stated for my own use.
Methodology for calculating results of a task set: taking into account its level of difficulty
In the world of academic knowledge evaluation, objective calculation of large data presents a serious problem. Can a student studying in an Advanced Maths class and getting B-marks be evaluated equally with another student, getting B-marks in a General Maths class? Can we create a system that would take into account the level of difficulty those students face?
This article will describe a system of independent evaluation we have been using for school olympics in five subjects (Mathematics, English Language, Russian Language, Tatar Language, Social Science) for students grades 1 to 11. In each academic year we organise six qualification tournaments, with about 15,000 students from different regions of Russia. Then we select the top ten participants in each subject and each grade for their future participation in the final (seventh) tournament, where only the best of the best are chosen. It means that 550 participants compete in the final tournament, which is about 5.5% of all participants in the academic year.
It is obvious that those multiple tournaments cannot be absolutely homogenous, and inevitably the levels of difficulty for each set of tasks vary. Therefore, it is critical for us to take into consideration those variations of difficulty and calculate the results in the most objective manner.
Ten “Soft Skill” Job Interview Mistakes
A job interview is one of the most stressful life events. According to research IT specialists change their jobs every 2-3 years, and every tame they are faced with interviews with HR, tech leads and future managers. Artem Golovachev, Director of IT architecture at Innotech, shares his insights on how to successfully pass an interview.
What causes testers and developers to feud and how to avoid it
Testers and developers are the driving force of any IT enterprise. Their work directly influences the quality of the final product. Pavel Petrov, our Lead tester-engineer of the risk detection monitoring service for corporate clients, shares his insights on building a productive relationship between two different IT camps.
It's alive
I wonder why IT developer interviews are so strange most of the time. It feels as if the people are looking for computer science teachers, not engineers. All those theoretical questions that have no relation to the working reality. It is strange to be looking for eloquent teachers, who can perfectly explain any term or pattern, and then ask them to do the actual work. Maybe it is the imprint from the years spent in university when the teachers looked like all-knowing gods and seemed to solve any issue in your life. May be, may not. Anyway, these teachers stay in unis and don't do the work.
You know, what would be my universal answer to all interview questions? “I have no idea how and why it works, but I can use it, and I can use it for good”. This is the reality. Actually, no one knows exactly these hows and whys. What is a computer? What is electricity? What is an electron? No one knows for sure. But it works and we use it.
Imagine a famous author, like Stephen King, asked a question about the difference between deus ex machina and Mary Sue. Would his answer change the quality of his books? He may or he may not know all those scientific literature terms, but he can use the language and use it for good.
Every time I turn on my computer it is a wonder. I have no idea what is going on, but it awakes, it becomes alive, and I can communicate with it in its own sublime and subtle language.
Have you ever realised that all these electronic devices are monsters, Frankenstein's monsters? Some pieces of dead matter were put together, and then, with some electricity involved, it suddenly awoke. “It's alive!”. Had Frankenstein any idea why it turned alive? Of course not, or why he was so surprised? Every developer experiences this feeling almost every day. “It's working!”
How Analyst Days/14 went for us
Conference participation is one of the most important practices for professional development. Hence, Innotech is actively sending out both its speakers and listeners for the biggest events. Senior Analyst Anastasia Kochetova shares her impressions from the Analyst Days/14 conference.
Who controls App Store: Martians or AI? Closed session of Russia's Federation Council and Apple leaked online
Video recording of a closed session of the upper house of Russia's parliament was leaked online by Telegram channel A000MP97. In the video, Andrei Klimov, head of the Ad Hoc Sovereignty and Preventing Interference in the Domestic Affairs Commission, demands Apple to disclose who controls the App Store: people from Mars or artificial intelligence?
On September 16th, a closed session of the Commission took place, and representatives of Apple and Google were among those who were invited. The session discussed ways to protect sovereignty of the country, in particular, the fact that the Navalny app was still available in Apple App Store and Google Play. The services were accused of being complicit with organisations deemed extremist and banned in Russia as well as interference with Russian elections.
10(+) years in the Labs
At the beginning of the year 2021, Qrator Labs is celebrating its 10 year anniversary. On January 19 our company marks the official passing of a formal 10 years longevity mark, entering its second decade of existence.
Everything started a little bit earlier - when at the age of 10 Alex saw the Robotron K 1820 - in 2008, when Alexander Lyamin - the founder and CEO of Qrator Labs, approached the Moscow State University superiors, where he worked as a NOC engineer at the time, with an idea of a DDoS-attack mitigation research project. The MSU's network was one of the largest in the country and, as we know now, it was the best place to hatch a future technology.
That time MSU administration agreed, and Mr Lyamin took his own hardware to the university, simultaneously gathering a team. In two years, by summer 2010, the project turned out to be that successful. It courted the DDoS attack of a bandwidth exceeding the MSU's upstream bandwidth capability. And on June 22 MSU superiors gave Mr Lyamin a choice - to shut down or find money to incorporate.
Alexander Lyamin chose to incorporate with his own means, which effectively meant that the needed infrastructure must be built from scratch. The initial design should be distributed instead of concentrated within one network, which resources were not enough for this specific task. And by September 1, 2010, those first server sites were ready and running.
5 Most Popular IT Outsourcing Software Development Companies in India
The global IT outsourcing market generated a revenue of $520.74 billion in 2019 and it is expected to surge at a CAGR of 7.7% during the 2020-2027 period. The immense growth of the market is due to the growing popularity of outsourcing software development companies across the globe.
In fact, in 2018, India dominated the global IT outsourcing market with a 67.0% share and the Indian IT sector generated a revenue of more than $150.0 billion with a CAGR of 10-15.0% per year.
The majority of small businesses, start-ups, and enterprises are inclined towards IT outsourcing companies for managing and handling their business. There are hundreds and thousands of outsourcing software development companies available on the internet but choosing the top-notch IT outsourcing company is a tough call because you might fall into the wrong trap
So, for that, I am going to shortlist the top 5 software development outsourcing companies in India that not only add value to your business but also help you to expand your business across the globe.
I am going to prepare a list of parameters that will back the shortlisting of these top 5 IT outsourcing companies in India-
Does gender segregation in the labor market still persist?
The biggest corporations and companies run special programs to shorten gender inequality on labor market. That seems like the evidence: smaller firms try to imitate the policy, and also values, of world famous companies in order to succeed and gain benefit like the second ones do (it is an economic-sociological proved behavior), so in nearest future, or perhaps in present, all players on labor market will popularize the idea of gender equality in all its senses. However, the state of affairs is far from desired. Even if organizations follow gender unbiased strategy, will it solve the global problem of gender inequality at work overall?
This is the guest article by Maria Antomony, HSE University graduate student, sociologist and code passionate.
Top IT Consulting Companies In India and USA For Tech Professionals
The race to become the best IT consulting firm has been at its peak for the last few years. Each and every business requires a top technology consulting company for implementing its IT and development strategy. However, they find it tedious and perplexing to pick one according to their needs, budget, time, and so on; because it can determine the future of their business. And because of an outbreak like COVID-19 existing business continuity plans aren't capable of handling the unknown variables of business.
New action to disrupt world’s largest online criminal network
Today, Microsoft and partners across 35 countries took coordinated legal and technical steps to disrupt one of the world’s most prolific botnets, called Necurs, which has infected more than nine million computers globally. This disruption is the result of eight years of tracking and planning and will help ensure the criminals behind this network are no longer able to use key elements of its infrastructure to execute cyberattacks.
A botnet is a network of computers that a cybercriminal has infected with malicious software, or malware. Once infected, criminals can control those computers remotely and use them to commit crimes. Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, BitSight and others in the security community first observed the Necurs botnet in 2012 and have seen it distribute several forms of malware, including the GameOver Zeus banking trojan.
Indebted to the Pioneers: How the Need for Innovation Sparked the Birth of the Tech Industry
Blockchain Is Changing The Way Rail Industry Works
Railways had made our transportation very easy since 1830 when the first railway began in England. From 1830 to 2020, the development in the railways has been quite significant. The concept of blockchain is expanding widely; hence the public interests are also growing on a vast scale. Major enthusiasts about blockchain are the investors and businessmen who wish for transparency and equity in the transaction. Now since blockchain is no more just a concept its application in railways is expected to smoothen the transportation.
How to Wrap Up a Software Development Project the Right Way
A good rule of thumb in software development is that your next software project should always be better than your last. Why? Because the lessons you learn and take away from each project should be continuously documented and applied in future projects.
In the words of Rachel Green, every good project should end with closure.
Follow this quick and easy 6-step guide to ensure that you wrap up your software project efficiently and effectively.
6 Steps for Successfully Wrapping up a Software Development Project
1. Document future needs
Android, Google and free content licenses. Who is to blame and what can be done?
The story of another ban.
Have you heard about bans on apps and developers in Google Play? This is just such a story. It’s also an attempt to collect similar cases into one place and offer some kind of plan of action to prevent Google’s unpredictable actions. It isn’t fair to be banned for the legal use of free material. Personally, I like the idea of content licenses such as CC BY-SA, which permits any use, including commercial. Thanks to such licenses, we developers have websites like StackOverflow, where I’ve been elected to be the moderator. Unfortunately, companies like Google don’t respect the ideas behind these licenses. Here's my story.
Startups: 10 takeaways from 20 lessons at Stanford University
Why do some people get rich off of their ideas, and others are not able to reach even 100 customers? The renowned Stanford University, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, offers a course where students can learn the recipes for founding a successful startup. This course is also available as an audio podcast and on YouTube. Here are my takeaways from 20 lectures with such well-known teachers as Peter Thiel (PayPal), Paul Graham (Y Combinator), and Alex Schultz (Facebook).
A Brief History of Video Conferencing: From the Beginning to Full Commercial Use
Video conferencing systems, so familiar to us today, have come a long way — more than a hundred years passed from fantastic ideas inspired by belief in unstoppable technical progress to the first mass implementation of video conferencing systems. A lot of dramatic events have come along the way. The way to success wasn’t easy at all.