Squeezing every dollar out of your cloud computing strategy

You might not be ready to say goodbye to summer, but it’s definitely fiscal year crunch time. If you’re like most CIOs, you’re already feeling the pressure and are buckling down to do some serious heavy lifting on your special projects and big picture things like your cloud computing strategy and corporate policies, as well as less fun topics like spending and budgetary austerity. We’ve loaded up a quick executive summary of the best around the Web, including a retrospective on how the 9/11 attacks affected how we approach IT, how we’re managing our work-life balance, and great advice for revisiting your cloud computing strategy.

• We know that 9/11 changed the way we travel, but it also changed the way we approach surveillance in the U.S.

• If you’re thinking about virtualization and your cloud computing strategy, Savio Rodgrigues reminds you to ignore the preview pricing and consider the long term when engaging cloud vendors.

• How rock solid is your corporate social media policy? A judge ruled that five employees who complained about their jobs on Facebook were unlawfully fired and that workers can safely vent their frustrations on social networks. Yeah, probably still not a good idea.

• One new startup is renting the iPad 2 for domestic flights, aiming at the family and casual traveler, but business users might also take advantage of the in-flight connectivity when flying in a laptop-defying coach seat.

• Feel like your work-life balance is a little weird? It’s not just you. A new iPass study finds that 95% of employers either encourage or tolerate workshifting, which means you are probably already doing it and you might not even realize it.

• Do your project leads need to be reminded of the five immutable principles of successful project management?

• Think that vSphere Site Recovery Manager supports Storage DRS? You’d be wrong. Or are you?

• Is proprietary open source just an oxymoron? Scott Fulton gives the low down on the new inclusive open source world order.

• Should businesses adopt a multichannel messaging strategy? George Schlossnagle urges businesses to think outside of the old paradigm and look to smartphones and social media.