Cohn, Lovewell, and Scappa will co-present “Going the Extra Mile’ this morning, Tuesday, September 13. They will share success stories on women who have gone above and beyond what was expected of them, and as a result, have gained work recognition and continually advanced their careers.

With Sage since 2005, Cohn manages Sage Payment Solutions’ quality assurance, process improvement, and agent management functions, as well as helps provide financial support for merchants. With more than 12 years of experience in the payments industry, Lovewell directs the learning and development of all Sage Payment Solutions employees.

With more than 16 years of experience in the payments industry, 12 of that with Sage, Scappa currently oversees daily management for Sage Payment Solutions’ customer support, agent support, underwriting, risk management, quality assurance, and corporate training. She currently serves on the W.net board of directors.

A non-profit 501(c) (3) organization, W.net seeks to provide a forum to inspire and empower women in the electronic transactions industry through networking opportunities, mentoring programs, and the overall promotion of women in the industry, by enabling them to maximize their potential and position them for greater success. As the organization has continued to grow, it has provided opportunities in even more ways – by expanding its reach on the local and national levels with the expansion of LINCs (Local Interest Network Circles), the Super LINC event, and the annual Career & Leadership Summit. W.net members are CEOs, presidents, senior managers, emerging leaders, and women from all levels in the electronic transactions industry. Membership spans across all facets of the electronic transactions industry: merchant acquiring, card issuing, processors, retailers, stored value, loyalty, check and ACH. For more information on the organization, membership and services provided, please visit www.w-net.biz.

Sage Payment Solutions has been providing businesses and organizations with electronic payment systems for more than 20 years. The company allows more than 155,000 merchants to accept multiple forms of payment, including credit and debit cards, electronic checks, Check21, gift and loyalty cards, and automatic recurring payment. Sage Payment Solutions provides a wide range of secure standalone and integrated payment processing solutions, including Sage Exchange, Sage Virtual Terminal, Sage Mobile Payments, and Sage Patient Payments. Based in McLean, Va., Sage Payment Solutions is a division of Sage North America. For more information, call 800-261-0240 or visit www.sagepayments.com. Follow Sage Payment Solutions on Twitter at http://sagepayments.com/twitter and on Facebook at http://sagepayments.com/facebook.

For more information on W.net’s 2011 Career & Leadership Summit, please visit http://w-net.biz/PageDisplay.asp?p1=8607.

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and related products and services, principally for small to medium-sized businesses. Sage North America employs 3,900 people and supports more than 3 million small and midsized business customers. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989. Sage has more than 6 million customers and 13,600 employees worldwide. We operate in over 24 countries covering the UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, India and China. For more information, please visit the website at www.sagenorthamerica.com. Follow Sage North America on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/SageNorthAmerica, and Twitter, http://twitter.com/sagenamerica.

©2011 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, the Sage logos, ACT!, Peachtree and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc., or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Press Contact:
Cynthia Sutton
Sage North America
703-793-2700, Ext. 3032
cynthia.sutton@sage.com

The uncertain economy has caused many IT professionals to stay put for the past few years, but the job market is about to shift in favor of applicants, according to experts. IT managers need to look to the future when it comes to wooing and retaining top talent.
“Many people are still on the fence about their needs in terms of IT talent for the next six to 12 months, but that is going to change’ said Larry Scinto, managing consultant for PA Consulting Group, an IT consulting firm based in Arlington, Va.

By all accounts, the IT job market is still a bit of a mixed bag. There is a glut of applicants for some IT positions that require general tech skills. Yet candidates with experience in emerging areas such as mobile and open-source computing are in high demand. IT professionals with health care and compliance experience are also being heavily recruited.

“The tech staff you need today might not be the tech staff you need tomorrow, so IT managers are being especially vigilant in their hiring practice and making sure they have the bench strength to go forward,’ Scinto said.

Start with what you have

The first step is to identify the employees that you want to keep and engage them in the future direction of the company’s IT strategy, said Joel Capperella, vice president of Philadelphia-based Yoh, a provider of IT talent and outsourcing services.

“Candidates are definitely becoming more willing to explore the job market, and it is incumbent on employers to clearly and articulately communicate the skills that will be needed going forward,’ he said. “You have to engage the employees that you want to keep by identifying their current skills and getting them. Do some crowdsourcing about how the IT department can handle emerging technologies such as tablet computing and open sourcing and see who chimes in with suggestions.’

As IT managers look at the return on investment when they purchase a software package or a new server, they must also look at the payback when they invest in employees.

“Employees are not just an expense, they are the company,’ said Johnny Laurent, vice president and general manager for St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Sage Employer Solutions, a division of Sage North America, a provider of software and business services to small and mid-size companies. “I truly believe in ROEI, return on employee investment. Employees have been feeling that they are just there to get a job done. When we talk to people about why they are looking to leave a particular job, money shows up fourth on the list. They want to feel they have a voice and have a chance for advancement.’

Budgets may be loosening up, enabling some employers to reinstate salaries that were cut during the downturn or even reinstate raises and bonuses. However, Kelly Finn, manager of the information technology division at Winter, Wyman & Co., a Waltham, Mass.-based staffing firm, said benefits beyond dollars can help keep valuable employees.

“Work-life balance and flexibility are big ones that I hear over and over again,’ she said. “People’s lives change over time and having the ability to both have a career and to manage family responsibilities is invaluable. Is there flexibility for someone to come in early and leave early [or vice versa] to accommodate a longer commute, day care pickup/drop off, coach their kid’s soccer team, etc? Would a partial work-from-home situation be possible? Technology today makes it very easy for people to be in touch and manage work responsibilities from virtually anywhere these days. In many cases, I see candidates who are willing to sacrifice compensation to have this kind of flexibility.’

RICHMOND, B.C. (August 2, 2011)—Sage North America announced today the appointment of Nancy Harris as vice president and general manager of Sage Simply Accounting.

As vice president and general manager, Harris will drive the strategic and product direction for Sage Simply Accounting and oversee key functional areas including sales and marketing and research and development. She will also focus on strengthening relationships with and cultivating an exceptional customer experience for Sage’s partner channels, accountants, bookkeepers and small business customers.

Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) might has been clearly demonstrated recently, with its Google+ social network closing in on 20 million users sharing more than a billion items a day in the first few weeks of operation. The fact that the service remains invitation-only and is still in a test phase further emphasizes that Google cannot be ignored in the social media space.
“If users are already using Google for something, the hooks already exist to tie in to Google+,” said Gartenberg.

So can Google+ topple the giant?

“Things change quickly in the social space, and remember that MySpace ruled not so long ago,” said Gartenberg. “This is a big opportunity for Google if it executes.”

Coming soon: Google+ monitoring and analytics
Gartenberg expects vendors to begin adding Google+ to their social media monitoring, social CRM and social analytics tools. He said to watch out for a flurry of announcements as companies vie to be first to market.

CRM analyst Paul Greenberg concurs.

“Because it’s early on, the conversations may be raw and a little less focused than in a more established social network, but ultimately who cares?” said Greenberg. “If it’s a significant source of discussion/conversation concerning a brand or products or trends, then it needs to be covered by the tools.”

Exactly how it will be tracked, though, remains to be seen. Greenberg said part of it depends on what Google+ allows beyond the firewall. The company may choose to retain that data internally, only make it available to certain sources or preferred partners, or release it broadly. Time will tell.

“I expect it to be tracked like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn this year, though on a smaller scale than the other three,” said Greenberg.

Sage is one of the many companies paying close attention to the Google+ phenomenon

“Google was almost anti-social before,” said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg. “The company has been very much behind in social media, but has shown they can create a compelling environment that will most likely give Facebook a run for its money.”

He called the company’s previous efforts via Buzz a disaster. Tied in to Gmail, it was almost universally reviled. But by taking its time, learning from its mistakes and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the competition, Google+ has emerged as a power to be reckoned with, said Gartenberg.

Recruiters love Google+ Circles
One big failing identified in Facebook, for example, is the ability to easily separate friends into different circles. Most users end up posting everything to everyone — political, sporting and religious postings going to all friends rather than the smaller subsets to which the message applies. Google+ Circles is an attempt to address this.

Online recruiters are already singing its praises as a way to find candidates. They see it as enabling rapid search of profiles, as well as organizing them into relevant Circles. As Google+ indexes the entire profile, keyword searches can be fruitful.

By tying this new service into the many existing well-subscribed Google tools and apps, Google+ could see a meteoric rise, especially once Google starts actively marketing the service.

“It’s clear they have been testing this product internally for quite some time and have also learned from their previous social efforts such as Buzz and Orkut,” said Greg Tirico, senior social media manager for Sage North America. “As a field test product, this is more than an excellent start for Google.”

What he likes, in particular, is the user interface. He calls it clean, simple and easy to understand. He’s also a fan of the Circles feature. He’s uncertain, though, about how it will fit into the grand scheme of monitoring and analytics.

“Until a proper API is released, I would be cautious about the monitoring and tracking that is being done,” said Tirico. “Without an API, we are limited to screen scraping and other less than exact methods for collecting data.”

He pointed out that SocialStatistics.com is already doing a good job of tracking growth and demographics for early adopters. That site is running an opt-in program, but the data seems to be able to be used reliably as a proxy for overall Google+ use. The site accurately predicted the 10 million user mark, for instance, before Google formally announced it during their most recent earnings call.

Tracking, though, will be limited until an API is forthcoming. In the meantime, it is only possible to track sentiment about Google+ and thoughts around the use of the tool using a standard analytics package.

“I suspect that Google+ business accounts will need tracking information,” said Tirico. “Google has recently accelerated the application process for business accounts, so tracking (or an API) are probably not far off. If Google+ is not being properly tracked through an API in less than one year, I will be very surprised.”

As for overall market evolution, he believes there is enough room for Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to grow together. As they grow, more defined roles will become clear for each of the networks.

“Google does not have to kill an existing social network in order to grow share and reach critical mass,” said Tirico. “Facebook could perhaps be limited to personal relationships,