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Atlanta, May 6, 2008:  Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Martin, a leading law firm specializing in Federal tax controversies, advised high-tech executives at a Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) program for the Tax & Finance Society (TFS) to proceed with caution when dealing with an IRS audit.

According to George Abney, a former prosecutor who is now a Chamberlain Hrdlicka tax controversy attorney, “Until very recently, the IRS would not take any civil action against a taxpayer if that taxpayer was under criminal investigation.  Under new IRS policies, however, the IRS now conducts civil and criminal investigations of the same taxpayer simultaneously.  Making matters works, IRS auditors and collection agents are not allowed to tell taxpayers they are under criminal investigation – even if the taxpayers ask.”

“Taxpayers facing an audit now find themselves in a Catch-22 position,” says Abney.  “If they cooperate during a civil audit, they could incriminate themselves in an undisclosed criminal investigation.  If they do not cooperate but instead assert Constitutional privileges, they may lose the opportunity to defend themselves during the audit and in subsequent civil proceedings.”

The TAG Tax & Finance Society presentation was titled:  “Keeping it Civil:  How to Prevent an IRS Audit from Becoming a Criminal Investigation”.  The program was led by Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Martin tax controversy attorney, George Abney.  The 3 panel members were:  Danny Griffin, attorney and former prosecutor, Miller & Martin law firm; Joe Burby, attorney and former prosecutor, Powell Goldstein, LLP and Greg Esslinger, former FBI agent, FTI Consulting.

The primary points of the panel discussion that executives in the technology industry should know are:
-Proceed with Extreme Caution: due to changes in IRS policies implemented in 2007, the IRS now conducts civil and criminal investigations simultaneously.  Executives must be especially careful regarding your employment taxes – this is the most likely area of scrutiny by the IRS.  Outside the U.S., executives must use extreme caution when opening international offices and should seek help from firms that know the local laws.
-Assess the Damage: immediately upon being contacted by the IRS, conduct a thorough internal audit/investigation.
-Fix the Problem: based on your audit or investigation, implement a compliance program to demonstrate good faith to show the IRS that your company is committed to fixing the problem.

Don Campbell, Virtual Management Technologies

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The TAG Southeastern Software Association covered mashups and composite applications in the aptly named “Mashed Up” program. Taylor Davis, Director of Technology for New Products at Turner Broadcasting System, Inc; Kevin George, Founder, Managing Director of Progility Partners; Vic Pandya, Consultant and Mark Taylor, Vice President Mashups ,The Weather Channel Interactive engaged the audience with details on the evolving technology including the technology behind the buzzwords and the value the new tools will bring to technology companies.

Philip Moore
Start-Up

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On May 7, 2008 the TAG Enterprise 2.0 Society presented the Second Installment of their Speaker Series. The Presentation was lead by Joey Reinman and Elizabeth Clubb of Brighthouse, a global consulancy espousing the central concept of an idea’s ability to improve public life through maketing, communications and design. They discussed the recent successes Brighthouse has had using Web 2.0 tools to develop an Enterprise 2.0 portal framework for their clients.

-Deborah Lewis
D.H.L Consulting

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You, the customer, are at fault for bad CRM Implementations! People, not technology, miss success criteria metrics. Sometime the truth is hard to handle. But that was what 40 people learned about from our panel of experts in CRM Implementations at the TAG CRM Society May Event. Chris Reinking of Jabian Consulting started the discussion stating that the three CRM implementation success factors are to 1) Document the Guiding Principles and prioritize them. 2) Get early engagement of end users to give them ownership in the project. 3) Be ready for change. Think about what that means culturally and operationally within your organization. John Toms, Managing Director at BearingPoint, said that people tend to over complicate things by not looking at projects holistically. They need to spend time thinking about what CRM could be in the future. Not just a department specific project, but an enterprise wide solution. He also stated sometimes people have misconceptions that the “consultants” will do everything for you or to you. Everyone is in it together to ensure success and it all starts with good communication.

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On May 7th, TAG Young Professionals met for its second meeting this year – this time, to hear a great presentation on “Delivering Compelling Value.” Attendees were able to take away ‘three to five’ points on how to better deliver more compelling value in our messages.  The greatest points involved understanding the needs of people at different levels in the organization. It was a fabulous experience and I look forward to future TAG YP events.

-Bo Bowden, ChoicePoint

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TAG Global Sourcing met at Kilpatrick Stockton to listen to Mark Davison of Alix Partners.  Mark presented on a BPO case study entitled “Extending the Enterprise Via BPO.” The information presented included the following:  case study company vision and goals, business reasons for seeking an outsourcing opportunity, strategy and approach to BPO, vendor selection and evaluation, requirements and contract pointers, and lessons learned so far.

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The TAG Recruiting Society had over 100 people turnout for their evening with Kevin Wheeler on May 20.  Kevin provided a highly informative and thought provoking presentation to a combined audience of TAG and SHRM Atlanta members.  He shared his perspective and insights in to how the nature of work will change in the next decade and how the HR and Recruiting professions will need to change to keep pace.  He also provided some very interesting comparisons of the Baby Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y generations and how Recruiting professionals will need to approach each differently.  The Recruiting Society leadership team received rave reviews from many of the event attendees!

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TAG Healthcare dedicated its May event to honoring recipients of the HIMSS Davies Awards. Recognizing that many area healthcare
stakeholders aren’t aware of the Atlanta/Piedmont/Georgia connection with the Dr. Nicholas E. Davies awards, and the national significance,
TAG Healthcare invited the Georgia Davies winners to a panel discussion to discuss lessons learned, the need to take the initiative to embrace HIT,
and improvements in quality of care that can result from HIT. Participants included Dr. William McClatchey, Chief Medical Officer of Piedmont Healthcare,
Dr. Jeffrey Cooper, Cooper Pediatrics, Dr. Christopher J. Apostol, Evans Medical Group, Nancy Babbitt, CMPE, Administrator, Roswell Pediatric Center,
and Dr. Jim Morrow, North Fulton Family Medicine, P.C.,

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TAG Consulting held a panel discussion on May 20 continuing its Consulting 2.0 theme.  This session, “Collaborating as an Art Form,” discussed trends and tools consultants should know about in the collaboration space. Jason Storey, CTO of NSE, said opportunities exist for consultants who can teach companies about collaboration tools and best practices for deploying them. He noted that Microsoft’s SharePoint has evolved from document management to include “so much more functionality” that companies need help in getting the most from an investment in such applications. Russell Mix, CEO of Qtask, told the audience that “email is dead; it just doesn’t know it yet.” Mix said that collaboration tools will supplant email over time and suggested that the market will surpass $200 billion, adding “this market is going to be bigger than we can count.” Ely Yakley, meeting consultant with InterCall, added that collaboration tools also include the $2 billion web conferencing market. “Web conferencing is now used more for internal than external meetings,” she said. “It has become central to how employees collaborate.” The panel agreed that the key to successful implementations of collaboration tools is ease of use.  Tom “TK” Kuegler, Head of Revenue for PBwiki, said companies must choose their tools carefully “to find the tools that people will actually use; the tools chosen have to work within the company’s culture.”

Links to panelist Web sites:
Qtask
NSE
InterCall
PBWiki.com Collaboration Overview 7 Wiki Essentials

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TAG Marketing hosted its annual TAMY Awards on May 15th. The winners were announced during a breakfast ceremony at Maggiano’s Little Italy, Cumberland Mall. Winners were recognized for demonstrating significant and measurable accomplishments in one of four specific award categories.

The winners of the 2008 TAMY Awards are:
• Corporate Reposition Award – Emerging Company - IP2Biz
• Corporate Repositioning Award – Large Company - Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
• Customer Marketing Award – Large Company -Vitrue
• Marketing for Growth Award – Large Company - Cbeyond, Inc.
• Marketing Tactic Award – Large Company - Xerox Mortgage Services

“We continue to be amazed at the ingenuity and results achieved by our TAMY Award applicants,” said Ed Gandia, TAG Marketing awards chair. “A special thanks goes to our panel of outstanding judges who faced difficult decisions in sorting through an excellent field of entries.”

The winners were selected from a qualified group of applications. Each applicant had to be currently active in technology in Georgia, and the marketing program entered must have been managed entirely from Georgia. In addition, the programs/tactics submitted must have been carried out primarily during calendar year 2007. All applications were reviewed by a panel of judges comprised of:
• Gary Brooks – Servigistics
• Don Campbell – Virtual Management Technologies (VMT)
• Dana Cogan – Carabiner Communications
• Michael Copenhaver – Computer Associates
• Dudley Larus – Technology marketing consultant

Also during the program was the announcement of the 2008 Technology Marketing Executive of the Year.  Frank M. Grillo, executive vice president of marketing for Cypress Communications, was recognized for his outstanding leadership, career achievements and positive impact on technology marketing in Georgia.

After the winners were announced. Terrie O’Hanlon , CMO of Manhattan Associates, spoke to the group “Growing a Brand Beyond Its Core.” Her presentation addressed how a highly successful technology company can find it difficult to move perceptions beyond heritage value propositions.  The session explored the internal and external challenges marketers face in expanding a brand beyond its core, and highlights practical ways marketers can build on the past without being trapped by it.  During the presentation, Terrie shared examples from current brand initiatives to move market perception of Manhattan Associates beyond “warehouse software” to accurately reflect its relevance and leadership in the full scope of supply chain solutions.

The TAMY Awards were sponsored by Arketi Group, TAG Marketing’s 2008 gold sponsor, and TechLINKS, the event’s media sponsor.

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http://thay.xwjxj.cn/blog/5174

Atlanta-based search engine marketing consultant, Todd Miechiels, has been chosen as a panelist for the Technology Association of Georgia’s (TAG) upcoming discussion on May 29, 2007 titled, “Search Engine Marketing: Learn from the Experts.”

Miechiels, who offers a range of search engine marketing consulting and coaching services for B2B companies that want to increase their online demand generation, will be part of a four-person expert panel that will discuss best practices on topics such as optimizing content, landing pages, press release distribution, web analytics integration, and campaign management. He will be joined on the panel by moderator David Cummings, CEO of Hannon Hill; John Waddy, founder of TwentySix2 Marketing; and Craig Kronenberger, Managing Director of iCrossing.

“Todd has a great reputation among the Georgia technology and business community for being wise in the way of search engine marketing. He’s very open and willing to share practical advice and strategies with our members,” says Tino Mantella, President of the Technology Association of Georgia.

On his opportunity to be a panelist at this event, Miechiels says, “The Technology Association of Georgia has always been extremely supportive of the Atlanta interactive and marketing community, This is an opportunity for me to give back to an organization that’s given so much in terms of thought leadership and educational programming.”

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Posted by Ariel Killen

http://www.hr.com/SITEFORUM?&t=/Default/gateway&i=1116423256281&application=story&active=no&ParentID=1119278002800&StoryID=1142952667412&xref=http%3A//www.google.com/search%3Fq%3DHireDesk+Shares+Recruiting+Best+Practices+With+The+Technology+...%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sourceid%3Die7%26rlz%3D1I7ADBF_en
HR.com

HireDesk Chairman, Dr. David Jones, delivers thought leadership on how new recruiting automation, content, and metrics can produce a competitive advantage

HireDesk a division of Talent Technology Corporation and an award-winning provider of on-demand talent acquisition and retention solutions delivered the keynote address to the membership of the Recruiting Society of the Technology Association of Georgia. In the address, Dr. David Jones discussed new ways to leverage today´s recruiting technology to:

1. Source and attract candidates
2. Evaluate and identify the best candidates
3. Reduce legal compliance risk in hiring
4. Track “what works” in retaining new talent

During the address to dozens of recruiting and technology leaders from the Atlanta area, Dr. Jones described how three movements are changing the way both internal and external recruiters support their client organizations. First, Jones described how software is automating key stages in the recruiting process, both helping and challenging recruiters who are increasingly pressured to find and deliver candidates to hiring managers quickly and efficiently.

Jones discussed how the integration of candidate assessment and evaluation tools into these automated solutions is offering a clear value-add to recruiters on both sides of the vendor-company relationship. Finally, Jones noted how increased use of pay-off metrics, enabled by automation, is helping recruiters provide their clients and employers with objective measures of their effectiveness - a move that he views as a real entry of “Six Sigma thinking” into the practice of talent acquisition.

Jones concluded the address by describing how various sub-specialties in the recruiting and HR industry - sourcing, assessment, on-boarding, retention management, and automation - are all converging. He described how progressive recruiting firms and corporate HR departments are developing “total solution” approaches to talent acquisition and retention.

In Dr. Jones’ view, this already has begun to change the face of recruiting, leading to noteworthy consolidation of the industry. A case in point - the emergence of “total solution-oriented” recruitment process outsourcing companies (RPOs).

“It was great to have Dr. Jones and HireDesk present to our membership,” said Gary Shaar, Chairman of Programs for the Technology Association of Georgia´s Recruiting Society. “The information shared is not only relevant but presents a model upon which human resource professionals across the spectrum can develop and implement best practices,” continued Shaar.

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Posted by Ariel Killen

Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Kelly Gay
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2002/03/18/focus5.html

A little trivia: Which city was the first to be called the “Intelligent City of the Year” by the World Teleport Association? Atlanta, right?

Wrong. Actually it is the city of LaGrange, Ga., that boasts the honor, along with other recognition for its leadership in technology, especially for the city’s broadband infrastructure, available to every home, school and business.

An e-mail caught my eye last week, an invitation for technology enthusiasts to book seats to “e-roadie” down to LaGrange and network with other technology leaders.

The e-mail got me thinking about all the attention Atlanta receives, while many technology “firsts” are occurring elsewhere in the state. Rome, Savannah, Athens and all points in between are making vast contributions toward Georgia’s reputation as a technology epicenter.

Consider Rome, rated No. 1 of 193 small cities in health care with more physicians per capita than any other city in Georgia. Rome has seen many health-care-linked businesses emerge, including ePhys Healthcare Technology, Crestline Technologies and eLabLink.

Recently, the Technology Association of Georgia joined forces with technology incubator Digital Rome to create the Northwest Georgia Technology Alliance.

“We believe that Rome and cities like Rome can serve as model communities for `New Economy’ economic development through the synergy created by emerging companies and livable communities like ours,” says Digital Rome’s founder and president, Derek Willis.

And which city is second to Atlanta as far as technology-related employment? Savannah. Savannah’s technology sector has become well-organized through its Coastal Business, Education and Technology Alliance (BETA).

“Coastal BETA’s mandate is to maximize the potential of research and intellectual assets, linking to nearby research entities—The Herty Foundation and Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, and the many educational institutions based in and around Savannah,” says Howard J. Morrison Jr., chairman of the Technology Committee of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism.

Crossing all city borders in Georgia is the Office of Economic Development of the University System of Georgia (USG), created to leverage the vast resources of the state’s 34 public colleges and universities.

The centerpiece of the USG’s economic development program is Georgia’s Intellectual Capital Partnership Program, which provides one-stop entry to USG’s education programs, faculty expertise, research and development facilities.

One of the program’s special initiatives is Yamacraw, the economic development initiative that is intended to make Georgia a world leader in broadband communications.

You may have seen the recent Dow Jones article noting the University of Georgia in Athens is testing an alternate heat source—chicken fat. I can hear plenty of wisecracks from you Yellow Jackets, but the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering reports chicken fat yields about 90 percent of the heat given from fuel oil, with comparatively low sulfur and other air emission pollutants.

Athens recently was named in stories tied to stem cell development by BresaGen, an Australia-based company with labs in Athens. BresaGen is part of the Georgia BioBusiness Center, one of two UGA Research Foundation-sponsored business acceleration programs that house 14 technology companies. According to Margaret Wagner Dahl of the Development and Technology Alliances for UGA, university-related technology companies raised upward of

$30 million in financing last year.

For 2001, the entire state raised $770 million in venture funding—an impressive number that kept Georgia ranked among the top 10 nationwide.

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