• 5/03 - Orange County Round Table
• 5/04 - Downtown Los Angeles Round Table
• 5/11 - West Los Angeles Round Table

• Cibola Systems & Sidebench CEOs to Lead Design-Thinking Course
• Cornerstone OnDemand Experiences End-of-Year Surge in Europe
• Envision Financial Systems Powers Award-Winning Platform
• TechMedics to Present "Casino Royale" Networking Event

HEALTH IT MEMBER NEWS
• Welcome New Member: Sajid Ahmed, WISE Healthcare
• El Camino Uses Robotic Platform for Lung Cancer Diagnosis
• GeBBS Healthcare Receives PCI Compliance Certification
• King & Spalding Offers Cybersecurity Summit as Webinar
• TheraChat Wins Innovation Challenge Award

• Dave Berkus on: Employment Law & the "18-Month Rule"
• GetVisible Provides Tools to Optimize Website Performance
• Intellect on: Workplace Compliance
• Taylor Digital on: Mapping Your Blog Strategy
• UGovernIT on: The Value Seam

The strongest state net neutrality bill in the nation passed a key test last week when a California Senate committee approved legislation that would replicate the US-wide bans on blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization that were implemented by the FCC in 2015, and it would go beyond the FCC rules with a ban on paid data-cap exemptions. The FCC passed its rules under Democratic leadership but voted to eliminate them after Republican Ajit Pai took over the chairmanship. The bill now has to go through the Senate Judiciary Committee [this week] before reaching a vote from the full Senate. It would also need approval of the Democratic-majority State Assembly and Governor Jerry Brown, also a Democrat. (Click for Full Article: ARS Technica, 4/18/18)
Meanwhile, in Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown recently signed into law a measure requiring state agencies only to do business with ISPs that do not block or slow traffic or accept payment to prioritize some data. And attorneys general in 23 states and DC have filed a suit seeking to prevent the federal rules change. All of this activity suggests net neutrality could likely be an issue in the mid-term elections and perhaps even in the 2020 campaign cycle. (Click for Full Article: USA Today, 4/20/18)

Microsoft and Facebook are leading an initiative to improve the "security, stability and resilience of cyberspace" - as well as to aid any country that falls victim to cyberattacks. The initiative, called the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, and signed by 30+ companies - including Cisco, Dell, HP, Nielsen, Nokia, Oracle, and others - comes as U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies issued a joint warning about Russian cyberattacks on the internet infrastructure. The goal is to work together in order to establish partnerships with the industry, civil society, and security researchers to improve technical collaboration, coordinate vulnerability disclosures, share threats, and minimize the potential for malicious code to be introduced into cyberspace. (Click for Full Article: MediaPost's Digital News Daily, 4/17/18)

Seed stage investments in Los Angeles area startups was up, year-to-year, according to the Q1 2018 LA Seed Deal Report from investor Amplify LA. According to the report, 23 LA startups raised a total of $52.9M in seed funding in Q1, which was up 2.5% from Q1 of 2017. That said, the quarter-to-quarter results were down 21% from what had been an extremely robust Q4. The most active area for LA area seed investments was in media, entertainment, and gaming, with software-as-a-service businesses also bringing in significant seed funding. (Click for Full Article: SoCalTech, 4/11/18)

A new external survey released by Ernst & Young LLP (EY) reveals a growing chasm between how senior-level and junior-level employees view their ability to be innovative at the organization in which they work, with 54% of entry-level people saying that new ideas are celebrated internally, compared with 91% of senior executives. The disparity was most prevalent by organizational level as opposed to age or generational breakdown. A summary of the survey's key findings includes: *Employees and their bosses have different views on innovation; *Innovation is now a key factor in the escalating war for talent; and *Employees believe innovation is changing the outside world, but not their jobs. (Click for Full Article: EY News Release, 4/10/18)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk now admits his vision of robots cranking out thousands of Model 3 cars per week in Fremont may have been too ambitious, telling CBS that excessive automation created unexpected problems on the production line. . . "Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated," Musk said. (Click for Full Article: Silicon Valley Business Journal, 4/16/18)

The Consumer Technology Association recently announced the formation of its new 21st Century Workforce Council, a leadership forum to address the nation's skills gap, ensure the U.S. tech sector has the high-skilled workers it needs, and devise strategies to upskill U.S. workers to succeed in the 21st century. (Click for Full Article: Consumer Technology Association, 4/16/18)

Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have been lobbying federal regulators to protect at least some virtual currencies from being categorized as securities, a designation that would carry significantly more oversight. The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz helped assemble a group of investors and lawyers that met with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late March. They also proposed a "safe harbor" for some virtual currencies. Regulators have indicated in private meetings that they are considering whether virtual currencies - including Ether, the second most widely used digital token - should be categorized as a security, according to three people who have been in the meetings. That designation could cause a significant drop in the value of Ether. "We are seeing a watershed moment in which many firms in the digital asset community who may have been ignorant of the law - or poorly informed - are now coming to terms with the fact that they are subject to regulators." (Click for Full Article: New York Times, 4/19/18)

A group of hackers called Orangeworm has been sneaking into healthcare companies' computer systems, according to Symantec. Of the nearly 100 companies breached by the group, 39% were in healthcare. The group has targeted between 24 and 36 organizations this year alone, including companies in healthcare, IT, manufacturing, and logistics. The hackers have broken into imaging devices, like X-ray and MRI machines, as well as computers related to patient consent for medical procedures. They also homed in on manufacturers and others in the supply chain. After breaking into a company's network, the hackers install the Kwampirs malware to gain access to computers on the network so they can extract information about the network. They then install more malware to steal information, though Symantec isn't sure what type of information specifically. (Click for Full Article: Modern Healthcare, 4/23/18)

The recent AVIXA blog post - What's "Design Thinking" and What Does It Have to Do with AV?, spotlights Lisa Perrine, CEO of Cibola Systems, including asking her to define "design thinking." She replies that it's both a point of view and a way of approaching a project or issue. It helps you take something challenging and break it down into bits to create innovative and valuable solutions, utilizing five disciplines - empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Lisa believes that it's an iterative process - you might test as you define your point of view, and use empathy when you're prototyping. Lisa also shares that she and Sidebench CEO Kevin Yamazaki, along with another industry leader, are going to facilitate a three-day course on design thinking at InfoComm 2018, in early June. The three instructors use design thinking in different industry roles, which ultimately cover the three points of view that create an exceptional experience - space, technology, and content. (from Cibola: Lisa Perrine; from Sidebench: Kevin Yamazaki, both West Los Angeles)

Cornerstone OnDemand experienced a surge in European client demand in the third and fourth quarters of 2017. Growth in new clients nearly doubled in the latter half of 2017, when compared to the first half of the year, reaching a total of approximately 650 clients in Europe. Nearly a third of Cornerstone's client growth in Europe was due to strong interest in the Cornerstone HR Suite from new and existing clients in the region. The company also saw early traction in Europe for its expanded learning content offerings. Last autumn, Cornerstone announced strategic partnerships with leading learning content providers Cegos Group, Skill Pill, and BizLibrary, joining a roster of more than 30 diverse content providers.  Meanwhile, on May 15, Cornerstone will co-lead a webinar - Talent & Career Mobility: Why the Success of Both Company and Employee Depends on Agility and Continuous Development - from 11 a.m. until noon Pacific. (Adam Miller, West Los Angeles)

Two companies recently received a Tech Innovation Award for their fundVISION consolidated platform for mutual funds powered by Envision Financial System's FundKeeper technology. CUSO Financial Services and Sorrento Pacific Financial were recognized by the Bank Insurance & Securities Association for leadership in the advancement of the financial services industry's products, services, and platforms through technology innovation. Envision's FundKeeper brings financial intermediaries a new approach to supporting mutual-fund-only investor accounts. Traditionally, intermediaries have held these accounts directly with mutual fund families, and suffered business inefficiencies and lack of control. Or, they've been forced to "go to traditional brokerage" with accounts unsuited to conventional brokerage fees and complexity. FundKeeper is a more effective alternative to both these options with better economics in most cases. (Satnam Gambhir, Orange County)

On the evening of May 19, TechMedics will present a Casino Royale Cyber Security Networking Event in downtown Los Angeles, featuring drinks, hors d'oeuvres, casino games, and prizes. Each ticket includes $1,000 in playing chips. "You must defeat our evil hacker dealers in a high stakes game of your choice," TechMedics declares, and "your next mission is to take as much cyber security knowledge back with you as you can." (James Moon, Downtown Los Angeles)

Sajid is CEO of WISE Healthcare, which delivers artificial intelligence strategy and workflow engineering to healthcare organizations looking to improve healthcare delivery. WISE is launching an AI-based mobile healthcare tool that will help accurately diagnose patient symptoms and provide convenient access to care. Also, WISE has developed a virtual care (telehealth) strategy to meet the needs of a growing healthcare consumer base. It covers a range of services and approaches, including increasing access to psychiatry, connecting members in rural areas and underserved urban areas to specialists, using electronic consults to enhance communication between providers, and integrating physical and mental health. Previously, Sajid was the CIIO of MLK, Jr. Community Hospital in LA, where he led its $70M HIT initiative and innovation hub. Sajid now serves as an advisor to the current CIIO. Earlier, he was the Director of Health IT and Innovation for L.A. Care Health Plan, where he created HITEC-LA (Health Info. Tech. Reg'l Ext. Center for LA County) for EHR adoption and implementation. Sajid also created and launched eConsult in partnership with the L.A. County DHS, a telehealth system that allows for virtual consultations and collaboration with specialists, and a national model for the standard for care coordination and access to specialty care in the U.S. Earlier, Sajid was the visionary behind SelfMD, where he developed AI tools. Sajid has joined the Los Angeles Healthcare Round Table.

The Taft Center for Clinical Research at El Camino Hospital announced that its interventional pulmonology team has successfully performed an innovative robotic bronchoscopy procedure to view the inside of the lungs and obtain a tissue sample. This procedure, the first of its kind performed in the U.S., took place as part of a clinical trial of Auris Health's FDA-approved Monarch Platform. With this, El Camino is embarking on a paradigm shift in how it diagnoses suspicious nodules in the lung. Since the robotic bronchoscope has the ability to travel deeper into the lung and precisely guide a biopsy instrument to even the most difficult nodules, the technology offers the potential to diagnose lung cancer at an earlier stage. (Jeff Gruer & Cecile Currier, both Silicon Valley Healthcare)

GeBBS Healthcare Solutions has successfully completed its PCI audit and received the certification of compliance for PCI DSS 3.2 for the company's Manila operations. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) provides a baseline of technical and operational requirements designed to protect account data. PCI Standards apply to all entities involved in payment card processing, including merchants, processors, acquirers, issuers, and service providers. Many clients rely on GeBBS's systems to process/store sensitive data. As a result, GeBBS has implemented best-practice controls demanded by its customers to address information security and compliance risks. (Nitin Thakor, Los Angeles Healthcare)

On May 1, the 5th Annual K&S Cybersecurity & Privacy Summit can be attended as a webinar, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Join legal and regulatory experts from King & Spalding, as well as leading industry authorities, to learn more about the new frontier of cybersecurity and privacy. Topics will include new threats in cybercrime; cybersecurity information sharing between the public and private sectors; privacy and security risks in artificial intelligence and IoT; cybersecurity insurance developments; emerging trends in technology-based privacy litigation; GDPR compliance; and more. (Marcia Augsburger, Sacramento, & Travis Jackson, Los Angeles Healthcare)

TheraChat won third place in the recent Innovation Challenge at the RESI (Redefining Early Stage Investments) Conference in Toronto. The award recognizes scientists and entrepreneurs who push the boundaries of health and technology. Out of 120 participants, Life Science Nation chose the 30 most innovative applicants to present their technologies. "During a full day, people stopped by our poster and listened to how we believe we are changing the mental health field by empowering therapists to engage their clients in between sessions," TheraChat CEO Kouris Kalligas said. (Kouris Kalligas, Bay Area Healthcare)

In Entrepreneurs: Employment law is not on your side!, Dave advises that company leaders do everything possible to protect their company from employee lawsuits by documenting behavioral or skill-related problems to the employee file, and holding regular reviews for all employees right to the top.  And, in The 18-month rule and a harrowing tale, Dave credits a colleague for determining that it takes about 18 months to begin handling an under-performing employee, manage the risk of a future lawsuit, finally move to separate the employee, define the now-open position, recruit the candidate, train the new hire, and count the new hire as up to speed in the job. He then shares his own "harrowing tale" about dealing with the firing of a senior manager who was no longer right for the position. (Dave Berkus, Downtown & West Los Angeles)

GetVisible has provided links to a variety of tools for testing and optimizing your website performance, including five ways to grow your video and YouTube marketing acumen: >Use relevant keyword phrases in your video script: KeywordTool.io.  >Spy on other YouTubers: Social Blade.  >Optimize your video for SEO: TubeBuddy.  >A sly linking idea from Forbes (tip #8).  >Add captions (typically for people with disabilities).
       Here are four tools to avoid, or fix, penalties that drag down your Google rankings: >Don't plagiarize (even by accident); you need unique content: Copyscape test.  >Check your grammar - here are five alternatives to Grammarly.  >Traffic dropped suddenly? Look at your history with Panguin from Barracuda.  >Fix 404 (missing pages or images) errors - get a list with Screaming Frog.
       Other tools include:  For Browsing - See how websites look on a mobile device: BrowserStack test.  For SEO - Verify "Schema" coding to get star ratings: Schema test.  For Security - Is the site SSL enabled? SSL website security test.  For Fun - Create custom Favicon branded icons: Favicon Creator.  Also, GetVisible urges everyone to secure their website with an SSL certificate - running your pages on https instead of http, so as to avoid the risk of Google Chrome warning people that your site is untrusted. (Jason Ciment, West Los Angeles)

In 4 Steps to Achieve Workplace Compliance, Intellect reports that one of the crucial steps to ensuring workplace compliance with applicable laws and regulations is streamlining workflows to ensure that only employees who should have access to specific data have relevant access. The purpose of a workflow is to divide processes into smaller steps which are passed to different people with the company. Because of the multiple exchange of hands in documents, there could be numerous submissions for review and need for amendments. All the necessary steps should be taken into account and control processes must be enforced, and verification of information should be ensured. Intellect provides some tips to track and monitor workflows to ensure that they achieve compliance, and nothing is overlooked or goes missing; in summary they are: Identify legal obligations; List all parties subject to audits; Evaluate level of risk; and Determine level of attention. (Romeo Elias, West Los Angeles)

In How to Research and Plan Blog Content for a Year, Taylor Digital provides a model to plan your blog strategy for a month, several months, or a year in advance. The steps not only help keep you organized, but are designed for customer retention and acquisition, growth, sales goals, and more. And there's room for going back to the drawing board and making tweaks as you see fit. In summary, the steps are: Set goals; Create audience personas; Brainstorm posts; Create the calendar; Implement, learn and grow. (Randy Taylor, Orange County)

In Lesson for CIOs - Gartner's follow-the-herd model cannot help us find the Value Seam, UGovernIT Inc.'s Subbu Murthy says that in the book, Disrupt or Die, author Jed Yueh highlights the necessity to find Value Seams. Yueh postulates that Value Seams are big gaps, but ironically, they cannot easily be perceived, Subbu continues. In the construction industry, which is one of UGovernIT's verticals, margins are very small. "It would appear creating cost efficiencies may help the industry, but that is not the Value Seam. The Value Seam is also not just seamless collaboration between the stake holders. While finding Value Seams are difficult, one thing is clear - you cannot find them by following the herd. Sorry Gartner - your magic quadrant is obsolete!" Subbu concludes. (Subbu Murthy, Orange County)

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