David Fisher

The international love affair with Canada shows no signs of cooling off. According to a new study from the Reputation Institute, Canada is the top country in the world to visit, live in, study and attend or organize events. A beautiful and enjoyable country, friendly and welcoming people, contributions to global culture and safe environment were key drivers in the rankings.

The 2014 Country RepTrak™ report ranked Canada as the country with the No. 2 best overall reputation in the world, after three consecutive years holding the top spot.

The Reputation Institute, which operates in 30 countries, is known as the world’s leading reputation management consultancy. The 2014 Country RepTrak™ report is based on the online answers from 26,000 consumers in the G8 countries and focuses on the 55 countries around the world with the highest GDP. Trust, esteem, admiration and good feelings the public holds towards these countries, as well as quality of life, safety and attention to the environment are all major factors in the results. According to the Reputation Institute, there is a clear correlation between a country’s reputation and the income it receives from tourism.

“For international travellers, conventions and meetings held in Canada can be the first spark that ignites interest in doing business that leads to investment, in addition to exploring the unique experiences that our country offers,” says Greg Klassen, Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) president and CEO (Interim). “Canada’s leadership in such areas as natural resources, life sciences and aerospace technologies helps make us an important destination for international meetings and conferences.”

Countries with a strong reputation attract more tourists as well as foreign knowledge, investment and talent.  As visitors—including business people, future immigrants, investors, entrepreneurs and academics—become acquainted with Canada and its high-quality products, services and facilities, they can become advocates for the country, identifying business partnerships and creating a foundation for future trade relationships.

“It’s fantastic that the world holds Canada in such high esteem, which helps make our country such a desirable place to visit,” saysJon Mamela, CTC Chief Marketing Officer. “Looking ahead into 2015, we will continue to offer diverse experiences to curious travellers keen to live a life less ordinary by enjoying our incredible nature, dynamic cities, unique culture and local lifestyles.”

There is no stopping the demand for tourism around the world, with international arrivals expected to grow as much as 4.5% in 2014, according to the UNWTO. Tourism is Canada’s largest service export, contributing $16.4 billion in 2013. Canada is also the No. 1 location for outbound meetings business from the US, which brings in about $1.5 billion annually.

Aside from the usual suspects like games and social media, streaming and even pre-installed apps are the most likely to chew your smartphone or tablet battery and storage, according to the latest AVG Android™ App Trend Tracker Report from AVG Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the online security company™ for 182 million active users.

The Q3 report, based on AVG’s analysis of anonymous data from over one million AVG Android app users, charts the top apps worldwide that affect smartphone and tablet performance in terms of data plan consumption, storage capacity and battery life. With its constant background notification checks, which run even when the app is not open, the social networking app from Facebook emerged as having the biggest impact on your mobile device when it comes to overall performance.

Social apps were well-represented in the Tracker with two other social apps, Path and Instagram, making the top five most performance drains. With phone and tablet space at more of a premium than ever, the report also found that real-time news apps featured prominently in the charts. Amongst the list of storage eating apps, the New York Times Breaking News app, which caches the articles accessed through it, was most likely to chew up a device’s storage, ranking higher than Facebook and Spotify. People’s data plans were also likely to be affected by CNN’s Breaking US & World News app and the UK’s Daily Mail app.

“The goal of the App Trend Tracker Report is to analyze anonymized data to give users the important information they need to make informed choices about what they can do to continue to enjoy their favorite apps while reducing their impact on their device,” saidYuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer, AVG Technologies. “It might not be obvious what Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, 8 Ball Pool and Farm Heroes Saga have in common. But in our tech-centric world, running out of battery or storage space at the moment you need it most is hugely frustrating, and that’s why this degree is insight is vital.”

Some other key findings:

• Some handset makers are draining their own devices. For example, AVG identified three pre-installed Samsung apps (AllShare Cast Dongle, ChatON, WatchON) in the top 10 list of battery draining apps, excluding games. The Samsung WatchON for video also topped the list for auto-starting battery eating apps due to the visual content the app delivers.
• Three of the most resource-hungry day-to-day tool apps came from Google, with Google Now/Search, Google Text-to-Speech and Google Translate ranking within the top five. The Chrome Browser for mobile also made the list of top 10 storage eaters.
• Games significantly reduce battery life. Four of the top 10 battery-chewing games came from game producer King, the company behind the ‘Saga’ series.

Car Charging Group, Inc. (OTCQB: CCGI) (“CarCharging” or the “Company”), the largest owner, operator and provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging services, announced today that it has executed an agreement with the City of Plano, Texas for the operation and maintenance of 19 Blink EV charging stations across 7 locations. The Blink EV charging locations include Russell Creek Park, Maribelle Davis Library, Carpenter Park Recreation Center, and Oak Point Recreation Center.

“Texas continues to be a strong growth market for CarCharging, so we are pleased to complete this agreement with the City of Plano,” said Michael D. Farkas, CarCharging’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “Located within the Dallas-Fort Worthmetropolitan area, Plano offers the opportunity to expand the services we provide across the state and widen our leadership position in the Southern U.S.”

“Given our vision for the city of Plano, we’re excited to be working with CarCharging to maintain and manage our existing Blink EV charging stations,” said Steve Stoler, Spokesperson for the City of Plano. “Electric vehicle use continues to accelerate, and we believe that by partnering with CarCharging, we can provide the best environment for our residents to take advantage of this clean energy alternative to combustion-based transportation.”

Blink Level II EV chargers are able to rapidly recharge electric cars, and accept payment with the Blink InCard or major credit card via the Blink mobile application, Blink Network website, or Blink customer support center. Blink’s InCard provides drivers with discounted charging fees for charging stations on the Blink Network, the software that operates, monitors, and tracks the Blink stations and all of its charging data. Drivers can easily request Blink’s InCard at www.BlinkNetwork.com and can pinpoint EV charging station locations using the map on the website, as well as the Blink and CarCharging mobile applications.

Genpact Limited (NYSE: G), a global leader in designing, transforming, and running intelligent business operations, announces the formalization of the Genpact Research Institute for Intelligent Operations. The Institute is a specialized think tank harnessing the “crowd-sourced” insights of Genpact – as one of the largest enterprise operations providers in the world – together with its ecosystem of clients, partners, and thousands of process operations experts. The Institute has already been operating for over 12 months, ensuring that Genpact generates a continuous feedback loop when partnering with clients to solve their business challenges.

The Institute’s mission is to help companies run better by extending the art of the possible of advanced operating models for business process operations, from back to front office, across nine industries. The goal is to make enterprises’ operations more intelligent by weaving technology and analytics into business processes and operations. The Institute oversees external collaborations with leading academic institutions such as MIT, as well as the engagement of global experts sourced through Genpact’s proprietary operations solutions marketplace.

Cloud-based and mobile applications, advanced analytics, and powerful collaboration tools multiply the effect of well understood levers such as shared services, outsourcing, global delivery and process reengineering – and looking at them holistically will generate material impact. The Institute will give leaders with an operational mindset a practical place to understand what works and can be applied today to run their enterprises’ operations better.

Some notable research outcomes of the Institute to date have been the Business Process Operations compendium, Target Operating Model for Finance, Volatility and Adaptation Index, Data-to-action-to-insight, and Rigorous Business Case for Advanced Operating Models, as well as the advancement of other practices documented by Genpact Insights. One particularly exciting result has been theoperations network analytics solutions built on methods developed by MIT.

“There are very few sources of insight for leaders who are tired of often abstract visions and product vendors’ hyperbole, yet discern the strategic value of process operations and want to make technology and analytics yield material results,” said Gianni Giacomelli, senior vice president and chair of the Institute, Genpact. “Thanks to our work we observe and now share practical approaches to transformation that shrink the time to results and enable operational agility needed to run effectively in these uncertain and volatile times.”

DataMentors, LLC, a full-service data quality, data management and business intelligence provider, today announced that Gary Skidmore, former President and COO of Harte Hanks, has been retained by DataMentors as a Strategic Advisor.

DataMentors recently launched its Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) offering, a solution enabling businesses to drive immediate ROI with affordable and real-time data. As Strategic Advisor, Gary will advise DataMentors’ leadership on strategies for growth and value creation to help clients take full advantage of the new opportunities DaaS brings to the table.

“With over 38 years’ experience in data-driven and digital marketing, Gary brings invaluable experience and thought leadership to DataMentors,” said Anders Ekman, President of DataMentors. “As DataMentors forges ahead in bringing game-changing solutions to market, Gary’s knowledge will be instrumental in supporting our strategic objectives.”

Gary provides corporate development, product creation and go-to-market advice to private equity and venture capital backed adtech software and information services companies.  Before beginning his consulting practice, he was COO of The Dachis Group, a social marketing software company.  Gary also previously served as President and COO of Harte-Hanks, a global, multi-channel database marketing company.

“Data-as-a-Service has enormous potential to completely transform businesses,” said Bob Orf, Chief Executive Office of DataMentors. “DataMentors is highly committed to making DaaS accessible to businesses across all industries, and Gary’s ability to drive growth and innovation will continue to move DataMentors forward on a positive path.”

DataMentors holds an outstanding reputation in data management, data quality and business intelligence, serving clients in banking, manufacturing, retail, and other industries.  In addition to a steadily expanding roster of satisfied clients, DataMentors has been named to the highly competitive Gartner Magic Quadrant seven years in a row for data quality excellence.

ConvergEx Group, a leading provider of global brokerage and trading-related services, today announced a new service to help hedge funds and mutual fund companies manage liquid alternatives. Liquid alternatives are investment products that feature an alternative strategy that has been packaged into a mutual fund, ETF or other exchange-traded product.

Developed in cooperation with Portfolioshop Inc., a software development and data management firm based in New York, this new service provides daily reconciliation of complex data between the three parties that are required to support liquid alternatives: the trust bank, the prime broker and the fund administrator. This reconciliation helps to ensure greater accuracy and reliability of daily reports that can range from VAR analysis and stress tests, to details on performance attribution and analysis.

“Reconciliation between multiple custodians and administrators can be a big expense for any firm, especially for 40 Act registered funds that are required to use certain types of custodians. Our new service significantly simplifies this process, saving our clients time and money, and reducing staffing needs,” said Douglas M. Nelson, ConvergEx Group executive managing director. “We are excited to be offering our clients innovative new tools for the burgeoning liquid alternatives market.”

ConvergEx Prime Services is an industry‐leading provider of integrated prime services to hedge funds, family offices, mutual funds and Registered Investment Advisors. It offers advanced technology, global execution and reporting tools provided by multiple prime custody options through Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing, L.P., J.P. Morgan Clearing Corp and Pershing LLC. Its customers are exposed to a broad base of long‐standing customer relationships with an experienced team providing high quality service and unique advantages in the marketplace.