The technology trends for 2011 are pretty similar to 2010, with a few new twists. Real-time analytics, context-aware computing, identity management, and worker-instigated innovation represent new twists. Everything else — cloud computing, SaaS, virtualization, mobility, social media — have been covered in wiredFINANCE and will crop up again in the coming year.

To see what state government CIOs think will be important in 2011, check here. Some of it, like ERP, seems far behind the curve.

Top banking managers have their own list of tech trends here. Most is business service management (BSM), something every CFO should keep in mind. BSM tools monitor critical service activities — usually customer and financial processes — in real time and fire off alerts when something appears to be going amiss. Below are WiredFINANCE’s top trends. more

The FCC approved net neutrality, voting three-to-two to adopt rules giving the agency regulatory power to protect the free flow of information over the Internet. You can check out the official statements at the FCC Web site. It is safe to say that every business has a stake in net neutrality.

Net neutrality refers to an open Internet with equal access for all users and all content. That essentially is the state of the Internet today, and it has been a powerful driver of business and the economy for the past several decades. You pay for Internet access, but whether your business is uploading and downloading huge engineering design files or sending and receiving only short email messages, all the traffic is treated the same.

The battle over net neutrality often is perceived as consumers vs. business. More accurately, net neutrality is a battle of some businesses (descendants of the breakup of AT&T and its numerous offspring) vs. the latest generation of large, Internet-based businesses (Google, Amazon, Facebook, and their ilk). The underlying issue is the inevitable digital transformation of business. more

Asset bubbles and their aftermaths were the most prominent feature of finance in the first decade of the 21st century. In the United States, each burst led to a re-examination of the controls that might or should have been in place to prevent the bubble from happening or at least would have limited its size and extent.

Along with this, it’s also caused people to re-examine how best to manage risk. Some are asking whether it’s even possible to measure and model risk. I think the answer is yes, but in many cases the traditional approaches to modeling risk need to be replaced with methods that are more concrete and tied to each and every asset and liability. Until recently, such an approach was not practical because the information technology needed to support this approach was either not there or not cost-effective. Today, however, the lower cost of processing speed and memory, in-memory computing, near-real-time residential real estate price databases, and complex-event processing techniques (to name just a few) have made it possible to bring risk management much closer to the reality of underlying assets and liabilities and make it much less of a theoretical exercise. more

Still looking for a gift for your favorite CFO, treasurer, or controller? Rather than a printout of the latest accounting standards update from the FASB, you could try a t-shirt from www.zazzle.com that says, “Half Corporate Treasurer/Half Rock Star.” Or, a coffee mug emblazoned with “Half CFO/Half Cage Fighter” or “Half Auditor/Half Ninja.” There are a number of other variations, but you get the idea.

Happy holidays. ###

“Do we know the collateral? Are we experienced in valuing the collateral? Do we know the industry?” responds Jim Hogan when asked how GE Capital qualifies restructuring opportunities.

When it comes to distressed businesses, GE Capital calls them as it sees them – restructurings, that is. In fact, GE Capital even applies the word to its own practice area known as GE Capital, Restructuring Finance.

“In every bank, there’s someone tasked with going after restructurings, but we decided to build a group that does nothing but that,” explains Hogan, who today is helping lead the company’s restructuring practice as a senior managing director at GE Capital.

“For every restructuring that’s due to the economy, there are three or four that are due to competitive or management reasons,” says Hogan. more