This morning, we’d like to welcome back Ryder Daniels to Spend Matters. Ryder is Spend Matters resident tech-ed columnist.

We all know by now that Al Gore invented the Internet and President Bush summarily renamed Google "The Google." Now that that’s out of the way, let's talk about a few simple Google search tricks.

Google can be used as a no-cost method to do lots of interesting things. We'll touch on a few tips today:

• How to use Google to do some competitive intelligence research using the "filetype:ppt" technique
• How to use Google to see if suppliers might be advertising or referencing my company as a client using the "site" technique
• How to look for RFPs to examine questions, strategies, etc.

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This morning, I'd like to welcome back Ryder Daniel's, Spend Matters' resident Tech-Ed expert.

We've all been subject to "Slow Death by PowerPoint" while listening to a pitch or a talk so tedious it makes your organs hurt. Sometimes the pace is like the speed of trees growing. If you’re lucky. Sometimes it's clipart from hell, or the dreaded reading of every bullet point -- and they're all in 8-point font.

Presentation tools, as with desktop publishing in the 80s, brought design and communication abilities to anyone with a PC. The problem is, we haven't quite caught up on teaching folks how to actually use these tools. Learning to present effectively is an ongoing process; when I look at presentations I did even four years ago, I cringe. It's always a good idea to take some time with Google to see whether you can improve your presentation kung-fu. Presentations, like it or not, have become the default metaphor on how to communicate in a business context, in front of a large audience.

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I’ve been trolling around the Ariba Exchange quite a bit in the past couple of weeks. The site, along with Ariba SupplyWatch provides some of the best free content I’ve seen out there in the market. Ariba Exchange is a relatively new site, one that JP Massin, a relatively recent Ariba employee, provides further detail on over on his blog. According to JP, “The goal [of Ariba Exchange] is to create an engaging platform where Spend Management professionals can share point of views (POV), question marks, best practices, trends, risks and mitigation plans, opportunities and issues related to spend management, technology enablement and Ariba’s solutions of course. It’s a unique public knowledge-hub, segmented by communities of interest.”

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Late this afternoon, a Reuters story hit the wire confirming that Anil Kumar, a former McKinsey Director, was no longer with the firm following an internal investigation. Reuters quotes an email note from McKinsey spokesman Michael Stewart noting that "We have concluded our internal investigation and can confirm that Anil Kumar is no longer with our firm … We are unable to go into further details about this matter as there are ongoing U.S. legal proceedings." Kumar, as many will remember from earlier this fall, was a senior McKinsey partner who was accused as part of a Federal probe investigating an insider trading scandal at the Galleon Hedge Fund.

In an earlier column on Kumar, Spend Matters provided some background his pioneering efforts in the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) area. The same column also took a cursory glance at the culture behind directorship election at McKinsey noting among other things that “given the fact that McKinsey so heavily vets those moving into a Director level role -- on all levels, including the character of the individuals up for promotion -- that there is a reasonable chance that Kumar might be found innocent if his past behavior is any indication of the ethics he brought with him into his Director role.” In retrospect, I supposed we called this one too early.

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MetalMiner, Spend Matters' sister publication focused on metals sourcing, turned two today. Three years younger than Spend Matters, the site is nonetheless following in the virtual steps of this digital rag, quickly catching up with and overtaking established publications and media sites in its sector. Looked at from a traffic perspective compared with other procurement and sourcing blogs, MetalMiner is now the second most trafficked new media site besides Spend Matters in the sector. But our sister-publication is not gunning to capture a generic slice of the procurement and supply chain market. No, they’re going after an underserved but huge niche -- meeting the market intelligence and content needs of metals buyers, specifically.

These folks crave such things as detailed price forecasts and expert commodity analysis rather than "I told you so" alerts about price movements in one direction or another. They’re looking for edge, insight and opinion. And they're also looking for proprietary (yet free) content such as the daily global metals pricing available by registering for MetalMiner IndX. MetalMiner provides both insight and industry color in spades from a "voice of the buyer" perspective that is lacking in traditional publications and subscription services, many of which have served as mouthpieces for producers and distributors for decades. Just as Spend Matters is written by a collection of folks with an edge, opinion and knowledge of sourcing and supply chain, MetalMiner is authored in a similar voice by metals sourcing and trading experts.

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Earlier this morning, Gartner announced that it was acquiring AMR Research. For those who are not familiar with AMR, the firm, for the longest time, has been the most influential analyst outfit focused on supply chain and procurement. While it has technology research and practices in many other areas -- and Bruce Richardson, its gregarious uber-analyst, is well regarded in ERP circles -- its true strengths have always been at the intersection of supply chain technology, process and innovation. For many years, there were rumored on-again / off-again discussions between AMR and its Cambridge-neighbor, Forrester. Clearly, George Colony, Forrester's leader, who we know is friends with Tony Friscia, AMR’s President and CEO, will be disappointed that they lost the bidding on this one (I have no doubt that AMR’s bankers would have included them in the discussions). But where does this deal leave Gartner, not to mention the broader industry analyst landscape?

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Every week, I try to give myself an hour or two to surf the web and do research on companies and news that I might not otherwise come across in the regular contingent of sites and publications I peruse (don't ask -- it's probably upwards of 150 now). While I could probably put this time to better concrete writing or billable use, I often find that through various in-the-moment paths I take from different research and web surfing expeditions, I discover ideas and companies I'd otherwise miss out on learning about before others and ultimately, sharing on these virtual pages first.

One such organization is Cortera, an upstart in the credit and supply risk world that I came across when attempting to look for new information sources like this in the supplier risk management area. Cortera represents perhaps the most interesting and revolutionary competitor to D&B I've yet seen in the credit reporting and supply risk content space. They're small today, but potentially have a very strong offering on their hands, especially in the SMB supplier space.

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This morning, I'd like to welcome a guest post from an industry colleague and friend, Tim Albinson. Tim is President and CEO of Aravo and the author of green and CSR blog, 2Sustain.

Sustainability is no longer considered a passing fad or a nice-to-have extra. Instead, it's now recognized as a key business driver. In fact, a new report from Siemens and McGraw-Hill Construction shows that even during the worst recession in 60 years, corporations across the U.S. continued to accelerate sustainability efforts and increase efficiencies as part of their overall business plans. There's no room left for excuses -- these days, investors, customers, and regulators are expecting to see credible progress on all three fronts: environmental, social, and economic.

But, what lies ahead in the New Year? How will companies move toward what many are calling "Sustainability 2.0?" To help answer those questions, here are my top three emerging sustainability trends for 2010:

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Yesterday, YOH's VP of Marketing Joel Caperella responded to my my earlier critique of YOH's new supplier partnership program that gives some staffing firms an advantage over others based on their paid membership into programs where YOH is serving as an MSP. Joel responded to my attack by noting that "The negative response on SpendMatters to such an approach is reflective of the legacy of treating contingent workforce management needs with a purely procurement approach (bold added). The status quo -- believing that the more broad and wide the requisition is cast, the more procurement is in a position to 'beat vendors down on price' -- will no longer do."

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What Will 2008 Bring in the Metals Markets? Earlier today, Lisa Reisman and Stuart Burns penned a thoughtful and lengthy post over on Metal Miner offering up their predictions for the metals markets in 2008. Among the metals categories they take their crystal ball to, the two examine where steel, stainless, nickel, aluminum, copper and zinc prices might be headed to on a global basis. In the same article, they also tackle the impact of a falling dollar and rising oil prices on global metals sourcing. What are some the assumptions driving the forecasts they present in their post? According to the metals blogging dynamic duo, “In the face of a slowing US economy, a mixed position for the European economies and a still strong Asian market, it is a particularly tough call this year to judge where prices will go. Our call is the US will teeter on recession. Europe though restricted by high ECB interest rates will still enjoy some (if reduced) growth providing the Euro/US Dollar exchange rate does not strangle exports. Asia in general and China in particular are still enjoying robust growth. China may well drop from the double digit growth of the last 5 years to high single digit figures but that is still a very significant driver for the world economy and particularly the world metal markets.”

Reading Stuart and Lisa reminds me about how much domain knowledge really counts in analyzing and covering specific commodities markets. Call me biased -- yes, I am married to one of the authors -- but relative to the price alerts and regurgitated crap that only mildly passes for journalism that the trades put out on metals, there's no substitute for the type of coverage that only true industry experience can bring to the table. Seriously, do we really want to know that the sky is falling and copper is up today, or do we care about why and where it might go tomorrow -- and what to do about it from a sourcing and trading perspective?

- Jason Busch