Latest news with #C1
Malaysian Reserve
2 days ago
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Madison County Modernizes IT Infrastructure to Bolster Resilience and Security of Critical Services with C1
Midwestern county teams with C1 to enhance cybersecurity and operational efficiency BLOOMINGTON, Minn., July 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — C1, the global technology solution provider elevating connected human experiences, today announced that the County of Madison, Illinois, is partnering with C1 to replace and upgrade its existing Palo Alto firewalls, further strengthening cybersecurity resilience and increasing operational efficiency for public safety and county government services. The county, which supports critical services such as public safety communication networks, emergency management, and local government offices for its population of over a quarter million, is taking proactive steps to modernize its technical framework. This latest project builds on a successful history of collaboration between Madison County and C1, including a seamless Microsoft Exchange to Office 365 migration and the deployment of Aruba wired and wireless solutions. 'Our infrastructure supports every elected and non-elected county board office, as well as the essential services provided by local police departments,' said Christopher Bethel, IT Director, County of Madison, Illinois. 'Keeping our systems secure and efficient is crucial. Partnering with C1 once again enables us to have a trusted team of experts designing right-sized solutions that meet our needs today but also with the ability to adapt to future challenges.' Bethel further noted that C1's expertise played a pivotal role in scoping the new firewalls accurately, providing enhanced security capabilities while delivering cost efficiencies. 'C1 demonstrated their ability to provide immediate support and deliver critical solutions on time. Their commitment has been invaluable.' C1's Chief Services Officer, Elliot Olschwang, praised Madison County's forward-thinking approach. 'The team at the County of Madison demonstrates visionary leadership when it comes to investing in technology for its community. We are honored to work alongside their team to create a secure, connected infrastructure that empowers their critical government services.' About the County of Madison, Illinois The County of Madison, Illinois, serves a population of over 260,000 individuals and operates as part of the St. Louis metropolitan area. With its county seat located in Edwardsville, the county supports a wide range of critical services, including public safety, emergency management, and local government operations. The mission of Madison County's IT department is to enable efficient service delivery through secure and innovative technical infrastructure. About C1 C1, a global technology solution provider, is transforming businesses with AI-powered solutions that elevate connected human experiences. Through advisory, professional, and managed services, C1 ensures seamless integration across communications, infrastructure, and security. C1 solutions are tailored to align with client goals to drive innovation and operational excellence. Through partnerships with leading technology providers and an engineering team holding over 7,000 certifications, C1 empowers enterprises to adapt and thrive in a fast-paced digital world. At C1, it's about turning complex challenges into meaningful solutions, enabling businesses to design, deploy, and manage technology that delivers impactful outcomes. Learn more at Media Contact Kim Espinosa832.721.0087
Forbes
24-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Breaking The Mold: How To Become A Transformational CMO, Part 1
Meghan Keough, Chief Marketing Officer, C1. The chief marketing officer (CMO) is no longer just the voice of the brand. Or at least, we shouldn't be. Today's CMO should be the driving force behind business transformation—influencing how companies position themselves, go to market, adopt technology and serve customers. CMOs are uniquely positioned to lead this change. We sit at the intersection of product, positioning, sales, voice of the customer, market insights, competitive intelligence, experience design, storytelling and data. We understand the market, the buyer and the story that connects the two. Yet too often, marketing is relegated to a cost center, boxed out of the strategy room. But with the most comprehensive view of the business, marketing is often best positioned to lead transformational growth. Throughout my career, I've led brand overhauls, go-to-market (GTM) pivots and platform reinventions. What I've seen is this: When marketing is brought to the front of the transformation agenda, the business moves faster, aligns better and grows smarter—all leading to increased revenue and overall growth. Five Keys To Making Marketing A Transformation Engine Too often, marketing is seen as merely 'serving' other functions through the stories we tell. But the stories we tell—and the people we tell them to—won't matter if there isn't near-perfect alignment with product strategy, customer journey design, partner ecosystems and digital operations. Transformation starts when marketing breaks out of its silo. At 8x8, for example, I saw the need to reposition our solutions from point applications to a platform—but I didn't own the roadmap. To drive change, I had to build credibility with product and sales through market data and customer insight. Influence precedes impact. CMOs can't transform anything alone. We must lead across functions, shaping a common understanding of what's next in the market, the roadmap and customer demand. This requires listening widely, connecting dots others don't and making the complex feel simple. To achieve this, I've leaned into a leadership style shaped in part by being a middle child. I listen, facilitate and build bridges. It's served me well, especially as the pace of change accelerates. We hear a lot about AI, automation and the power of a modern martech stack. However, none of that works without the right people and processes in place. Think of the buying journey as a manufacturing line for commercial outcomes. Along the way, we must be deliberate about the conversion of the opportunity, with technology facilitating the buyer and seller journey, not complicating it. Whether marketing drives most of the pipeline or just part of it, at a point in the process, a business development team has to be engaged to convert interest to intent. Once we have established the right process, then the right technology makes these teams and data more connected, relevant, responsive and successful—and enables the organization to make the most of the martech stack. It's not revolutionary, but too often it's overlooked. Customers aren't just references. They should also be your strongest signals when making trade-offs and determining the viability of new ideas. I've built voice-of-the-customer-like engagements, including customer reference and advocacy programs, from the ground up multiple times in my career, and going back to my early technology consulting days, I am a firm believer in working closely with customers. This takes many forms, such as advisory boards and customer summits, and experience has taught me that this input can sharpen your product roadmap and positioning, accelerate deals and improve conversions. The transformation-ready CMO can't be defined by any one specialty. We're strategists, technologists, storytellers and people leaders, often all at once. Early in my career, I moved between roles that didn't squarely fall within marketing: I started as a technology consultant, led product management and marketing at a startup and later took on an alliance role to move closer to sales. It looked nonlinear, but it built the foundation for how I lead today. I don't just run campaigns. I drive business. If you're building your marketing career today, don't just go deep. Go wide. Step into product. Learn partnerships. Get close to the tech. These aren't detours. They're preparing you to lead. Marketing today is more complex than ever. But complexity isn't a burden—it's our opportunity. The CMO has never been better positioned to drive change. In my next post, I'll explore strategies CMOs can use to develop their ability to lead a transformation, and in future posts, I'll expand on some of the topics I've laid out here and take up other key topics, such as the CMO as system integrator to business innovator, the new AI-powered content supply chain and turning the voice of the customer into a competitive advantage. Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Phone Arena
23-07-2025
- Phone Arena
When is an iPhone 16e not an iPhone 16e?
The iPhone 16e is different than the previous low-priced iPhone line, the iPhone SE. The latter featured smaller screens, and the last of these releases, the iPhone SE 3, was based on the iPhone 8. That means it used Touch ID instead of Face ID and had a single camera on the back panel. The iPhone 16e 's design is based on the iPhone 14, even though it is powered by the 3nm A18 application processor (AP) and carries 8GB of RAM. Apple gave the phone the same AP that powers the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus and 8GB of RAM, the same as on all iPhone 16 models, for one reason and one reason only. Apple wanted its Apple Intelligence AI initiative to be available across the entire 2025 iPhone line, and that meant equipping the iPhone 16e with at least 8GB of RAM. And while the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max run Apple Intelligence using a 3nm A17 Pro AP, Apple felt better giving the iPhone 16e the A18 chipset. With the notch in front and a single camera in back, the iPhone 16e is unique among 2025 iPhone models. | Image credit-Unknown The iPhone 16e is also the first iPhone to employ the tech giant's homegrown 5G modem chip, the C1. It also sports a single 48 MP rear camera. As a result, the iPhone 16e is the only phone in the iPhone 16 lineup with a single rear camera and it is the only 2025 model that has the notch in the front. Whether looking at the phone from the front or back, it stands out against the other 2025 models. So when an AT&T customer went to an AT&T Store to buy an iPhone for his son and to add a line to his account, there should have been no confusing the lower-priced iPhone for any other model in the iPhone 16 series. But we are getting ahead of ourselves a little. The two AT&T reps helping the father suggested that he buy his kid an iPhone 16e because of a promotion. The phone would be $6 per month,and the line would be $25 per month. When the father and son arrived back at home, the kid drops the phone. The father decides to drive to an Apple Store to buy him a case. When he gets there, the Apple employee tells him that the phone he bought for his son was an iPhone 16 , not the iPhone 16e . The father, confused, called the AT&T Store as soon as he could and was told that he could not replace the iPhone 16 with the proper model because it had been dropped. Even worse, he was now being charged for the price of an iPhone 16 , which was $23.99 a month, compared to the $6 per month he agreed to pay for the iPhone 16e he was supposed to receive. He says that he calls AT&T nearly everyday, and AT&T 's customer service team seems to only make suggestions that will cost him more money. The AT&T salesman who sold him the phone no longer works at the AT&T Store. The other rep who assisted on the purchase agreed with the father that he was supposed to get an iPhone 16e , but apparently he can't or won't get involved to help out. One thing that the father can do is send an email to John Stankey, the Chairman and CEO of AT&T . There are three email addresses that he can try: js9991@ In the email, he should explain everything that happened, give dates and times, and include the address of the store. The father should also send an email to the FCC at fccinfo@ and start the letter by including the name of the carrier (in this case, AT&T ) and his account number. The FCC website has been known to help customers who have been wronged by AT&T , Verizon, T-Mobile, and others. To check out the website and lodge a complaint, the father should tap on this link or go to The departure of the rep who sold the phone to the AT&T customer could indicate that he wasn't meeting his monthly sales goals and that giving the customer an iPhone 16 instead of a 16e was part of a scam designed to improve his metrics. We might never know. If we hear anymore about this, we will update the story.
Sky News
09-07-2025
- Sky News
Southport attack: Mother saw CCTV of daughter being 'dragged back into building' - before being stabbed 20 more times
The mother of a girl who escaped the Southport attack before being dragged back inside has told how her daughter is still fighting to survive. Axel Rudakubana, 18, stabbed the girl, referred to as C1 at the public inquiry, a total of 33 times at a Taylor Swift-themed class in the Merseyside seaside town on 29 July last year. She was one of eight children injured, while Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were murdered in what chairman Sir Adrian Fulford called "one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history". The girl, then seven, ran out of the Hart Space building after being attacked, but Rudakubana was seen dragging her back inside in CCTV footage played during his sentencing hearing, which drew gasps in court, before she was stabbed 20 more times. Reading an emotional statement at Liverpool Town Hall on Wednesday, her mother said: "That is how she became known in this nightmare. The girl that was dragged back in." She thanked the teachers who escaped to call police and flag down help but said "the most painful of truths for" her and the girl's father "is that there were no adults to help during both of her attacks". "She was only supported by other children. The courage and strength she found leaves me crushed, but in complete awe," she said. The mother told the inquiry she wanted to tell her "beautiful, articulate, fun-loving" little girl's story, adding: "I want to tell you of her bravery and strength and how hard she is fighting, still now to survive." She added: "It is these untold stories of remarkable strength and bravery that are missing when we have heard other accounts of this day." The mother said the "hours and days that followed the attack were a living hell" and her daughter's memories - including a concert of her "idol" Taylor Swift - have "been forfeited to make space for the trauma that she carries". 4:06 "We tell her she was brave. How proud we are that she was able to help other girls. How her strength makes us feel strong. How important what she did that day was. She is her own hero. She may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day," she said. The surviving victims and their families have been granted anonymity during the inquiry, while the chairman has asked media not to use Rudakubana's police mugshot to avoid distressing them. 'She is our hero' The father of a girl referred to as C3 told how his daughter was the first to escape the scene by running from the building and hiding behind a parked car before jumping through an open car door. "Our nine-year-old daughter was stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn't even see," he said. "Although she didn't know what was happening - she knew she had to run. She ran out of the studio door, down the stairs, and out of the building." He said she can be seen "looking scared, confused and pained" in CCTV footage of the incident, adding: "It was troubling for us to see what she had to go through, before either of her parents had arrived at the scene." "We are so thankful and proud that despite being critically injured, she was able to make the decisions she did in that terrible moment," he said. The girl's father said his daughter "continues to astound" them with the way she dealt with the attack and her recovery, saying: "It has been inspiring for us to witness." He said she has difficulty sleeping, experiences flashbacks, looks over her shoulder scanning for potential danger when she leaves the house, has a fear of loud noises and has to turn off some songs when they come on the radio. "Our daughter knows that she is loved," he said. "It is through this support and love that she will continue to thrive. We couldn't be prouder of her. She is our hero." Attack 'changed everything' The mother of a girl referred to as C8 said she was "like any other seven-year-old little girl", "with an incredible energy" and "full of life". But in a statement read out by a legal representative, she said the attack last year "changed everything" when she got a "panicked phone call" from a friend's mother, who couldn't find the girls. "That moment, the sound of fear in her voice and the panic I felt will never leave me," she said. "I rushed to the scene and what I saw is something no parent should ever see. My daughter had sustained serious physical injuries including a stab wound to her arm and a cut to her face and chin." 2:02 She said her daughter "remembers the attack vividly" and later told her "she thought it had to be fake, because she couldn't believe something that terrible could really be happening". "Where she was once eager to go off with her friends, she now needs my support if it is somewhere public or unknown," she said. "Simple days out now need a level of safety planning that we would never have considered before." 'Constant flashbacks' The mother of a girl referred to as Q, who was one of 15 children who escaped without physical injuries, told how she arrived to collect her daughter to find "children running from the building, screaming and fearing for their lives". In a statement read to the inquiry by a legal representative on her behalf, she said it was "the most horrific experience of my life". "What I saw on that day will stick with me forever, I constantly have flashbacks and relive what happened," she said. She said her daughter has become "very withdrawn" since the attack and has asked her parents, "How will I ever be normal again?" Rudakubana was jailed for a minimum of 52 years in January and is being investigated over an alleged attack on a prison officer at Belmarsh prison in May. The public inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January, is looking into whether the attack could or should have been prevented, given what was known about the killer. Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff, had contact with police, the courts, the youth justice system, social services and mental health services, and was referred to the government's anti-extremism Prevent scheme three times before the murders. A rapid review into his contact with Prevent found his case should have been kept open and that he should have been referred to Channel, another anti-terror scheme. C1's mother said: "She deserves the truth, she deserves accountability. She deserves an apology. Our girls deserve an apology.
The Independent
09-07-2025
- The Independent
‘I'm glad I could help them, mum': Southport attack survivor, 7, stabbed 33 times after trying to shield friends
Parents have revealed how their seven-year-old daughter, who survived more than 33 stab wounds, crouched over to shield her friends as children were caught in a 'stampede' trying to escape the Southport knife attack. The brave girl has told her mother, 'I'm glad I could help them' as she relived details of the traumatic day last July, a public inquiry into the tragedy heard. She and other survivors have been left struggling with panic attacks and flashbacks as they try to rebuild their lives after Axel Rudakubana, then 17, launched a rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday dance class. The attack claimed the lives of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and left eight more girls and two adults wounded. The killer, who will simply be referred to as 'the perpetrator' or 'AR' in hearings out of respect to victims and their families, has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years. The mother of the survivor, who cannot be named and is known only as C1, told the second day of the public inquiry into the atrocity how her daughter desperately tried to help her friends. She shielded them at the top of the stairs before helping them to escape the Hart Space studio, only to be pulled back inside by the knifeman, who rained down yet more blows which felt like punches. In a powerful statement read to the hearing at Liverpool Town Hall, she said her daughter recalls the class rushing out of a narrow doorway and downstairs, following their wounded teacher, Leanne Lucas. 'She describes it as a stampede,' she said. 'In the chaos, she was knocked over and found herself trapped and huddled with two other children at the top of the stairs. 'She talks quietly of how she put her arms around the girls as he began to attack them. She tells me with such clarity that a moment came were one of the girls was able to get up, she put the girl's hand on the handrail and told her to go — to get down the stairs - and she did. 'The attack continued, she was still holding another girl, 'I crouched over the top of her', she says. 'I told her it would be okay'. She recalls this with such purpose and determination, like it was her responsibility. ''It happened so fast, but I helped them, I'm glad I could help them, mum', she tells me.' Harrowing CCTV, seen by the parents during the attacker's court hearing, showed how she managed to make it to the exit – only to be pulled back inside by the knifeman. 'Somehow, she emerges from the building - and we see her, for a brief moment on CCTV,' she continued. 'Escaping. Finding help. Showing so much strength. But her arm is badly injured and it's trailing behind, and he grabs it. 'In a flash of struggle, she's gone again. For eleven seconds, she is out of sight. And then there she is again. She has stood up after enduring another attack of more than twenty stab wounds to her back and shoulders. 'She stumbles outside to the windows reaching for help. She eventually falls and soon after is carried to safety.' The girl lost her entire blood volume and had to learn to sit, stand and walk again as she recovered from a total of 33 stab wounds, the mother said. The mother told the hearing that her daughter 'may be a survivor of this attack, but she is still trying to survive this, every single day'. She struggles with panic attacks, which make her daily life 'difficult and exhausting' and 'needs an enormous amount of support and scaffolding to do normal things'. 'In the shops we have to avoid the news section for fear of his face, or other images being on the front pages again,' she said, adding that they had removed knives from their home and replaced them with blunt-tipped ones. She called for the inquiry to answer her daughter's questions over how anyone could carry out such an attack and why he was not stopped. 'She deserves an apology... Our girls deserve an apology,' she added. 'Backed up by the promise that changes will be made and this will not be allowed to happen again.' Another parent, whose daughter survived three stab wounds, said it was 'patently clear that lessons need to be learned from what happened, and processes need to be changed'. Sitting beside the girl's mother in the witness box, he said: 'Our nine-year-old daughter was stabbed three times in the back by a coward she didn't even see. 'Although she didn't know what was happening — she knew she had to run.' He said they had since seen CCTV footage of her running from the building looking 'scared, confused and pained' and hiding behind a parked car, before jumping to 'relative safety' through an open car door. He added: 'We remain eternally grateful that we were lucky that day, and that the skill of the paramedics, surgeons and medical staff meant we got our little girl back.' Describing his daughter as his 'hero', the father said she remained 'the positive, caring, funny, enthusiastic, courageous girl she always was'. He added: 'She wears her scars with a dignity and defiance that is remarkable.' The mother of another girl who was at the event, referred to as Child Q, said arriving to collect her daughter to find screaming children fleeing from the building was 'the most horrific experience of my life'. In a statement read by the family's legal representative, she said her daughter was 'an anxious little girl' who had taken a 'significant step' by attending the dance class as she often struggled socially outside school. The girl's mother said: 'Although physically unharmed, she has struggled with the psychological impact of the trauma and to this day has been unable to talk to us about what happened and what she witnessed. 'Our daughter became very withdrawn, emotional and had so many worries. In her words, due to what she witnessed, 'How will I ever be normal again'? 'She is even more anxious about not being with us or being dropped off at another event without us. She is scared when she hears a siren or sees an emergency vehicle. Q is still unable to sleep alone and struggles with falling asleep. 'She always asks for doors to be closed when we enter or leave a room, this helps her to feel safe.' Opening the inquiry on Tuesday, chairman Sir Adrian Fulford described the 29 July attack as 'one of the most egregious crimes' in UK history.
