Beware the Lure of Process Automation

When I see folks working hard at a repetitive task, using technology tools like spreadsheets, databases, and other "productivity" tools in a less-than-optimal way, I like to call them out as not being lazy enough. That always gets their attention - it's a bit counter-intuitive, as they masterfully fly over the keyboard to tweak the data, move the files, look up the information, or clear the inbox in the shortest time possible. I think that we should be "lazier" by…

Bootstrap Market Research: Records Retention for Industrial Manufacturers

27 October, 2013
Tech Management
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[Records Retention refers to] the practice of maintaining records for an organization from the time they are created to the time of their disposal. (source: Wikipedia) That last bit is the tricky part; every day at most corporations eMails, spreadsheets, and presentations (collectively: “stuff”) are created, shared, and printed – along with all of the financial and transactional records issuing from the various ERP / accounting systems. Creating stuff is easy – but are we rigorous enough in the “end…

Talking about CyberSecurity with the Board of Directors

13 October, 2013
IT Management
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Practical, tested suggestions and approaches that will help translate cybersecurity technology and process to concepts that will resonate with the Board.

Marketing and IT Get Together: The Elephants in the Room

10 October, 2013
Popular, Communication, Sales & Marketing
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Marketing and IT may have strong opinions about each other - but there is value in understanding each other's point of view. Here are a number of hard truths that Marketing and IT have to realize and come together on.

IBM Marketing Message Muddle

Just an observation from the past week; I had a meeting with an IBM Sales Team, reviewing a range of products as they work to understand where IBM might help my business. I appreciate the fact that IBM has a wide selection of offerings, and we were doing an OK job of reviewing various families / groups of products ... until we got to something labeled Smarter Cities. This one piqued my interest - something potentially related to the products…

A Surprising Problem with SaaS/Cloud: Long-Term Cost Trends

18 August, 2013
Vendor Management
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When considering SaaS and Cloud solutions, you need to anticipate and acknowledge this important difference from on-premise systems; your ability to manage cost may be severely reduced.

Structured Process Improvement for Unstructured Processes

Have you ever waded into a process improvement project that had trouble finding a place to start? Consider, for example, a strategic sales team (for RevCo, famous maker of Widgets), working their established product families to generate breakout new customers and revenues. They've implemented a CRM system, but are having problems getting adoption and seeing benefits. The difficulty, of course, is that they have not changed their marketing strategies, and can't see beyond "automating our current process" as a measure…

Where does Innovation come from?

7 July, 2013
People Management, Purposeful Innovation
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Like most organizations, we are talking a lot internally about Innovation - the Great Ideas that will transform the company and deliver top-line revenue and high-value earnings growth. The trick, of course, if figuring out how to make that Innovation happen - as if you could plan it out in advance, on schedule to make your quarter-end. It's not that easy - but then again, maybe it's not that hard. Check out this video from Steven Johnson - another terrific…

PacMan at MoMA – Interaction Design

One of the benefits of ditching cable and going to internet streaming TV is that I'm watching more TED talks for a mental stretch break. True, I'm missing half of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but I catch stuff like this from Paola Antonelli, on bringing video games to New York's Museum of Modern Art ... [ted id=1752] It caught my attention because it's all about the importance of Design, and specifically Interaction Design. Antonelli moved from architecture to a focus…

SQDC for Enterprise IT – Cost, Next Steps

First in a series of posts on presenting a summarized view of Corporate IT using SQDC-style KPIs - a Lean Management-inspired way of speaking in a language your Manufacturing Operations teams will understand.