Most Recent Articles

Data Visualization: How (2 of 2)

Previously ... creating opportunities for insight ... The short answer, as you know, is that it's impossible to tell you how to be insightful and imaginative in a single blog post. All I can do is point you in the general direction, and (hopefully) ignite a little spark. What's the Goal? and, Where to Begin? I previously talked about the growing calls for effective data visualizations; we have access to all this great information, and there are insights in there…

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Data Visualization: Why (1 of 2)

Between business requests and breathless vendors, I am getting caught up in the growing tide of interest in "data visualizations" - managers requesting highly interactive, highly graphical, highly intuitive analytics interfaces (think Minority Report). But what are we trying to accomplish here? We keep on hearing about "executive dashboards", a heads-up display of in-my-face KPIs, or statistics and exceptions delivered automatically to my e-mail and/or Blackberry. However, when I ask management folks to get a bit more specific - how…

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Why Corporate IT Fails when Competing with Consumer Tech … and How to Change the Game

There is a fundamental difference in the level of innovation and design for internal "enterprise" technologists vs. external product developers. Internal teams are rewarded for getting work completed, while external folks win when their work is actually put to use. What are some ways to change that dynamic, and improve the work of internal teams?

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IT Budget Hacking (w$$t)

Some block-and-tackle IT management stuff for today - taking a long, hard look at the IT budget, a task that is less-than-pleasant for many. Most of my peers have already cut any and all low hanging fruit - it's time to start thinking aggressively. Software Maintenance for the Small Stuff Most have concentrated on their ERP and other large, strategic vendors - but what about all of those little invoices that come every year? I'm talking about development tools, management…

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Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (Results)

As previously noted, I've been doing a lot of discussion and data crunching around "Master Data Management" lately - so I've "bootstrapped" a little market research project. It's still a work in process - responses are trickling in - but I thought I might take some time to summarize what I am hearing to date. A document is available for download here ... the super summary follows below. Survey Methodology Please note: I am obviously not a professional market research…

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If I Told You a Fractal Solution, Could You Change the CEO’s Mind?

As the new year approaches, debates over the "value" of IT and business projects intensify; it's not holiday stress, but the excitement of the approaching New [fiscal] Year. Lately, I'm hearing more about the struggle to quantify business value, especially when selecting those few projects that will "make the cut". We will definitely iterate on our scoring framework, adding a cost / benefit template to facilitate more apples-to-apples comparisons between projects (yes, don't scoff  - it is possible - more…

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Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (What, Who, How)

I've been asked a lot of questions about "Master Data Management" over the past few weeks - what does it mean, who does it, and what are some tools and metrics that organizations are using to reign in this important aspect of ERP and analytics systems. I started reaching out to the folks in my professional network with some results, but I thought I might be able to leverage LinkedIn and Twitter to get input from far and wide. This…

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Hands-On Project: Offsite Strategy

When I talk about having an "offsite strategy" meeting, I'm looking to get out of the office and have some good, "strategic" conversation over a cup of coffee or a beer. Back when I worked for a software development company, we did our best design work at a hot dog stand in Des Plaines, IL; since then, I've always found it more fun to conduct some "bidness" in the proper atmosphere ... This was the germ of an idea that…

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Collaboration “in the Wild”: Some Observations

An Enterprise 2.0 dream scenario: implementing a complex project across multiple sites, in two different time zones, with a large team (well over 100). The team was reasonably savvy with collaboration tools; core team members were quite comfortable with Instant Messaging, and we have been relying on SharePoint for many months. A centralized, coordinated document repository; a single source, very public bugs/issues list - the foundation was in place for some time, so our "go-live weekend" experience was pleasantly predictable…

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Underwhelming experiences with Google Wave

Took some time today to work with the new communication meme - Google Wave. I wouldn't call it a fundamentally new way to communicate - well, not yet. I think Google is safe to continue with a "preview" label - clearly not even "beta" yet. No horrible bugs - at least on the Windows platform - but some obviously missing features. And, I am not all that impressed with the basic idea - it's just a mashup of Google Docs,…

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