Most Recent Articles

Project Status Dashboards Best Practice (and a PowerPoint trick)

For a simple, easily understood indication of project or task status, nothing beats the Traffic Light metaphor (Red / Yellow / Green). My IT organization is putting together standards for Project Status indicators in our PMO application; an interesting series of discussions and emails around the assignment of those Green / Yellow / Red (GYR) status lights ... Words: What do we display on the screen? Green / Yellow / Red means ... Good / Fair / Poor? Hmm, nobody…

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Supply & Demand and Expectations for SAP talent in the US

Consider these conversations over the past few weeks: At SAPPHIRE, I spoke with many from the big Fortune 1000-type companies, on outsourcing (or "co-sourcing", a new PC term). Lots of discussion around India; they have memorized the flight schedules, swap stories about social disparity and the caste system, and rattle off all of the cities they have visited. Note that it's not all about India; I talked with organizations who have moved their SAP Center of Excellence (support and/or development) to…

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Do blogs fit in the enterprise? Specific examples (WIIFMs) …

Vinson points out a post from Lee, asking if blogs have a place in the enterprise. Jack's response is interesting, diving into a better way to understand what a blog could be, and the potential for connections. Adventures In Knowledge also chimed in, with a defense of the power of connections. Good stuff, and I tend to agree ... but it's all conceptual, and doesn't resonate with folks who are change-resistant. As my IT organization moves inexorably to a new…

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Moving from Search to Find: Anticipate the Next Big Problem

I've talked with a couple of IT leads that are thinking about putting in an enterprise search capability. It always seems to come down to two basic options; search integrated with a collaboration / portal platform, or a dedicated appliance, pointed at the G: Drive. You know the G: Drive - every corporation has one (ok, sometimes it's the F: drive, or the Common folder). I'm pretty sure the name is a throwback to the late 80's, when DOS was…

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Lighten Up, Francis – Loosen Up That PowerPoint

Ok, the next post will be my Best Practice hints on everybody's favorite insomnia cure - Corporate Presentations! But first, something fun - because I got a really good reaction on my latest attempt at lightening up the boring PowerPoint routine. In the presentation, this was my segue slide from slides to a live demonstration of some software. Everybody recognizes it in an instant, but I made some pretense to leave it up on the screen, so they could see…

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The Key to Success for your Next Job Interview

I'm been clipping some interesting posts over the past few weeks, regarding interviewing techniques and hiring technical people. Rothman's aptly named blog is always good for an insightful article at least once a week - some of the recent postings of note include: A good technical person should always be intellectually curious about how things work. This translates into wanting (demanding!) to understand "the stack", as I call it - the technology pieces from the top (ex. PHP in my…

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Buzzword Management ABCs

A bit of Friday fun ... I was at a trade show a few weeks ago, and noticed a repeating pattern on many slides. I've heard this in vendor pitches and internal presentations as well - every piece of software and/or process must be for the management of something. So, as I sat trapped in a droning presentation, waiting for the "vendor showcase" to begin (free dinner!), I wondered how difficult it would be to hit every letter in the…

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Open Source Insights on Enterprise Software Business Models

A recent Slashdot posting pointed to a presentation from EclipseCon earlier this month, given by Brent Williams, an equity research analyst who used to be in the software business. A few things really caught my eye … Take some time to flip through the original presentation; there are some interesting insights about the nature of the enterprise software industry (the SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft crowd). Three of the lightbulbs that went off in my mind ... (Slide 10) [By folding…

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Excel vs. RDBMS: Choosing the Technology, Winning the Arguments

Businesses large and small, private and public, for-profit and not, commonly control critical business processes using the EIE platform (which means Everything in Excel - always good for a laugh in your next PowerPoint - jpmacl). Folks in the business get used to the power and control they have with spreadsheets, and who can blame them? Excel is … … fast and flexible … easy to learn Everybody has a copy I don't have to go through IT Remember, most…

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Selfish KM, Web 1.9, and the ‘Death’ of Tagging

In a recent NetworkWorld piece, Gibbs wrote about the tagging meme, and where it apparently sits on the technology life cycle. No new insights for me there (but possibly fits the CEPP rule for others); I was involved in a number of knowledge management (KM) projects back in my Monsanto days (IAPL) [note to self: too many acronyms, hhh] and we hit many of the classic walls; CRM systems that failed because sales reps guard their customer intelligence Collaboration spaces that…

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