Articles on People

Pre-scripted interview questions are fine for topic ideas, but make the interview your own. Have a conversation instead of lobbing questions.

720K photos later...the 'perfect' photo. Perfect takes work. Are you willing to do the work?

In a recent Harvard Business Review article titled “Don’t Ask for New Ideas If You’re Not Ready to Act on Them”, Ron Ashkenas provides an example of a

Implementing big data is more than buying software. It requires building a data culture across the organization.

What are the important skills for a data scientist?

There are many challenges facing the IT function within the midsize organization. Actually, there are many challenges facing the IT function within all

Finding the right people has always been a problem for IT organizations for many reasons. There’s always been a “build or buy” decision for organizations

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. I just finished reading Rafal Los' piece on the Enterprise CIO Forum titled Hiring information

Most people in the IT world are Professionals...but it only takes a few Fanboys to ruin it for everyone.

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. Here's an interesting thought experiment. Assume you got promoted.  Maybe you've just moved from

Ignoring your team's aspirations marginalizes them, creating an environment where people feel stuck and unappreciated. Performance suffers as a result.

Leveraging anxiety within your team can improve skill sets, but be careful. Consistently providing growth opportunities is a better approach.

But...when you ask for something...and get it...you better grab it and run with it. If you don't...someone else will.

The CIO challenge: allow everyone to be different while keeping a handle on the things that need to be secured and protected.

As you take on the role of coach/mentor/teacher, both you and your clients will benefit.

I'm currently reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (amazon affiliate link). In one of the first few chapters, Dr. Kahneman describes the

Dave Brock just published a post that resonated with me. The title of the post - Order Taker or Solution Creator - hits home in the IT world. In the

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. In my last post titled Driving transformation with IT starts with transforming IT, I pointed out a

I ran across a very interesting article titled Why Gursky’s Photo of the Rhine is the World’s Most Expensive Photo that discusses a

I just ran across an interesting research report titled "Doomed from the Start? Why a majority of business and IT teams anticipate their software

We all like to think that we are that one person in our family, team or company that is irreplaceable. The bad thing...most of us are replaceable.

Last night, I watched Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show on the Travel Channel. I'm a fan of Mr. Bourdain's...I read (actually listened) to Kitchen

Everyone has an agenda. I"m not talking about a meeting agenda...I'm talking about the personal agenda that everyone has built their lives around. This

I ran across a great post this morning over on Boy Genius Report titled Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles

I don't think there's anyone out there who would argue that the world of IT has become a complex one. The systems are complex. The processes are complex.

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. Bill Laberis had an interesting article on the Enterprise CIO Forum in late April titled

I'm a big believer in the mindset that you've got to measure it to manage it. If you can't measure something, its very difficult to manage that

Strategy...its a word that conjurs up a lot of images...some good and some bad. There are a lot of people writing and talking about strategy. There are

This is based on a true story...its long but worth it...I hope. As long as Little Johnny could remember, he wanted to be 'the boss'. He came from a long

This article is an adaptation from a text out of the book “Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders,” by Jurgen Appelo. The book

Mark McDonald over on Gartner's blog network wrote a great piece this week titled Everything is up for grabs, making it a great time to be in IT. In the

I'm in a quandary these days. As some of you may know, I'm working on my Doctorate in Information Systems. In addition, I have a full-time gig in the

CIO.com has an article titled "CMOs and CIOs: Can This Relationship Be Saved?" where they discuss surveys results released by the CMO Council and

Over the few weeks, I've been writing a lot about IT and the future of IT. Most of those articles end up with me saying something like "think about the

Passion. What type of emotion is evoked when you read it or hear that word? What do you think of when you think of passion? Do you think about your job?

I've said before that people are more important that process. I've said it in many different ways and in many different articles.  After every article, I

This is a photo taken at the highest point in the Kolob Canyon portion of Zion National Park.  Taken in April 2010 during our Zion trip. Taken with Canon

Do you know what The Onion is? If not, it's a satirical newspaper and website that is hysterical...you should read it.

I'm trying out a new approach to my link sharing posts. I'm now using delicious to capture the the articles that I want to share along with my notes. I

Technical Excellence is something we all strive for in areas that we care about. We all want to be really good at something don't we? It takes a long time

My good friend, and partner at CIOEssentials.com,  Gene Delibero asks a few interesting questions in a post titled "Certification: No Guarantee of

Pick one and own it by Jason Cohen on A Smart Bear The Strategy Trap: Why focusing too much on strategy could be killing your ability to execute by

Do you know Hutch Carpenter?  You should.  He write's some awesome stuff over at I'm Not Actually a Geek. Hutch recently wrote a post titled "Apple iPad

Talent: Develop Strengths or Weaknesses? Yes. by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace 5 Tips for Improving the Synergy between Marketing and IT by Jenn

Competing with Pirates by Mark Fidelman on Seek Omega and Cross Posted on CloudAve Why Planning Is Important, Your Plan is Not by George Krueger and

George Bailey needed a guardian angel. CIOs don't — they just need to look at their own team. Lessons from It's a Wonderful Life for technology leaders.

Some interesting research results being reported over on Fistful of Talent by Lizz Pellet who is the Chief Culture Officer at EMERGE International in a

Intuition vs. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Some Rough Ideas by Bob Sutton on Bob Sutton - Work Matters CIO and the Art of Decision Making by Arun

I ran across an interesting post today titled "Why you don't need Social Media Consultants" on the Brains on Fire Blog.  The main thesis of the post is:

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. I just completed

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. I just read a 'call

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. My wife and I took a

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. There's lots of

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. So you want to be a

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Do you know the full

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Are you agile? I'm

I was lucky enough to receive a pre-release copy of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and

How to SWOT away Strategic Planning by Steve Neiderhauser The Role of the CTO: Four Models for Success by Bob Gourley on CTOvision.com A Tendency to Blame

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. As a follow-up to my

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. It as if we're more

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. We've all heard the

Get Ready As Corporate Sites and Social Networks Start To Connect by Jeremiah Owyang on Web Strategy Why Authenticity is More Important Than Ever by Aaron

Social change takes more than social media by Ivan Booth on the Rootwork Blog (via Beth Kanter's Blog) KISS: The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics -

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Today's CIO is

I just finished reading an article in the Dallas Business Journal titled Acting like a a 'Best Boss' and the only thing I could think about while reading

What happens when you create the best strategic plan in the world but don't have a plan to implement it? Lots of wheel spinning and very little progress.

Can an organization be built on individuality with a focus on bringing humanity back to business? I think so. The modern day corporation was developed to

Every team/group has a 'go to' person. You know...that person that you (and others) know you can count on to 'get stuff done'. You find yourself always

I've always tried to go the extra mile for a client/customer when they have a complaint.  I want to resolve their issue and turn their bad experience into

Image via Wikipedia Tracie and I spent Good Friday at the Dallas Arboretum (jump over to my photoblog - OneFour Photography - for some photos).  The trip

Mike Schaffner pointed me to a great new blog titled 'Bridging the gap between business and IT' written by Laura Brandau.  The description of the blog is:

Last month I received a review copy of NOBLE ENTERPRISE: The Commonsense Guide to Uplifting People and Profits by Darwin Gillett. I had my doubts about

This is a guest post from Michael Sebastian, PhD.   Find out more information about Michael here. Anger, fear, depression and fatigue. These are the

Are you looking to improve your IT skills? Are you a business leader looking to make your IT organization more effective? If so, take a look at Simon

McKinsey has recently released a report titled "IT's unmet potential: McKinsey Global Survey Results" that shows that there is still a lot of work to do

Madoff Madness: When Smart People do Stupid Things by Charles Green on Trusted Advisor Associates Five Reasons to kill IT Projects on TechRepublic (hat

In these troubled times, it's hard for organizations to focus on employee moral and happiness. I've heard many 'leaders' say things like "they should be

According to a research report released by The Hackett Group, and reported by Financial Week, they don't. The Financial Week article, titled "Customers

Supercapitalism, written by Robert Reich, is an amazing book and should be read by every single American citizen. The book is a historical look at

For the longest time, I've put off reading "Good to Great" by Jim Collins but finally decided to pick it up. Have you ever realized that your perception

Mike Sebastian, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at SourceCheck....and a great guy to boot, has recently had an article published on InsideARM titled "The

wanted to follow up my post titled "In a downturn, people are vital" with a few more thoughts on the subject. In that post, I said that "employees are

The latest edition of CIO Magazine has an interesting article titled "Power from Your People" written by Karan Sorenson, VP & CIO at Johnson &

Management Issues had an article on Sept 25 titled "Looking after talent is vital in a downturn" that gave me hope when I saw the title. The article

W. Clement Stone said: “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys

Management Issues (MI) reported today on a survey by Careerbuilder.com that says that many US workers are losing faith in their senior leaders.  MI

This book was recommended to me by an acquaintance a few weeks ago...I'm glad they mentioned it.  I grabbed this book to read while spending last week on

Lady finds camera Lady posts info and pictures from camera on flickr People recognize pictures People tell People The owner of the camera is found Camera

As mentioned here and here, I presented a paper titled "Project Management and the Stockholm Syndrome" at the 2nd Annual University of Texas at Dallas

CIO.com has an interview with Linus Torvalds that I'd just had to share...very interesting commentary from Linus on managing software projects. In the

This is a guest post by Heather Johnson, who writes on the subject of how to become a nurse. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot

Peter Vajda has a great post over on Slow Leadership titled "Why People Resist Change" that is well worth the time to read. Peter argues that the reasons

There's an interesting story on ReadWriteWeb (RWW) and the Wall Street Journal this week about Social Networking failures in the enterprise. An excerpt

I've been holding off on this announcement until I finished the paper (mainly to make sure I actually finished it!). I'll be speaking at University of

I asked the following question on LinkedIn earlier this week and received some very insightful responses: What are the top challenges in IT organization's

Discusses the need to lead information technology

"Employee Engagement" is one of those 'buzzwords' that you hear thrown about quite a bit...but this is a buzzword that should be carefully thought about

The last few years has seen the rise of Internet based social networking. Web sites like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and others have done a lot for

I wanted to take some time to simplify my discussion of Resource Diversity and Resource Immobility from my post titled "Competitive Advantage and the

As a follow up to my previous post titled Competitive Advantage - The Human Capital Approach, I wanted to take a second to talk a little bit about the

I was asked recently to describe how an organization can use its human capital to create competitive advantage. I fell into the trap of using Porter's

Its amazing to see what passion can do to a person....and an organization. My wife Tracie and a business partner (Marcy) officially launched their

As a follow up to my previous post titled "Dress Codes at Work", I wanted to present the following hypothetical question to my readers. You work for a

Scott Herrick has a very good post on his Cube Rules blog titled "Networking for Shy People" that is definitely worth the read whether you are shy or not.