Technology, Strategy, People and Projects
Did you know that technology selection is about much more than technology? Yep...its true.....but most people don't realize it. Many in the IT world love to get asked to be a part of a technology selection project. These types of projects usually provide a learning opportunity for everyone on the team and an chance to really help drive the platforms used within the enterprise. The basic question at hand for most technology selection projects really comes down to "'what do we need and how much is it?" With that question in mind, most IT professionals approach technology selection with the following three questions in mind: What are the functional requirements? What are the non-functional requirements? What is the selection criteria? These three questions definitely...
In a previous article titled The Future of IT & the CIO - Redux of the DoDo I pointed to some survey results that should be alarming to most IT professionals and leaders. The survey, titled The Future of IT (pdf download), basically argues that the role of IT will diminish in the future. The survey argues that the IT group will move away from a large centralized function and transition into a shared services model with smaller IT teams sprinkled within business units. The role of the CIO will also change quite dramatically moving from that of Technology leader to that of either leader of a shared services group or a much more transactionally focus role in charge of IT procurement and integration. Does that mean IT and the role of the CIO is going away? Like I said in the...
I love peanut butter and jelly. What a great idea to put those to food items together on a piece of bread. Have you ever thought about how much the information technology and marketing organizations are like a PB&J samich? Yes...I said samich....been wondering how to work it into a post forever. Never worry...I use sandwich from here on out...maybe. Think about IT as the peanut butter in a PB&J sandwich. Peanut Butter, much like IT, is the glue that keeps things together. While Peanut Butter can be found in a few different varieties...its pretty much the same everywhere. it may have a different taste if you try different types / brands of PB but you pretty much know what you're getting when you ask for peanut butter, you get peanut butter. Kind of like...
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled Open Source, The Enterprise and The Community where I wrote about embracing the community that exists within your organization and in the open source community. In that post, I mentioned the Boy Scouts of America and how their magazine group uses Wordpress.com's VIP hosting platform for Boys' Life magazine's Boyslife.org website. Wordpress is open source...but as far as I'm aware, this is the only example of open source platforms being used at the National office of the BSA. This story isn't about boyslife.org though or just about the BSA...its about how important it is to embrace whatever community you have. Boy Scouts & Open Source Now...before I continue, you should realize I worked at the BSA national office as an employee for...
Rackspace has just announced their open source cloud platform, OpenStack in collaboration with NASA. While the open source world has been a viable area for quite some time, there seems to be a lot of talk these days of open-sourcing many things. Google has opened up Android, the Department of Homeland Security has just announced an open source intrusion detection engine, and more organizations are embracing open source platforms while also complaining about open source software overload. Welcome to the open source world...whether you want to be a part of it or not....open source is here to stay. Open Source Take a second to jump over and read the definition of Open Source as defined by the Open Source Initiative. Lots of interesting stuff there: Access to source code....
In my doctoral research, I've been researching ways to improve knowledge capture and sharing methods, specifically within project teams but the ideas can be dissemenated around the organization. One of the biggest issues I've found while working as a consultant is the amount of knowledge that I walk away with after a project is complete. Sure, I try to share this knowledge in every way possible but converting tacit (i.e., internal) knowledge to explicit (i.e., external) knowledge is one of the most difficult things to do. Let's assume though, that some portion of the knowledge that I hold in my head is converted into some form of writing at various periods throughout a consulting project. Where does that explicit knowledge live? In an email? In some document stored on a...
Did you know that technology selection is about much more than technology? Yep…its true…..but most people don’t realize it. Many in the IT world love to get asked to be a part of a technology selection project. These types of projects usually provide a learning opportunity for everyone on the team and an chance to [...]
The New New CIO Role: Big Changes Ahead By Thomas Wailgum on CIO.com Quote: CIOs themselves are in the midst of a make-or-break personal change-management project: CIOs who can only take orders, who can’t speak the language of the business, who can’t step out of the proverbial back-office and into the front lines of customer [...]
See that peak way off in the distance? That’s the Watchman at Zion National Park. I liked this composition…different than most others you see of the Watchman. Captured with Canon 5D and Canon 17-40 L.
I get the occasional request to review a book or two from publishers, PR folks and authors. Normally, I get less than one request a month for reviewing books but over the last month I’ve received quite a few more….five to be exact. Its usually pretty easy for me to read through one additional book [...]
In a previous article titled The Future of IT & the CIO – Redux of the DoDo I pointed to some survey results that should be alarming to most IT professionals and leaders. The survey, titled The Future of IT (pdf download), basically argues that the role of IT will diminish in the future. The [...]
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