Reinventing a Small Business with Simple Technology

Last year I helped a friend of mine reinvent his business. The funny thing about this “reinvention” is that we didn’t really do much more than change his approach to using technology. My friend owns a plumbing company that has been in business since the 1940s and has been passed down to him from his […]

Mobile Connectivity and Your Business

I’d like you to do a little experiment with me. I’ve got a little thought experiment that I’d like to run past you Imagine being a small business owner today. Maybe some of you are small business owners so it’ll be very easy to imagine. Now, imagine that you are looking to expand your business. […]

The People Challenge for the Midsize Organization

There are many challenges facing the IT function within the midsize organization. Actually, there are many challenges facing the IT function within all organizations but there’s a particular challenge facing the smaller organizations. The ultimate challenge for small and midsize organizations is finding the right mix of people and technologies for the things the organization […]

The Value of Data

I’m always on the look-out for stories of companies using data and analytics to manage their business. In a recent case study, IBM presented the story of the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium’s use of data and analytics to better predict visitor behavior. According to the story, prior to taking a data-driven management approach, the […]

Managing BYOD with Policies in the Midsized Firm

There’s been much discussion of the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) over the last few years. While the topic has been written about by many bloggers and authors, there’s been very little discussion about BYOD in the small and midsize business space. Many large organizations have the ability to deploy large and complex […]

Don’t Chase Big Data

Last week I noticed this little gem over on ReadWriteWeb.com: Gartner highlights that only 8% of enterprises have actually deployed big data projects despite 64% declaring their intention to do so. That’s a big statistic. Think about it. Out of all the hype and discussions about big data, less than 10% of enterprises have actually […]

How not to make critical decisions

I ran across IBM’s “How NOT to run a midsize business…” site and immediately spent some time sifting through the site. You’ve most likely seen the cards from someecards.com running around the web these days. IBM has taken the idea of those cards and applied them to the midsize business (and business in general). You […]

Small Business and IT

I’ve written before about the constraints that hit small businesses when it comes to IT. Constraints are everywhere, but one area that I’ve always found them is within the space of small business and IT. On a previous article titled Small Business CIO – Manager of Constraints, I discussed the development of options for replacing […]

Big Data, Small Business

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP. Big Data is a Big story these days and has been for some time. Big Data is a big business too….and will most likely continue to grow. Big Data is a topic that many in large organizations are talking about…as are many consulting and technology companies. HP, among […]

Disaster Recovery – are you prepared?

The events in Japan over the last week are heartbreaking….but there’s lessons to learn from these events. Elliot Ross has a great post titled Disaster Preparedness And Recovery with some excellent links to a write-up of a first person account from Japan called Some Perspectives on the Japan Earthquake. In that article, a description was […]