Bloggers

Reducing Workplace Anxiety

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:17:30 GMT

John Halamka writes "...I'm not nostalgic for the simpler times of the 1970's - I'm realistic about the challenges and realities of the 21st century. However, there is a point when cannot continue the pace of work...While the next year is filled with Stimulus fund projects causing people to work harder and faster, while the efforts...create more change management anxiety, and while people feel increasing tension to compete with each other for budgets, I will endeavor to..." more

Supplier Management Deals Accelerate Market Momentum

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:11:17 GMT

Jason Busch writes "...If, as Hiperos suggests, Microsoft ends up using their platform to "register suppliers, streamline AP processing, monitor data privacy risk, evaluate performance, track diversity status," among other areas, their case should serve as a useful model for others to follow..." more

The Power to Pull Prosperity

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:41:35 GMT

Umair Haque writes "...while there are tons of books that chronicle the great crisis — there are just a handful about institutional innovation. It's an art in its infanc...it's also probably the force you're going to have to master if you want to survive the Great Stagnation...The richest, most nuanced books are also the hardest to describe...a few of the key lessons that resonate with me..." more

Study Looks at IT Investments and Business Performance

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:36:46 GMT

Thomas Wailgum writes "...The study "looks at five distinct attributes of data—quality, usability, intelligence, remote accessibility and sales mobility—and examines how a 10 percent improvement in any one or two of these attributes affects the metrics commonly reported for assessing the financial performance of businesses...survey does quantitatively validate...Even the best of applications and decision-making processes will be rendered ineffective by bad data. Garbage in..." more

All Leadership Comes Down to Changing Behaviors

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 22:34:35 GMT

Bill Taylor writes "...some thoughts about how they apply to the broader challenges of change..Language matters, and the language of hope beats the language of fear...radical change is the result of all sorts of practical steps — not a single burst of charismatic leadership or big-picture vision...Without sufficient wins that are visible, timely, unambiguous, and meaningful to others, change efforts invariably run into serious problems..." more

U.S. and UK Begin Mandatory Reviews of Gov IT Projects

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:42:03 GMT

Michael Krigsman writes "...it is clear that project and program assurance should be a critical component of all IT organizations...Most sophisticated IT organizations would claim to have elaborate quality programs in place. In my experience, typical project (or portfolio) QA offers a limited project management-centric view of the world. These efforts ignore the broader context and drivers of success or failure, which is one major reason that failure rates remain so high. It’s heartening to see governments taking..." more

Innovating While Meeting Performance Goals

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:43:20 GMT

Sameer Patel writes "...Building Innovation cultures come in many flavors...It really means opening up the participatory funnel on not only suggesting but more importantly, refining the good ideas and getting the kinks out. In practical terms this means getting the big brains hidden in the corners of your enterprise to contribute...as leader...make sure your differentiating between decisive innovation execution and wild west idea festivals. That disciplined approach..." more

Reconsider how to Measure Value in Systems

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:30:10 GMT

Michael Hugos writes "How does your company measure value in the systems it produces? Most companies measure value by the degree to which a system meets the traditional “iron triangle” of Scope, Schedule and Cost. System scope is defined by...at The Gap they have shifted from the idea that “more is better” to the idea that “less is best”. They increase value by increasing amount of work they don’t do..." more

BPMN for Business Professionals

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:25:50 GMT

Jim Sinur for Gartner writes "...IT professionals can’t really expect business folks to understand cryptic/standard formats when they really want to see a real representation of their processes with desirable icons; not engineering Icons...If we fully expect BPM to enter the “C suite” and become the business man’s best friend, it had better shape up its image. BPMN is just one issue that BPM needs to engage in making processes appealing to the business..." more

Late Projects: Perfection is a Schedule's Worst Enemy

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:13:33 GMT

Todd C Williams writes "...People should be rewarded for completing tasks early, deferring new assignments until the current task is complete, and ensuring that deliverables are devoid of even the smallest of additional features. The resistance to this model is huge. Meddling managers are..." more

Choosing a Load Balancing Algorithm Requires DevOps Fu

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:02:16 GMT

Lori MacVittie writes "...These are great little posts for understanding the basics of load balancing algorithms like round robin, least connections, and least (fastest) response time...posts are accurate in their description of the theoretical (designed) behavior of the algorithms. The thing that’s missing from these posts...is context of the application that is being load balanced and the way in which modern load balancing solutions behave..." more

Accessing and Managing Technical Debt

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:34:17 GMT

Israel Gat writes "...From a governance perspective, technical debt techniques give us the opportunity to carry out consistent governance of the software process based on a single source of truth. The single source of truth is, of course, the code itself. The very same truth is reflected at every level in the organization..." more

Why IT Must Embrace Consumer Technologies

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:52:47 GMT

Mike Schaffner writes "Consumer technologies are infiltrating the corporate world. Learn to leverage them...we are seeing what is referred to as the consumerization of IT. This refers to people being exposed to new technologies in their personal lives and asking, "Why can't we apply this to our work?" It's important to recognize that..." more

Succession Planning

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:55:54 GMT

John Halamka writes "Leaders often think about succession plans for their direct reports, but what about themselves? What if I had a serious health problem or accident that impaired my ability to lead my IT organizations? Here's my brief analysis...Overall in my roles as CIO of two institutions, my greatest utility is to provide a common link between..." more

The Impossibility of CAP and Cloud

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:46:17 GMT

Lori MacVittie writes "It comes down to this: the on-demand provisioning and elastic scalability systems that make up “cloud” are addressing NP-Complete problems for which there is no known exact solutions. At the heart of what cloud computing provides – in addition to compute-on-demand – is the concept of elastic scalability. It is through the ability to rapidly provision resources and..." more

America's 21st-Century Business Model

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:18:35 GMT

Joel Kotkin writes "...The emerging post-racial economy provides two distinct opportunities for American business. First the newcomers offer a new domestic "emerging" market...But perhaps even more important may be the uniquely international cast of American business. Heads of corporations and senior executives of many leading American firms will not have to go to graduate school in international training...This diversity will allow Americans to tap..." more

Why A Civil Society Extends Unemployment Benefits

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:30:40 GMT

Robert Reich writes "..Right now, there are roughly five applicants for every job opening in America. If the job requires relatively few skills, hundreds of applicants line up for it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 15 percent of people without college degrees are jobless today; that’s not counting large numbers too discouraged even to look for work..." more

Ten Corporate Social Media Mistakes

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:04:45 GMT

Dan Woods writes "...Don't try to define collaboration, offer simple and easy-to-use mechanisms. More ornate structures will emerge if needed. They rarely succeed...If adoption of social media is seen as optional, it will not happen. Only executives can make clear that change is required...End-users have a day job and it is a huge mistake to think that end-users alone can change a company's culture and successfully promote adoption..." more

Why Consistent Innovation is so Difficult

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:33:01 GMT

Jeffrey Phillips writes "...every successful innovator seems to drive more revenue, and drive more differentiation than other firms in their industry. So I'm left with the fact that executives are far too often hot and cold...about innovation, and that means a consistent innovation process, which requires commitment and exercise over time, can't be sustained..." more

Structure and Strategy Behind Customer Co-Creation

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:15:22 GMT

Frank Piller writes "...a number of brief articles are addressing open innovation with customers...Customer co-creation is ".. an active, creative and social process, based on collaboration between producers (retailers) and users, that is initiated by the firm to generate value for customers."...we present the following structure of eight co-creation strategies..." more

Cloud is not Rocket Science but it is Computer Science

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:55:35 GMT

Lori MacVittie writes "...in a nutshell, the core of what cloud computing really is. It’s “computer science” with an focus on architecting a system by which the computing resources necessary to secure, optimize, and deliver applications can be achieved most efficiently...What is new are the systems and architectures that tie these disparate technologies together to form a cohesive operating environment in which..." more

CIO Talks About Privacy as Data Crosses Borders

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:53:04 GMT

Ed Sperling of Forbes writes "...International privacy laws are changing the way global companies do business... Technology hasn't changed the way information is gathered or prepared for analysis, but it has changed how it is presented and used by the customer. There is more information and proprietary tools in the hands of our customers. They can slice the data and analyze" more

The Importance of Scope in Data Quality Efforts

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:07:17 GMT

Jill Dyche writes "...In our experience, there are 5 levels of data quality delivery that can quickly establish not only the scope of an initial data quality effort, but also the actual duties and resources involved in the initial project...Business executives and users can consume a well-scoped problem, especially if it makes their jobs easy or propels progress..." more

The Innovation Gap Between Executives and their Teams

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:59:56 GMT

Jeffrey Phillips writes "...Most large organizations are built to optimize a set of predictable processes which support and maintain a given set of products or services...Executives in most firms rarely interact with anyone more than one or two levels below them, so they don't "know" the people in the organization and their ideas. They remember the organization as..." more

Suggestions to Steer a Team to Think Agile

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:54:07 GMT

Isaac Sacolick writes "I've seen this issue before; a team is struggling to move into an agile process. In my case, they are using agile to plan out an architecture. It's a smart team, but they are immediately jumping into solving problems and developing artifacts...if your team is jumping right into solutions or adhoc planning, here are my suggestions on steering them to an agile process:..." more

A look at Social Network Elements as a Competitive Advantage

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:41:06 GMT

Boostzone Institute writes "[by Dominique Turcq]...Overall all these elements are announcing a boom in individual, corporate and social productivity. Individual because less time will be spent reinventing the wheel; corporate because the sum of individuals ability to use networks will be a major competitive advantage for gaining speed, innovation and engagement; social because the society overall benefits from..." more

Successfully Managing Transitions Takes Skill

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:29:45 GMT

Abbie Lundberg writes "...Most people don’t resist change intentionally; resistance to change is part of our DNA. So if you want to change people’s behavior, remember these four things: [1] Sell the problem, not the solution – you’ve got to help people get unstuck from where they are. [2] Focus people’s attention..." more

Why Reducing Cloud Complexity is Tied to Infrastructure

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:59:30 GMT

Lori MacVittie writes "...Ultimately the agility and reduction in complexity offered by cloud is tied to the infrastructure, and the alleged ease with which scale and enforcement of delivery policies can be applied at strategic points of control throughout the architecture. BPM, CRM, SFA, home-grown applications. None of these are necessarily made less complex by cloud computing and in fact governing the intricate relationships of such applications is made more..." more

Common Mistakes in Capturing Knowledge & Processes

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:03:59 GMT

Dan Woods writes "The key is to let the users determine what is important. The staff in charge of promoting use of the collaborative dial tone should not rush the process of creating activity templates and capturing knowledge. Wait until many people have started to comment on an activity and then introduce a template..." more

Where New Service Jobs will be Created in the U.S.

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:58:21 GMT

Richard Florida writes "Service class jobs compose the biggest share of all jobs, and are projected to grow considerably in the future...A serious job creation strategy must see service class jobs as a key to providing better, more engaging, higher-wage employment...Service class jobs are the last frontier of real inefficiency in the economy. Already, companies like The Container Store, Whole Foods...Starbucks are developing new and better strategies to engage their workers, improve pay, and..." more

CIO-Villanova 'Most University Technology Rivals Corporate'

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:15:18 GMT

Ed Sperling of Forbes writes "...Is your technology becoming a competitive tool for winning new student applicants?...if you can't meet their baseline expectations of wireless everywhere, advanced computing, good technology support, then you're out of the game...There's a debate about whether Web 2.0 in its broadest sense is game-changing. I would argue that it's all part of a continual evolution, whether it's collaboration..." more

Truths about Change

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:52:43 GMT

Rosabeth Moss Kanter writes "I call these the Change Agent Bumper Stickers. Here are seven universal sayings that can comfort and guide anyone engaged in the effort of setting a new direction, orchestrating innovation, establishing a culture, or changing behavior...."Everything can look like a failure in the middle.I've observed this so often that I call it Kanter's Law. There are numerous roadblocks, obstacles..." more

Find the Safest and Riskest World Places to Use the Internet

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:00:19 GMT

Roger Thompson writes "...we have compiled data from over 127 million computers in 144 countries to determine the incidence rates of virus attacks by country...viruses and malware knows no boundaries and doesn’t stop at borders for Visa authorization, but it is a useful snapshot into user behaviour. Internet users in Turkey, Russia, the Caucasus and South-east Asia for example show disproportionately higher rates of..." more

Being "most things to most people" Isn't Innovation

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:54:03 GMT

Jeffrey Phillips writes "...The lack of strategic direction, clearly articulated is endemic in many organizations...That's because it is easier to be "most things to most people" rather than have a clearly articulated and executed vision....Any executive worth his or her salt should occasionally pull a person three or four levels down in the organization and ask them what they believe the..." more

Where the Blue-Collar Jobs Will Be

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:42:07 GMT

Richard Florida writes "The decline of high-paying, blue-collar jobs for lower-skilled workers has caused considerable concern that the U.S. is losing an important source of good, family-supporting jobs...But what will the geography of blue-collar work look like in the future?...The map above shows the metros with the biggest projected gains...The good news is that the U.S. will continue to create relatively high-paying working class jobs. These jobs will continue to..." more

HRB: America's Lost Decade

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:39:32 GMT

Umair Haque writes "...The real crisis isn't about bankers, bonuses, and bailouts — it's about an economy that's geared to create thin value; value that's artificial, meaningless, and often, actually worth little, in human terms. So the real challenge isn't about eking out another penny of profit by...It's about learning to create thicker value: authentic value, that endures, resonates, and multiplies. Unless, of course, you think..." more

Pending IT Collision of Devices, Networks and Systems

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:31:23 GMT

Greg Ness writes "...The biggest question may then be how the enterprise and public sector technology industry adapts, with public clouds setting new expectations for cost and service while growing specialized IT teams (hired to address the rising swarm) are dedicated to managing increasingly slow and congested enterprise networks. Note Fed CIO Kundra’s recent remarks from the NASA IT Summit..." more

Early Warning Signs of IT Project Failure

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:27:09 GMT

Michael Krigsman writes "...For an academic article on this subject titledEarly Warning Signs of IT Project Failure: The Dominant Dozen, two researchers collected data from 19 experts and 55 IT project managers. The researchers discovered an important lesson: “signicant symptoms or ‘earlywarning signs’ of trouble” often are presentlong before a project actually fails. The article describes twelve warning signs, divided into people-related risks and process-related risks:..." more

Without Context or Objectives Data Inventory is Flawed

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:33:51 GMT

Evan Levy writes "...The point of a data inventory isn’t to pick through data because it exists, but to inventory the data people actually need. If you’re going to undertake a data inventory, your output should be structured so that the next person doesn’t have to repeat your work. Identify the data...Categorize this data by subject area. You’ll inevitably find that there are inconsistent versions of..." more

How the Accidential Future is Becoming an IT Reality

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:27:51 GMT

Dion Hinchcliffe writes "It’s a story as old as the IT department: New technology arrives in the market, it makes some type of work easier to accomplish, the business asks for it, and IT reacts and delivers it...now IT is faced with what is turning out to be a veritable perfect storm of technology and social change...All of this has resulted in a situation where most individuals can now wield just as much IT capability as most enterprises, and for a fraction of the cost..." more

When Technology is Better at Home vs Office

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:05:17 GMT

Dan Woods writes "...IT departments must change their relationship with users to promote innovation and creativity...Fearful IT departments attempt to suppress do-it-yourself IT in the name of security, compliance and governance. IT's argument: You are not qualified to do the complex work that we do. But every year users are more hostile to these claims. Spreadsheets have been an indispensable do-it-yourself tool for decades..." more

Early-Adopters are Experimenting with Crowdsourcing

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:51:10 GMT

Dion Hinchcliffe writes "...The implication is that what we collectively create has become the most significant and popular part of the Web...this nascent and emerging field is offering early adopters a powerful and easy-to-use new alternative for building scalable, fast-growing businesses for a fraction of the cost of the slow and inefficient methods of..." more

Current IT Thinking on Certifications

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:25:28 GMT

Scott Booher writes "...resources that reflect current thinking on a topic of interest to IT leaders...The majority view regarding IT certification seems to be that certs continue to have value, and in a crowded job market, may help candidates stand out among their peers, particularly within the HR resume triage process. Certifications are also viewed by many as a sign of continuing investment by an employee..." more

When the Internet Becomes a Web of Flow vs Pages

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:42:02 GMT

Stowe Boyd writes "...URLs will cease to be navigational tools, principally, and instead will represent addresses through which fragments are pulled, and streamed. It’s not that the web is dead, it’s being reanimated through pervasive social streaming. And then..." more

Where the Jobs Will be

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:28:06 GMT

Richard Florida writes "...where will the new jobs be located? Which places will grow the most jobs and, conversely, which will see the biggest job losses?...The map above shows the metros with the biggest projected gains in total employment out to 2018...the structural forces that are reshaping the U.S. economy from an industrial to a more idea, knowledge, and human capital driven...will continue to deepen. Left unchecked, these forces will continue to divide the U.S. economy and U.S. society by..." more

The Truth About China as #2

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:07:55 GMT

Robert Reich writes "...Don’t be misled by these numbers. The important thing isn’t China’s ranking, nor the total value of China’s production, nor even the extraordinary speed by which China has reached #2. What’s most important is the share China’s production received and consumed by the Chinese themselves. The problem is it continues to drop.China has dozens of billionaires but..." more

Where Contractual Limitation of Liability are Exceptions

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:28:45 GMT

Michael Overly writes "If you do any contracting involving technology, you will no doubt be well familiar with the concept of a limitation of liability provision. Almost all provisions contain two parts...Almost any contract breach (e.g., a software bug, a support failure, a breach of internal security policy, etc.) could potentially constitute gross negligence depending on the facts of the particular case. This should be a wake-up call for vendors providing..." more

Anatomy of a Failed Launch - Michelin PAX Tire

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:07:33 GMT

Rita McGrath writes "It is always instructive to examine how successful firms can go wrong, even in markets that they think they understand well. The market failure of the Michelin run-flat PAX tire illustrates the common mistake of failing to realize that even a groundbreaking product has to create a complete consumption chain. Broken links in the chain mean..." more

Test, Measure and Iterate Customer Transaction Data

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:03:34 GMT

Jeff Nolan writes "...what this [Experimentation and Big Data] is identifying is how leading companies have been able to move beyond data sampling and are now tracking and benchmarking massive data sets of actual customer transaction and behavioral data. The ability to test, measure and iterate at this scale simply wasn’t possible before networks and the “internet of things” that McKinsey also identifies as a top trend." more

Normalizing Phased Deployment with Virtualized Network Appliances

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:58:48 GMT

Lori MacVittie writes "...One of the big “trends” in cloud computing is to use a public cloud as an alternative environment for development and test...certainly a cost effective means of managing the highly variable environment that is development. But unless you can actually duplicate the production environment in a public cloud, the benefits might be offset by the challenges of moving through the rest of the application lifecycle...One of the reasons...." more

When the Numbers tell a Risky Inventory Story

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:55:15 GMT

Jason Busch writes "...companies are hoarding cash and ordering less at all levels of the supply chain. The obvious risk in this scenario is that any changes in demand or supply at one tier in the supply chain can have cascading multiplier effects elsewhere in the chain based on current inventory levels, capital availability, etc. What’s a potential solution to the issue?...how we could use optimization versus how it’s typically put into practice today…" more

SaaS/Cloud Strategies For Legacy Apps Environments

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:43:12 GMT

Ray Wang writes "...CIO’s vested in protecting the existing investments may often proceed with caution for SaaS and Cloud solutions...SaaS/Cloud Strategies Must Transcend The Burden Of Legacy Apps Over Time...Next generation apps strategies must account for both a future of hybrid deployments and growing independence of legacy apps. Ten of the most common go forward strategies include:..." more

Technical Debt is the Enemy of Value

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:39:08 GMT

Michael Hugos writes "...People are often under pressure to deliver a lot of system functionality in a short period of time so we turn out code that is not of good quality. It has bugs, it isn't well written and it isn’t well tested, but it is done to meet tight development schedules. Systems coded in a hurry may be delivered on time, but they incur a cost in the form of “technical debt”. In other words..." more

Starbucks CIO Talks about their Digital Customer Connection

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:50:56 GMT

Stephen Gillett writes "...The Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) is in proud partnership with Yahoo! and will launch in the Fall of this year...Our customers can engage with the SDN as they choose and/or navigate out directly to the web to complete the many tasks online a good wi-fi connection allows them to complete...I get a lot of questions over email and the blog, so please feel free to email directly or post in the comments section below and will do my best to engage & answer..." more

How to Get a Team to Think Agile

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:58:31 GMT

Isaac Sacolick writes "...I've seen this issue before; a team is struggling to move into an agile process. In my case, they are using agile to plan out an architecture. It's a smart team, but they are immediately jumping into solving problems and developing artifacts. The problem is..." more

Challenge: Practical Cloud Adoption by Removing the Hype

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:56:07 GMT

Ian Cohen writes "[CIO at Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group...I recently sat as part of an august panel of CIOs, drawn together to critique yet another a vendor proposition on cloud computing, and listened intently as we all described “Cloud” differently...one thing that IT supposedly does well is process and standards – so why are we as an industry ignoring our strengths and perpetuating the marketing spin and hype...here are my 3 essential priorities for any supply side cloud advocates..." more

Don't be Strangled by Process-Improvement Black Belts

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:49:16 GMT

Dale Sanders writes "[CIO for Caymans Islands Hlth Serv. Authority]...we healthcare CIOs are acting in predictable fashion by following the “Most Popular Practice” as opposed to the “Best Practice.” Before we pull the trigger on yet another silver bullet savior of process, I urge all of us to look closely at the contribution of burdensome process in the woes of Toyota…and GE…and Motorola. Try though we may fix the problems of healthcare IT with..." more

Seattle CTO on Web 2.0, Gov 2.0 and Society 2.0

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:43:55 GMT

Bill Schrier writes "...The whole two-dot-oh thing seems so “contrived”. Like a marketing gimmick...Yet there is a kernel of truth here, not so much in the technology but in the fabric of our society. It is Society 2.0...I’m not coining the term Society 2.0. I’m not sure who coined it, but I first heard of it on Monday, June 21st, from Julius O. Akinyemi, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Media Lab at MIT. I was privileged to be one of..." more

Getting Your PMP vs Becoming a Good Project Manager

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:05:37 GMT

Todd C Williams writes "...Do you want to learn to be a good project manager or do you want your PMP? Unfortunately, getting your PMP does not prepare you for being a good project manager, taking a thorough college level course does not set you up to get a PMP. Having your PMP will look good on your résumé, but that means little if you cannot perform the job. Strong people skills..." more

CIO Opportunity with New IT Health Insurers' Landscape

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:12:48 GMT

McKinsey Quarterly writes "...Periodically, a dramatic change in an industry enables CIOs to step up and play a decisive role in corporate affairs. We see such a seismic shift in the US health insurance industry, which faces the most sweeping changes in its half-century history. The ranks of the health care payers comprise more than 350 companies, with combined revenues of $500 billion and combined IT spending of $13 billion annually. These businesses range..." more

How Well do You Understand Your Business and IT Strategy?

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:34:57 GMT

Nigel Fenwick of Forrester writes "Whether you are a CEO, CIO, IT employee, or working outside of IT, you have some level of understanding of your organization’s strategy. At least that’s what I believe. But how much do you understand? To find out..." more

Do Large Projects Really Fail More Often?

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:40:20 GMT

Michael Krigsman writes "...as long as we compare projects and their risks apples to apples, I have not seen big projects fail any more than smaller projects. The difference is that when big projects fail, they fail SPECTACULARLY, and hence they overshadow the similar failure rates of smaller projects. Several decades later, we still talk about..." more

Financial Services Firms Forge Ahead with Innovation

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:12:13 GMT

John Sviokla writes "...learned something fascinating from business and technology executives in the financial services industry. [annual "Digital IQ" survey] Despite the increased regulation and turbulent economy that financial services firms have been facing over the past couple of years, they are focused on innovation. We shared this finding from the financial services segment of the Digital IQ data with..." more

Resource Scavenger - A Common Innovation Job

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:56:06 GMT

Rita McGrath writes "Once executives get beyond the well-understood processes of exploiting a core business, many seem to have absolutely no clue how to institutionalize other critically important leadership tasks. Take innovation. Often it just proceeds in fits and starts...Take GE's efforts to commercialize organic light-emitting diodes, a technology so revolutionary that it..." more

U.S. Energy Dept CIO Reports Ten Million Cyberattacks a Day

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:49:27 GMT

Ed Sperling of Forbes writes "...The U.S. Department of Energy...receives more than 10 million attacks every day, according to Tom Pyke, the DOE's former CIO. That includes everything from simple scans all the way up to phishing attacks that attempt to use malicious code to take over. And it can be as sophisticated as any attacker...can make it. So how many have gotten through?..." more

Leaders are Built not Bought

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:07:22 GMT

Susan Cramm writes "...I realized that this organization is running on the leaders they developed five, 10, even 15 years ago, in their pre-outsourcing days. These people are getting older and looking tired. Outsourcers, not employees, are performing many of the jobs that helped build their leadership skills....potential candidates will have strong technical skills but equally likely that they will lack the necessary insider understanding of the business and how to exert influence and lead change. As a CIO..." more

Smart People & Stupid Things: Big Traps in Small Lapses

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:17:11 GMT

Rosabeth Moss Kanter writes "...Signs of character are most visible when they are least visible — that is, demonstrated by what people do when they think no one is watching, such as following the rules or taking the moral high ground with no audience observing them. That's why the signals of a leader's judgment lies in the small things. That's why we don't want to entrust..." more

Hyper Evolving Tech Landscape: Business and Scalable IT Infrastructure

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:10:28 GMT

Dion Hinchcliffe writes "... Enter today’s hyper-evolving technology landscape...Here’s what CoIT could look like if we extrapolating forward current trends such as 1) businesses taking more local control for IT, 2) workers using their own preferred computing devices and apps, and a 3) manageable processes for rapid uptake of enterprise apps, mashups, and devices matched with IT support processes that scale to match...." more

Prepare for Record Patch Tuesday

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:03:33 GMT

Tony Bradley writes "...Next Tuesday Microsoft will unleash 14 new security bulletins, addressing a record-tying 34 vulnerabilities...Issuing 14 security bulletins in one month is a new one, but the record of patching 34 different flaws is not so uncommon any more....a brief analysis of the upcoming Microsoft patches..." more

U.S. Geography Map of High-Paying Jobs

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:35:26 GMT

Richard Florida writes "we looked at the pay levels for three types of jobs – high-skill, high-pay, creative class jobs; traditional, blue-collar, working class jobs; and lower-skill, lower-pay service jobs...The geography of high-paying jobs is strikingly uniform. The highest-paying regions are bi-coastal – dominated by metros in the Bay Area and the Bos-Wash corridor. And the pattern holds not just for the highest-paying metros but for all U.S. metros. Pay levels for the three major occupational groups are..." more

Agile Software Dev in the Cloud is Extremely Disruptive

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:24:24 GMT

Tom Foremski writes "...He [John Dillon] describes the current state of the IT market as...extremely disruptive: software as a service and cloud based infrastructures, combined with...are set to revolutionize IT. He compares what is happening in enterprise software markets to the introduction of the PC...Cloud computing will result in a lot of M&A. Once the big boys figure out what is going on...there will be a major land grab." more

Customer-Side "fine print" Disappointment with Cloud Computing

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:45:13 GMT

Thomas Wailgum writes "...there's a monsoon of innovation coming from "The Cloud," and it'll be interesting to watch to see if CIOs and enterprise technology customers attempt to put more teeth into their licensing and service agreements this time around...Advises Yankee Group: "Enterprises must take a close look at the small print before they proceed." Same as..." more

What it Takes for Collaboration Software to Lead to Business Results

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:02:45 GMT

Sameer Patel writes "...understanding the value of associating collaboration with performance...Organizations still need to understand how to design work processes that blend optimal process and collaboration but its hell of a lot easier when the software plays nice. On the other hand, far too many product teams continue to enrich whiz-bang collaboration features when end users are still struggling to understand the basic applicability..." more

Can Trust Be Repaired?

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:22:16 GMT

Susan Mazza writes "...The opportunity of leveraging breakdowns in trust to fuel breakthroughs in relationship is not just a nice possibility. It is an essential skill for thriving in a world that increasingly depends on or ability to cooperate and collaborate to be successful...Below are a few suggestions for how to begin the process of re-building trust...some great suggestions specifically focused on rebuilding credibility..." more

What's Behind Structural Unemployment? Advancing Technology

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:14:29 GMT

Martin Ford writes "...what if the problem is relentlessly advancing technology? What if we are getting close to a “tipping point” where autonomous technology can do the typical jobs that are required by the economy as well as an average worker? Well, that is basically UNTHINKABLE. It’s unthinkable because there are NO conventional solutions...Why are economists so reluctant to seriously consider the implications of advancing technology? I think a lot of it has to do with pure denial...." more

Cloud Transitioning

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:13:42 GMT

Paul Thurrott writes "...Microsoft COO Kevin Turner... announced that fully 70 percent of cloud computing "wins" the company had in the previous quarter were ... gasp ... new customers...Dow Chemical buying over 70,000 Business Productivity Online seats for e-mail, messaging, conferencing and collaboration. And Hyatt Hotels buying 17,000 Business Productivity Online seats for its headquarters, and another 40,000 desk-less licenses..." more

Business Shift from Command-Control to Coordinate-Cultivate

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:14:52 GMT

Sadagopan writes "...Four decentralized organizational structures—loose hierarchies, democracies, external markets, and internal markets—that will be enabled by technology but centered around enduring human values shall be the dominant model. The shift from "command-and-control" management to "coordinate-and-cultivate," and the new skills that will be required to succeed...To keep trying to change regularly needs to be in the decision framework and DNA of...Standing still is the kiss of the death and those..." more

Outages are Painful: CIO Shares Lessons Learned

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:00:45 GMT

John Halamka writes "..Outages are painful, but they can bring people together. They can build trust, foster communication, and improve processes by testing downtime plans in a real world scenario. The outcome of our recent incident was a better plan for the future, improved infrastructure, and a universal understanding of the network design among the entire team - an excellent long term outcome..." more

Mobile E-Mail Replacing Desktop E-Mail

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:56:08 GMT

Tony Bradley writes "According to the Nielsen study measuring online activity of 200,000 users and comparing results from 2010 to the previous year, e-mail use on the desktop dropped from 12 percent to 8.3 percent...Meanwhile, time spent on e-mail on mobile devices went up from 37 percent to 42 percent--clearly dominating other mobile online activities.The trend highlights the increased reliance on mobile computing and tablets..." more

Biggest Cloud Impact Will be When Business Models are Reshaped

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:44:18 GMT

Dan Woods writes "...The cloud right now is a technology phenomenon, but to make the biggest impact, its power must be reflected in business terms. Migration of server assets to the cloud or taking advantage of elastic capacity may save a few dollars, but the big money will come when business models of entire industries are reshaped because of the flexibility the cloud offers. The IT person who figures that out will..." more

Fed Gov't CIO Gets Serious About IT Failures

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:54:52 GMT

Michael Krigsman writes "....Vivek Kundra, federal Chief Information Officer, has taken new steps to raise the profile of failed IT projects within the government. Poorly managed IT projects are a significant source of financial waste, so we must applaud these efforts, even though significant results may take years to achieve...Kundra’s latest steps are part of a broader push to increase transparency on federal IT projects, including..." more

Study Shows Social Net Audience More Mature - Culturally Diverse

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:48:57 GMT

Tony Bradley writes "...Nielsen found that twice as many users over the age of 50 are using social networks than are users under age 18. For businesses looking to use social networks as a marketing platform, these demographic details are important...if your customers are spending more time online, and most of that time is spent on social networks, then that is where the marketing and advertising budget should be spent..." more

What the "Outer Edge" of Innovation looks like

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:44:46 GMT

Jeffrey Phillips writes "...We in the gray-box cubicles of corporate America need to get linked in to what is happening out on the "edge" - out where we aren't comfortable and things aren't predictable...people who are creating and experimenting with art, with design, with experience are creating the next evolutions of our products, services and expectations....Our customers want new thinking, new ideas and..." more

Four Things Groups Want that Leaders Can't Give

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:02:56 GMT

Rosabeth Moss Kanter writes "...These tensions go with the leadership territory. It helps to be aware of them and remain unrattled while working through them. But here's the good news. The one thing groups want that leaders can always provide, with predictably positive results, is TLC — tender loving care. People respond well to a sympathetic ear and frequent communication. Knowing that leaders care about their success can..." more

A Common ROI Mistake is to Focus on Measurements vs Assumptions

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:28:07 GMT

Bill Crowell writes "...one of the most common mistakes people make in applying ROI methodologies is to focus on the measurements themselves and not the underlying assumptions surrounding the cash flow forecasts that produce the ROI. Here is an example...When I was the CIO for the Department of Human Services (DHS) in Oregon, we initiated a state wide data center consolidation project. Seventeen agencies participated and..." more

Most CIOs are Good, Leadership Skills Make You Great

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:17:04 GMT

Susan Cramm writes "...The CIO job is really, really hard. Imagine trying to deliver complex products and services to technically unsophisticated and, for the most part, patently uninterested business "partners." Factor in the difficulty of ensuring security and operational stability while delivering new capabilities. Consider the difficulty of doing so while incorporating disruptive technologies and constraining funding. And do all of the above while convincing your internal team to stay focused and..." more

The Bot! A Recurring Nightmare

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:06:33 GMT

Lori MacVittie writes "...One of the ways in which a bot can end up in your datacenter wreaking havoc and driving your infosec and ops teams insane is through web application vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities in both the underlying language and server software as well as the web application itself, are generally exploited through XSS (Cross-site scripting)...Getting rid of one is easy. It’s keeping it gone that’s the problem. If it entered via a web application..." more

Which Manager, Which Technology for Which Community?

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:57:38 GMT

Boostzone Institute writes "[by Dominique Turcq]...Understanding the differences between communities within organizations is a must for grasping the value of any collaborative intelligence eco-system. I have been working for several years now with the community quadrant diagram, published for the first time in 2007 in what was then mostly a description of communities... I would like to ouline the implications for the roles of the community managers and for the tools involved..." more

The Coming Silicon Valley VC Implosion

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:31:02 GMT

Tom Foremski writes "...because the VC returns are terrible, and sooner or later, the investors, the Limited Partners won’t continue investing in funds that have mediocre returns...The cost of doing nothing is the US will lose its leadership position in innovation and it will be much poorer because of that loss. Innovation creates jobs and jobs are essential for a healthy society. But changing the VC industry is a tall order and..." more

Social Media is Hurdling Challenges in Regulated Industries

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:20:12 GMT

Ross Mayfield writes "...You won't find open comments under the brand of a a regulated institution anytime soon. Regulation also gives weight to to some parts of the web. Identity infrastructure, has evolved recently with promise for the distributed identity than we have seen before. We're often swift to say how regulation stifles innovation. But it also yields innovation...important in some fields like..." more

America is Splitting into Two Distinct Regional Economies

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:47:42 GMT

Richard Florida writes "...a small set of affluent regions with relatively large concentrations of well-paying occupations, and a much larger set of less-advantaged regions with less-skilled, more poorly paying ones...This overlays the nation’s worsening income inequality with a glaring geographic dimension. America is becoming increasingly sorted not just by culture and attitudes...but by powerful economic forces - human capital level, skill, type of work, and, ultimately, pay and income...it’s little surprise that..." more

As the Network Industry Wraps up 2010 Expect Network Automation

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:07:22 GMT

Greg Ness writes "...Increasing complexity on the outside of the network will drive enterprises to control/automate more aspects of network infrastructure, which will ultimately reduce the operating expense of the network and fuel a new tech refresh cycle. Think network automation and control, as enterprises race to automate specialized, high risk processes. CIOs will ultimately gain as much visibility into..." more

The Key Elements of Organizational Capital

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:31:55 GMT

Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes "...“The companies with the highest returns on their technology investments did more than just buy technology; they invested in organizational capital to become digital organizations. Productivity studies at both the firm level and the establishment (or plant) level during the period 1995-2008 reveal that the firms that saw high returns on their technology investments were the same firms that..." more

Rich Vs. Poor IT Organizations

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:14:35 GMT

Ed Sperling of Forbes writes "...What makes one CIO more successful than another is changing. In the past, deep knowledge of technology was critical. Now, a deep understanding of the business and how to move it forward has become the key metric...What percentage of CIOs are on the rich side? About 22%. How many are in the middle? Almost 30%. And there is a solid 50% that are poor and getting..." more

A Deeper Kind of Joblessness: A Theory on Vanishing Jobs

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:04:07 GMT

Umair Haque writes "...one might raise their eyebrows, then, and reasonably wonder whether it's American preferences that are killing the American dream. If America has changed so much that what Henry Ford thought was eminently practical is now seen as hopelessly naive — well, then perhaps it's not just bankers, bonuses, and bailouts that are really behind the Great Crash. Here's what I mean by that. Every time I buy something from your local big-box retailer..." more

Does Outsourcing Destroy IT Innovation?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:32:42 GMT

Susan Cramm writes "...Grove [former Intel Chief] believes that, "not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience that is important for technological evolution." Grove makes a good argument that, over time, companies lose the ability to innovate in the sectors they outsource...Research on IT management practices within the banking industry found that top-performing companies outsource less, and those that outsource IT..." more

Flat or Declining Revenues...Soaring Profits, is it Sustainable?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:46:43 GMT

Martin Ford writes "...Corporations are using both automation and offshoring to reduce labor costs. As significant revenue growth becomes harder to attain, they are squeezing their workers to generate as much profit as possible from the sales they have. That strategy makes perfect sense for any individual firm. The problem is that collectively businesses are destroying the market for their products and services by..." more

The Problem with Total Cost of Ownership

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:37:52 GMT

Evan Levy writes "...TCO is often limited to processing hardware, storage, software, and IT resources necessary to configure and manage the platform on an ongoing basis. But this is usually limited to IT staff focused on system development and maintenance. Unfortunately the most expensive cost—not normally included in TCO calculations—is the business user’s time...It should be about the cost of continued business usage..." more

Where Have all the Business Heroes Gone?

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:35:08 GMT

Bill Taylor writes "...I'm always amazed by the fact that the companies and leaders I most admire are rarely the ones that show up on the front pages of the business section or on the covers of business magazines. Here's why: So much of the way so many of us think about business remains rooted in the logic of ...Power is about what you control. Freedom is about what you unleash..." more

Turnarounds Require New Top Leaders

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:37:23 GMT

Rosabeth Moss Kanter writes "..The Case of Tony Hayward and the Gulf Oil Spill will be fodder for business school discussions for years to come, as a how-not-to-do-it guide for leadership when disaster strikes. Mr. Hayward must have studied management in a parallel universe, where a set of anti-rules for bad leadership are taught. Here's what I imagine are those anti-rules....Just reverse these rules, and the outcome could have been different. Good leaders must face facts, prepare for the worst case scenario, draw on the whole team, show..." more