Top Posts of 2009
The best audience is intelligent, well-educated, and a little drunk.
-Alben W. Barkley
Based on a highly un-scientific review of Directionally Correct page views, retweets, email commentary, and personal bias, I present, in no particular order, the Top 10 posts of 2009.
- Blood Type of a Consultant (here). Consultants and contractors are not the same. They play different roles and serve different purposes within the IT ecosystem. This post presents a view of what makes a good consultant, their blood type if you will. It was surprising to me that this post received as much interest from consultants. Many of which recognized that a chord had been struck which resonated within them.
- Whom Do I Hire, Consultant or Contractor (here). Many times a company is faced with looking outside to deal with internal issues. The big question is whether to hire a consultant or a contractor. Knowing why it is appropriate to select a consultant or contractor will make a difference in the outcome. As a follow-on the “Blood Type” series this post puts the difference into a pragmatic context of a common decision.
- Anatomy of a Decision (here). Decisions are foundational to business. This post takes a step back and looks at decisions as a web of inter-related events, the sequencing behind the web, and the structure of a decision taken within the appropriate context. It also allows the reader to explore the decisions they are facing and position them within the context presented, facilitating a different way of looking at decisions in general, and the specific decisions each reader is dealing with.
- Demonstrable Leadership (here). This post looks at leadership in its essence. Getting far away from the theory of leadership, this review gets to the heart of the matter, the actions which demonstrate leadership, and those which place leaders in positions which serve as barriers to their ability to lead. Commentary from the readers related to this post seemed to tie it to the timeliness of the post in the context of the political climate, and the changing of the presidency of the United States.
- Hey CIO, How Are Your Financial Skills (here)? The “Hey CIO” series examines the vast set of skills which a CIO needs to have to be successful. This post looks at the required financial skills. CIOs and consultants to CIOs responded that this is a greatly understated but required skill for the role, echoing the statement that “in many ways, their job depends on it.”
- Hey CIO, How Are Your Marketing Skills (here)? Another part of the “Hey CIO series”, this post looks at the marketing skills which the CIO must have. Far from marketing being a “bad word” in IT shops, it looks at the lessons which the marketing world can bring to the IT organization. Getting the message out, positioning the organization, and enabling understanding are often foreign to IT organizations, and their leaders, yet skills which their job depend on.
- Physics of IT – Mass of People (here). The “Physics of IT” series compares an IT organization to Newtonian Physics. Admittedly distant topics, these two areas are brought together with this series. One of the most popular of the “Physics of IT” series this post looks at a way to assess the mass of an IT organization, specifically using the number of people as the measuring stick.
- Physics of IT – the Forces You Bring With You (here). This post, also part of the “Physics of IT” series, looks at Force. While the series looks at difference types of forces within an IT organization, this particular post refers to the forces which a leader brings to the organization. Leaders are never empty-handed and the forces they bring with them are real.
- Personal Effort vs. Corporate Effort (here). An interesting statistic related to personal and corporate effort is examined in this post. While at first thought it appear that this could not possibly be a true statistic, upon deeper examination, it is clear that this astonishing statistic is not only possible, but probable.
- Organizing for Success (here). Taking a “work-centric” view, this post describes a four step process to organize your group in manner which increases the chances they will be successful. Different from traditional management oriented alignment, this process has proven to yield successful results in many different situations.
So there you have it. An unscientific review of the top posts of 2009. Enjoy. There will be more where these came from.
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