Category Archives: Technology
Growing Pains
When companies are young, there is often abundant enthusiasm, and a scarcity of funds. From an IT perspective your decision horizon is also not too far out. You will typically have comparatively few users for the systems you have to build (or buy, or rent, or…). The criteria that you have to work with will typically be very basic functionality, low volume, and little interaction between functions. Given that the expectation that you will pull off minor miracles with two quarters and a dime, the best and easiest answer is to develop point solutions with minimal investment in the software platform. If you have enough foresight to the types of applications required ahead of time you may even invest time in an application and system architecture. Congratulate yourself if were able to pull this off in the typical start-up organization. Continue reading
Top 10 Posts of 2009
The best audience is intelligent, well-educated, and a little drunk.
-Alben W. Barkley Continue reading
My Relationship With Google
I now use Google for a few services on a day-to-day basis, surprisingly not their search engine. I use Google Apps often and with our firm moving our IT infrastructure to Google Apps it will soon be woven into the fabric of all we do. Continue reading
My Relationship With Microsoft
My hardware configuration in my work life probably doesn’t stray too far from typical. I use the big three (Microsoft, Google, and Apple) as part of my repertoire with each vendor playing a role in how I carry out my day. While tempted to experiment by depriving myself from products of each of these vendors for a day, I’ve realized that these vendors have embedded themselves in my life in a way which they cannot be extracted – at least not without significant planning. Continue reading
My Relationship With Apple
I’ve arrived late to the Apple party. For the most part the zealots who were near hysteria in their love for their Mac, iPod, or other Apple device in my mind were exhibiting borderline cult like behaviors. For 20+ years the Apple brand never made its way into my work (or personal) life. Continue reading
Hey CIO, How Are Your Sociology Skills?
A first blush sociology and IT may seem distant concepts. Over the last two years, these subjects and functions have had a head on collision. Some say for the better. Some say for the worse. Continue reading
In Our Systems We Trust
Why do we place so much faith in our software systems? Is it that we feel that they are without flaw, or that we are comfortable working around the flaws? Continue reading
Where Are All the Tribes?
Over the last few weeks there has been no end to the drama which has been unfolding in the health care debates. Debates of course being a very generous term. What we are seeing is pent up outrage over what people believe they are going to lose, or not going to gain. If there is one thing we can all count on, as much as death and taxes, is that the more a group of people has to gain or lose, the more they will fight to capitalize or preserve their situation. In the case of the US health care reform / health insurance reform there are plenty of groups to “go to work.” Continue reading
30x: Personal Effort vs Corporate Effort
“”…And a weekend-scale implementation on a personal site usually translates roughly into a 90-day implementation cycle in a business context, which is a reasonably approachable project size. (In tech, three days in personal effort often translates to three months of corporate effort.)”"
I’ve always intuitively believed that there is a significant productivity improvement which can be found when sufficiently motivated and talented individuals work on their own projects compared to when they work on corporate projects. But this statement implies a 30x productivity gain. Can this be true? Maybe so… Continue reading
Physics of IT – Mass (of Assets)
Conceptually, we can think of mass as the collection of quantitative and qualitative attributes that can describe not only the size of an organization, but also the ability to deliver results to their customers. Mass connotes weight and with it inertia. Those people who have plied their trade in organizational change are all too familiar with the joys and pains of the inertia which allows organizations in motion to stay in motion, and organizations at rest to stay at rest. Continue reading
