A quick time out from what I normally talk about. But it’s worth it because the news of the last week impacts every person, industry and business in the US. Government sanctioned spying on US citizens has been taking place since 2007. The NSA collects data from Verizon on all calls (and if they get…
The art of the face-to-face meeting.
It’s not hard. Just show up. Show up, be yourself, and engage.
Why aren’t you out there writing something of your own?
Writing is an amazing process. It forces you to think through an issue, organize your thoughts, and make an argument. Taking a stand in a written format forces you to have a minimum level of confidence in what you are saying. Getting called out for being wrong isn’t fun. Everyone should write somewhere. Whether in a…
The Facebook Conundrum….or when big companies try to become bigger.
Much has been made of Facebook having more than 1 billion users. That seems like a lot and it is. Their struggle is continuing to meet the expectations set by past expectations and continuing to grow users and revenues (not necessarily in that order). And the only way you can do that is to either…
Vacation – Day One (Well, post 1….day 3.5)
I’m finally away from my working areas for a week. It’s a bad week for a vacation but I’m lucky to have a great support structure at work. This is to thank everyone helping me take some time away this week. I owe you all!
Management is dead. Long live innovation.
Innovation is not a top down exercise. You don’t innovate by creating structured documents full of pretty flow charts that don’t really describe the problem. You don’t innovate by spending three weeks on the world’s greatest specification document. You innovate by getting your hands dirty and diving in. You get things done by occasionally throwing out the…
Sometimes the smallest mistake causes the biggest issue.
No one is 100% perfect all the time. We are all going to make mistakes in the natural course of the tasks we do. And sometimes those mistakes will lead to issues bigger than the mistake itself. Mistakes are like that though. The most innocuous, innocent mistake can lead to cascading problems that impact a…
Eating your own cooking is the only way to get better.
If you manage a system, do you use it MORE than your customers do? What about your services? Did you leverage your internal teams to make that last big decision? Chances are, you probably aren’t doing things internally the way that you help your clients to do the same things. It’s a natural thing. Often…
My proudest role.
We all play roles in life: husband, colleague, boss, etc. In each role we interact with different groups in different ways. Sometimes we get to be friends and other times we are managing and directing. The role I am most proud of is that of mentor. I’ve been volunteering as a mentor with Mentor Jackets…
Windows 8 and the impact of change
Let me start by saying I’m not a Microsoft fan. I do everything I can to avoid their tools. The first computer I bought for myself ran Windows Millenium (still waiting for an apology for that), Internet Explorer has been a disaster on many levels, the list goes on. So when I bought a new…