Posts Tagged ‘Technologist’

The other day I happened across a discussion asking the question: “What are the most important things to consider before moving…to a cloud-based solution?”

Darned good question.  The opening—very valid—questions included things like:

1. TCO (total cost of ownership);
2. Data security;
3. SLA (service level agreements);
4. ROI (Return on Investment);
5. Data backups, Disaster Recovery, & Business Continuity Planning (BCP)

These are very typical things to find in Requests For Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP).  They are very representative of what (CxO)  executive management will want to know—particularly before signing off on expensive, far-reaching, solutions.

But!  Do not forget the Users!

Put yourself in their shoes, or better yet, get users’ input directly. Perhaps the #1 question is, "Will they use it?"

Read the rest of this entry »

For the past few days I’ve been watching a discussion over what SaaS (Software as a Service) is. The interactions seem to have broken down into two main camps.

On one side, there are those who feel SaaS is defined by it’s technology platform, particularly whether it is single or multi-tenancy*. If you’re not using a multitenancy* platform, you can’t be profitable and you’ll fail. Period.

Just because a service provider does not have MT does not doom them to failure. If you have a very large scale customer, particularly in relation to the rest of your customer base, it may make sense to stand up a separate environment just for them.

The discussions have reminded me, a lot, of the old UNIX versus Windows diatribes 15 years ago. They were something along the lines of: Only UNIX for ‘real’ work; Windows for the ‘little people.’

If another major customer came along that might represent a 30% revenue bump, it just might make sense standing up yet another MT as ST instance for them as well. Is my business doomed? No. Very happy actually. Whichever path chosen, it would be economically driven.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday night I had the opportunity to attend an Agile Groupies meeting.  It’s a semi-regular gathering of folks (developers, business analysts, product managers, etc.) interested in a specific approach, Agile, toward software development.

For those of you not familiar, Agile development focuses on smaller development teams, working on smaller deliverables, in highly iterative, somewhat less structured approach.  Part of the thinking is that if you are delivering in smaller, more discrete ‘chunks’ of working product, that the overall process will be more ‘agile,’ more adaptive to ongoing change during a product’s overall life cycle. The idea is to move away from ‘heavy’ less flexible disciplines, and back toward lighter, freer, approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Simple, short post today.  I’ve spent a modest amount of time with Google Wave in recent days, since finally receiving my very own personal invitation granting access to the service.  You see, if you weren’t aware, you can only use ‘Wave if Google grants you access.

Unfortunately, as they take care not to unwittingly overwhelm their new system, it means very few people actually have been let in the front door.  Some of the early developers, such as O’Reilly have already released the first books on this new platform.

But, for most, the experience is like mine.  Of 2,900 contacts, only -4- have access to the ‘Wave.  Hard to test collaboration, explore, experiment, or take it for a spin quite yet.

It shows potential.  For the moment, simply need to be patient.

When was the last time you asked, “Why?” Has it been awhile? Reflecting back on some of the more confrontational issues I’ve been involved in, it occurred to me that the one question often not asked is simply, Why?

If you have studied Six Sigma, you’ve heard about asking the 5 Whys. Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System, is said to have liked using the 5 Whys. The intent is to repetitively ask questions until you understand the simple, core reason, underlying an otherwise seeming complex problem.

Consider this example Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps a good place to start is to use a baseline definition for Open Education. Wikipedia defines open education as a collective term referring to forms of education in which knowledge, ideas, or important aspects of teaching methodology or infrastructure, are freely shared over the internet. From my perspective we need to clear up a misnomer or two. All too often when we see open, we think free. And when we see freely share, we’re thinking free for all.

With open education, the key focus needs to be improved accessibility (i.e. freely share) at a significantly lower cost (i.e. compared to conventional places of higher education). Employing contemporary technologies along with a new way of thinking, we might also see improved flexibility in education. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps you’ve noticed this too. The CTO is often the senior tech ‘geek’ in the company, the guy or gal with their fingers in ‘everything,’ largely by virtue of having been around since the company was formed out of the dust of the earth. This is a real problem.

In many cases of geek-come-CTO, they’re ‘down in the weeds,’ doing hand-to-hand combat in solving the never-ending stream of daily fires. They’re happiest being BMOC and everyone around them submits accordingly. But, being head know-it-all does not equate to effective leadership. Showing others, ‘how they fixed the problem,’ creates the illusion of leadership. Read the rest of this entry »

Somewhat abated, since its introduction a few weeks back now, Google Wave continues to generate discussion about just what it is. Andy Mulholland’s post over at Capgemini talks about this. Is it a new collaboration platform? Is it a new email solution? Is it a new photo gallery manager? Is it a new blogging alternative? Is it a new project management tool? Yes?

My initial thoughts are getting refined Read the rest of this entry »

Right out of the real news:

• Ayatollah says, ‘I’m following all of you on Twitter…’ Shows he’s following over 65 million people. Nice.
• Ayatollah, Supreme Leader, says, “…Green avatars are the country’s greatest threat [ever].”
• Iran decides to block unsupportive internet access (e.g. to Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

I’m sure I’m not the first to suggest services like Twitter (and more abstractly the ‘internet’) are fueling Iran’s revolution right now. It is interesting the ‘Supreme Leader’ is scared of a service like Twitter.

And, he should be scared. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past few weeks, I have had three different conversations circling around CEOs and their relationship to the technology at their disposal. For many organizations, the CEO simply does not have a good grasp of all the different technologies employed in their business. And, to be honest, that is perhaps as it should be.

The CEO’s role is that of an extrovert, focused on the key value proposition(s) of his or her business. For instance, the CEO for a computer superstore chain may be focused on profit per region; a bank managing risk relative to fluctuation in interest rates; or, increasing customer profitability as a function of customer service offerings. What the CEO should not have to Read the rest of this entry »