Alignment, staffing and culture are often more critical than software and apps
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In many if not most instances, you (or a family member or friend) will become aware of a health issue before your doctor does. However, early detection won't help you if you aren't motivated enough t... More >
Last month I interviewed Brad Hall, Ph.D, managing director of Human Capital Systems and author of "The New Human Capital Strategy" about how to motivate employees. First, he expressed his opinion of... More >
I can't see myself ever participating in speed dating . While I understand the desire to inject some efficiency into an inherently inefficient process, there's just a little too much emphasis on "bu... More >
I tried live tweeting a webinar I attended last week, and boy, were my fingers tired! ( I multitasked, also working on a blog post and responding to the occasional instant message and e-mail.) Not su... More >
Here's one of life's rules of thumb that I think applies especially well to most technology implementations: For every intended consequence, there are usually at least three unintended ones. This rul... More >
Dustin Hoffman's potential career in "The Graduate" was summed up in one word : "plastics." It may take two words for IT professionals concerned about the impact that cloud computing could have on t... More >
We've been hearing for a while now that one of the best ways for companies to maximize their business intelligence investments is by getting BI tools and technologies into the hands of more users thr... More >
When I interviewed Saugatuck Technology CEO Bill McNee back in July, following the release of second-quarter financial results, most enterprise software vendors were suffering but on-premise vendors... More >
Is it any wonder CIOs and CFOs often find themselves at loggerheads? CIOs spend money, while it's the CFO's job to save it. Granted, CIOs purchase and implement technology that helps companies achiev... More >
Yesterday I wrote about how IT salaries in sectors receiving federal stimulus funds, notably health care and education, are holding steady while other IT salaries are falling. (They are actually fl... More >
Marc Benioff, you are so busted. Though the Salesforce.com CEO is "waxing over Twitter" at the Dreamforce conference currently under way in San Francisco, tweets ZDNet blogger and Asuret CEO Mich... More >
Though a growing number of Fortune 100 companies are tweeting, few of them can aspire to be a member of the Twitterati , the ranks of "the Tweet elite, whose feeds attract thousands of followers and... More >
Some industries are more recession-proof than others. In the current downturn, health care and government employment seem to be faring well when compared with other sectors. Back in March when I inte... More >
Last November I wondered whether economic troubles in the United States would hurt or help the business of offshore services providers. If all spending dropped, such companies would suffer. But the... More >
Reality TV used to be one of my guilty pleasures, though I haven't gotten hooked on any shows since becoming a mother. My husband and I often joke that when we retire, we'll spend at least a year cat... More >
One of the worst things about the current economic downturn is the sense that we might as well throw out what we think we know, based on our experience with previous downturns. In the past, layoffs o... More >
Much of my work here involves pointing out areas in which IT professionals and business users might not see eye to eye. Like world peace, everyone seems to wish for a seamless blend of IT and busine... More >
Though they're hardly an official economic indicator, demand for H-1B visas tends to bubble up in times of economic prosperity and flatten in times of decline. As I pointed out in a post from April, ... More >
You could argue that the cloud is, by definition, a commodity. (Assuming, of course, that anyone could agree on a definition of the cloud .) Companies selling cloud services use commodity hardware... More >
Visibility into IT usage and spending is a lot like eating right and exercising. Companies spend a lot of time talking about it, they know they should do it, many of them have good intentions of doin... More >
When the going gets tough, so do IT executives, especially when it comes to pushing vendors to lower their prices. But an overly tough approach can backfire, through vendors offering sub-par service ... More >
There's lots of talk about collaboration within companies, and some companies are extending their collaborative initiatives beyond the corporate walls, to suppliers and other partners, to their custo... More >
IT professionals are often seen as "tech guys" (or girls), and we hear over and over again that what IT needs is more "business guys" (and girls). But maybe we also need subcategories within the busi... More >
As someone who's written about the potential of ERP software delivered as a service to steal at least some market share away from on-premise ERP software, I was interested in the seemingly lukewarm s... More >
With its emphasis on "continuous" improvement, ITIL is a journey, not a destination. Maybe this is why so many IT organizations seemingly struggle with it. They're like the impatient dad who wants to... More >
Is productivity ever a bad thing? Employers seemingly can't get enough of it, judging by all of the articles published here at IT Business Edge and elsewhere that offer tips on making workers more pr... More >
"Flexible" is a word that's rarely applied to the traditional waterfall software-development process, which may be one reason traditional development methods appear in many cases to be taking a back ... More >
A little over a month ago, IT Business Edge's Mike Vizard called for an Time for Overdue Review of Government IT. He cited Congressional testimony from the inspector general for the Securities and ... More >
If you're thinking of migrating at least some legacy applications to the cloud, you may be dealing with the same concerns as many of your peers: integration, security, total cost of ownership, relia... More >
Despite the fact we're coming off a year filled with economic uncertainty -- or perhaps because of it -- software-as-a-service appears to be on a roll. Gartner expects worldwide SaaS revenue to hit ... More >
OK, we all know e-mail can be an incredible compliance hassle. As IT Business Edge's Lora Bentley wrote about a month ago, employees can thwart e-mail management and retention policies , either th... More >
In an enterprise version of "West Side Story," the "decentralized" and "centralized" gangs would fight it out instead of the Sharks and the Jets. (And with fewer knives and less dancing.) IT w... More >
I'm intrigued by the possible uses for Google Wave , which is why I've been writing about it even though I haven't actually tried it. (I hope that changes soon, as two people took pity on me and sen... More >
My 75-year-old father will probably never stop working. He "retired" several years ago, but it never took. His current job involves driving checks and other documents to bank branches across central ... More >
When I wrote about the evolving standards for cloud computing yesterday, I linked to a post by Frank Ohlhorst on our CTO Edge site because I thought he offered some great tips on vetting cloud pr... More >
With the exploding popularity of the iPhone , enterprises will have to deal with it sooner rather than later. In the pro column: At least some analysts, most notably Gartner, have given the ... More >
I've submitted a request for a Google Wave invite but haven't yet received one. (I'd beg, but I think Google might find that undignified. If not, then pleeeeaaase send me an invite.) Based on the dem... More >
Earlier this month, when I wrote about the state of Virginia's troubled outsourcing initiative , I wondered why public agencies continue to up the ante with mega-contracts like Virginia's 10-year, $... More >
A while back, I wrote a post about how IT might be more interested in a broad adoption of cloud computing rather than simply purchasing a bunch of cloud-based applications because of the cloud's in... More >
When I wrote an article about cloud computing earlier this year, one of the issues I mentioned was vendor lock-in. With the cloud's vaunted commitment to Web-based technologies, it doesn't seem as ... More >
As a writer, you might think I'd be pleased my 8-year-old is turning out assignments that show a predilection toward writing. And sure, it's nice to see paperwork coming home with enthusiastic remark... More >
Just last week, IT Business Edge's Loraine Lawson wrote a fine post on the idea of using mashups for business intelligence applications , freeing business users to produce BI reports using data from... More >
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