Earlier this year I speculated on why more CIOs weren't using social channels, concluding they probably just didn't think they had enough time or worried they wouldn't derive enough value from them... More >
It's bad enough when companies have poor customer service, but it's worse when they (cluelessly or cynically) tell you how great they are. One of the worst things a company can do is purport to be so... More >
I love having smart readers, especially those who take the time and trouble to leave thought-provoking comments on my blog posts. Yesterday I wrote about the need for a user-centric approach to busi... More >
A few months back I shared four tips for successful business process management implementations . All of the tips relate to getting users more involved in the implementation process. I think this is... More >
Social channels are still used largely for marketing and public relations. A recent Digital Brand Expressions survey found those two areas were, by far, the most likely to be included in social medi... More >
As I wrote earlier this year, social channels are repositories of siloed information just as often as traditional enterprise applications, if not more so. After all, with enterprise applications, ... More >
A few months back I wrote a post about how CIOs and CFOs could be valuable allies. Though a worthy goal, it won't necessarily be easy since CIOs and CFOs sometimes find themselves at odds over IT ... More >
Last summer I wrote a couple of articles and blog posts about companies using social channels like Facebook and Twitter to find and recruit job candidates . One of the folks I interviewed, Shafiq ... More >
I've written several times on the topic of "serious games" that some companies use to teach and reinforce workplace concepts, so I was quite interested to see an interview with David Gray, one of ... More >
Asuret, Inc. CEO Michael Krigsman, a well-known expert on the causes and prevention of IT failures, started an interesting line of discussion on Focus.com by posing that old chestnut of a question... More >
I've been following Boeing's efforts to get its Dreamliner 787 off the ground, an effort that has become a sort of poster child for supply chain problems, for a couple of years now. So I'm interest... More >
Last week I wrote about a list of seven rights and responsibilities for cloud computing consumers, released by Gartner's Global IT Council for Cloud Services, which a Gartner analyst suggest... More >
During my tenure covering the financial technology sector for another publication, most banks made huge investments in self-service channels, first ATMs and then online banking. Many of them figured ... More >
Wow, a lot has changed since I wrote a post titled Do Users Really Want BI and CRM on the Go in 2008. Some things, like vendors' interest in offering mobile business intelligence applications, have... More >
For every IT Infrastructure Library success, like the often-related example of Johnson & Johnson that Blue Elephant Consulting's Jim Anderson writes about on The Accidental Successful CIO ... More >
When I wrote about mashups and business intelligence earlier this year, I played up the empowerment angle of users being able to combine disparate sets of data and produce custom reports with minim... More >
No matter how much companies would like social media to return a clear ROI, it remains a stubbornly murky goal for many of them. I wrote about this in April, commenting on the formula used by a socia... More >
I suspect consolidating enterprise applications is like eating a healthy diet. Everyone agrees these practices are a good idea. Plenty of us think we already follow them, but the real numbers are far... More >
Last month in a post about open source business intelligence , I shared what I thought was an interesting thought from an interview I'd done with Mark Madsen, founder and president of BI research an... More >
Does collaboration help solve problems? Sure it does. That's why "phone a friend" is such a staple of game shows like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." When you're struggling with a problem, asking a ... More >
I am intrigued by a trend that seems to be emerging, of companies from Google to Salesforce.com blurring the line between software developers and software users. Earlier this week, Google introduced... More >
IT Business Edge contributor Rob Enderle, in a blog post on Apple's strengths and weaknesses, mentions marketing as a strength and public relations as a potential weakness. I've written about Appl... More >
At my son's public school in Kentucky, teachers devote a good chunk of the spring to making sure kids perform well on tests annually administered as part of the Commonwealth Accountability Testing Sy... More >
There are always new offshore destinations offering themselves as the "next India," countries offering less-costly labor, more specialized skill sets or other features that make them attractive alte... More >
A few months ago when I interviewed Ross Tisnovsky, vice president of research for Everest Group, about cloud computing, he mentioned an interesting cloud concept he called operations-as-a-service .... More >
The health care industry is in an uproar over electronic medical records. There is widespread confusion over what will constitute "meaningful use" and other issues related to the introduction of elec... More >
Last month I wrote a post about how more open programming interfaces and a desire to give business users a more active role in creating enterprise applications was leading vendors including Oracle an... More >
Although the U.S. House of Representatives didn't pass a bill designed to increase the number of federal employees who telecommute when it came up for a vote in May, sponsor Rep. John Sarbanes, D-M... More >
Earlier today I wrote about some of the growing pains being experienced by cloud computing, including the difficulty in accurately tracking costs for internal cloud deployments . There are plenty of... More >
Some observers, including Chris Weitz, a director with Deloitte Consulting, believe cloud computing will become so ubiquitous it will, as IT Business Edge contributor Mike Vizard writes, "just melt... More >
Last month I wrote a post in which I asked whether "gearhead" CIOs are a vanishing species . I don't know that I've ever spoken to a CIO I'd consider a gearhead. That's not to say they aren't out th... More >
As I wrote last month, the IT hiring outlook is looking up. Surveys from Robert Half Technology and Dice.com indicate a growing number of companies plan to add new staff in the second half of 2010.... More >
Back in May I wrote a post about the increasingly optimistic outlook for technology spending. Analysts, vendors and CIOs seemed to agree that the worst of the economic meltdown was over and recover... More >
More and more often, it seems that I write about e-mail's shortcomings as a collaboration tool. In a post earlier today about Booz Allen Hamilton's experiences with collaboration software, I quoted... More >
Remember when employee attrition was a huge problem for Indian outsourcing companies? It's been a while. As I wrote in late 2008, "the slumping economy has apparently done what salary increases, trai... More >
Though reality TV is a guilty pleasure of mine, I can hardly stand to watch "Hoarders," the A&E series about folks whose homes are crammed to the rafters with stuff, much of it things most of u... More >
When I wrote about the Obama administration's suggestion that government agencies consider using cloud computing, I focused on the idea of cloud as a means of cutting costs. So did several folks pa... More >
Habit is a powerful thing that keeps us following routines long after we know they probably aren't really working for us. That's certainly true of the way many companies buy, install and use enterpri... More >
Way back in 2008, I wrote about a training program for HP executives in which the company sent employees and their families to China for a deep dive into the country's culture. In a MercuryNews.co... More >
A favorite theme of mine (some might say an obsession) is the need for CIOs to promote IT to other business leaders. Providing a great product or service is only half the battle; making sure people k... More >
I wonder if IT is getting tired of being seen as the fuddy-duddy of the enterprise. There's plenty of advice out there about the need for uptight IT departments to lighten up and give business users ... More >
Earlier this month, in a post about the lukewarm demand for H-1B visas , I cited an Economic Times article that mentioned the Employ American Workers Act, a piece of legislation enacted in Februar... More >
When I scheduled an interview with Steve Hardin, IT Business Edge's VP of software development, to talk about our company's use of agile development, I'd been hearing and reading a lot about agile, i... More >
While practically everyone in the IT field can offer anecdotal evidence of American jobs lost due to companies opting to outsource some functions or hire foreign visa holders willing to work for less... More >
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