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Speciation and the Mobile Usability Wars
On the recent Apple investor call, CEO Steve Jobs made an impassioned plea for the superior usability of the single-vendor Apple products, contrasting its usability with Google's many-hardware-devices mobile experience. Jobs critiqued the use of the word "open," which Google uses to describe its platform.
Getting a Grip -- Demand Management, Part III: Leaping Like a Salmon
Thus far in this series ("Part I: Basic Concepts," 15 September 2010; "Part II: Let's Get Critical, 13 October 2010), we
White Space, Dark Matter, and Enterprise Architecture
For years now, I have made a good living by exploiting Geary Rummler and Alan Brache’s famous subtitle, "How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Chart" (Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space in the Organization Ch
How the Economy Is Affecting Corporate Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing
A recent Cutter Consortium survey [1] helps shed some light on the effect that the economic downturn is having on corporate BI and data warehousing efforts. The good news is that the impact appears to have lessened, as more organizations report that the economy is no longer having a significant negative effect on their BI and data warehousing initiatives.
Avoid the Nonvirtuous Behavior Cycle Via Agile
Dangerous Practice: Turning Risks into Assumptions
Back in March, I wrote an Advisor describing how the lack of a safety culture contributed to the fatal collision of two Washington, DC, subway trains in June 2009.1 Consequently, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) management promised that it would be taking ste
Lean-Green IT: A Powerful, Strategic Marriage
Sing the Call-Center Blues: Seeking Companies That Care
Having spent time as an executive in a large company, and having spent most of my career helping executives work on strategic problems, I have to say that I don't believe that companies set out to alienate customers. But I do believe that many don't know or don't realize the extent to which customers are angered by poor customer service.
Business Intelligence/Business Architecture: The Noah's Ark for Architects?
The brand of architects is under siege. One tribal elder of EA, a recognized giant in the community, commented after hours at an industry gathering, "I am ashamed of what has happened to this profession." Architects, while some of the smartest and hardest-working people in the enterprise, are among the least understood and appreciated. The nature of the architecture exercise is not hero making. The payback from EA is not instantaneous. Architects must be smart and work in organizations that are smart -- not necessarily the norm. But there is hope.
Security in Wireless Devices: Whose Problem Is It?
While the number of players involved in the delivery of mobile applications and services is large, the ultimate responsibility for security protection rests with the organization that does not want its reputation to be damaged by "whomever" of the players in the mobile value chain -- be it the equipment manufacturer, the network provider, the application vendor, or the end user/employee of the organization.
BI Vendors Ramp Up Efforts to Go Social
While making predictions for the new year last December, I said that it would become more practical for end-user organizations to take advantage of social BI in 2010, because BI vendors would increase their efforts to add to their platforms social media, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, BI search, and mashups.1
Open Your Innovation Channels Worldwide
Companies such as Siemens USA, Best Buy, and Sun Microsystems use social media to form powerful online communities. Those communities — through an "amplification effect" — foster innovation and process improvements far more quickly than companies can achieve with traditional improvement mechanisms.
Sun cofounder Bill Joy famously observed that "innovation happens elsewhere" [1]. He went on to observe that no matter how intelligent the innovators in a company, there are far more smart people outside that company.
Cutting Epics Down to Size: What Are Your Stories?
In my work as an agile coach, I find many teams applying agile techniques are puzzled about how to slice epic requirements into user stories. In Planning Extreme Programming, Kent Beck and Martin Fowler define stories simply:
IT Governance: It's Becoming More Important!
At least, we certainly hope this statement is so. There's no question that organizations -- both government and business -- are paying more attention. Compared to a couple of years ago, when "IT governance" didn't appear on most radar screens, this year has seen many clients coming out and looking for improvements.
The Story of eBay: Building Social Capital With and Between Customers
eBay is undoubtedly one of the biggest success stories to come out of the dot-com boom and continues to thrive. In terms of market capitalization over its 15-year life, eBay has consistently and significantly outperformed the market, including such big names as Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, and Microsoft.
Risk Arrogance: Stealing from the Future
Flash Crash Revisited
Smart Grid Impact on Utility EA Raises Layers of Issues
There's a brand-new layer of digital intelligence being conceived upon the world's century-old electric power grid by way of your regional electric power utility, through your new smart meter, and extending into your future home and business energy management systems and smart appliances. It's called the Smart Grid.
The Electric Power Research Institute defines it as follows: