2009-04-10, 18:03
Think |
Act
One in a series of Leadership Articles to cause you to think and perhaps to act.
Read other articles.
Recently we were archiving some notes from a prior consulting engagement and having thumbed through the mounds of data and reports, that made up the effort, we stumbled across some statistical results that caused us to pause. Have you ever considered how to measure the effectiveness of a business in making and implementing decisions?
Continue reading ‘Decision Action Threshold Event’ »
2009-03-12, 07:08
Think |
Act
One in a series of Leadership Articles to cause you to think and perhaps to act.
Read other articles.
Managing the space between sales and a delivery organization has it’s unique challenges. Over the many years I’ve walked in that somewhat rough ground I’ve learned a thing or two about how to manage the process and in doing so, myself.
Continue reading ‘Sales to Services handoff’ »
2009-02-01, 15:39
Think |
Act
One in a series of Leadership Articles to cause you to think and perhaps to act.
Read other articles.
Leadership is challenging enough without having to deal with discovering that your employees, employer or work environment has become tainted with unscrupulous behaviors, shady decisions or, in extreme cases illegal acts. Discovering any of these situations can be a difficult revelation but often dealing with the backlash once you “blow the whistle” can be devastating. In fact, recently The Economist published a list of countries ranked according to their propensity for bribes and cronyism.
Having been through this career changing event on at least a few occasions, your humble author knows some of the pitfalls and steps to take to minimize the potential corporate reaction. Following the next few steps will help you address the problem and put some structure to your approach.
Continue reading ‘Whistle Stop!’ »
2009-01-26, 05:50
We are factbook junkies. Almost any kind of facts get our attention. The latest gem to come across our radar screen is the Benton Foundation Broadband Fact Book.
Continue reading ‘Just The Facts Ma’am’ »
2009-01-22, 08:42
In a classic science fiction novel titled “Farewell Horizontal” the author, K.W. Jeter describes a world of network ubiquity. Data is accessed anywhere in a universal grid and is paid for in credits. One network for all uses—and no one seems to ever need to call their carrier!
A report recently released (PDF version here) by Deloitte looking at their predictions for Telecoms in 2009 is required reading for anyone interested in the global telecoms market.
Continue reading ‘Farewell Vertical’ »
2009-01-12, 06:27
Think |
Act
One in a series of Leadership Articles to cause you to think and perhaps to act.
Read other articles.
In our work we often get involved with budget review and preparation for small businesses. In many engagements we have been asked to review specific budgets and comment or provide advice and improvements. While there is no absolute formula to creating budgets there are some areas that seem to continuously creep into planning that can be avoided to ensure you get the best budget for your effort. Here are five areas that many budgets fail;
Continue reading ‘Top Five Budget Pratfalls’ »
2009-01-05, 05:47
We have traveled to numerous communications conferences over the years and have observed both the good and the badly managed. Given the recent economic downturn it will be interesting to observe what happens to the main conferences scheduled for 2009. There will no doubt be increasing pressure on you to ensure you are attending only those top profile, high quality events. In that light we’ve gone out of our way to establish a measure of conference success.
Continue reading ‘Industry Conference Success Ratio’ »
2009-01-01, 00:01
Think |
Act
One in a series of Leadership Articles to cause you to think and perhaps to act.
Read other articles.
Some time ago a few colleagues of ours were sitting around and talking with us about the various scales we have for reference. These include the Beaufort Scale (measures wind speed), Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness, The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, and others.
Given our regular ill-informed state, and the fact that drink was on the table, we got into an argument over what makes up the four types of scales (it turns out that the four are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio and you can read about them here). The argument ultimately led us to opine that there was no scale of conflict.
Continue reading ‘Shulist Scale Of Conflict’ »
2008-12-16, 06:00
As engineers we are often prone to frittering away countless hours of time delving into obscure information to no sound purpose, but often stumbling across an interesting tidbit. As was the case recently in our musings in the IEEE space, we came across an interesting scorecard of patents for a variety of industries.
Continue reading ‘Patent Power’ »
2008-12-10, 06:38
We have worked with many firms who have incorporated Open Source modules and applications into their commercial products. These have ranged from print drivers to more obscure technical components within security products. All of these uses can be compliant with the Open Source licensing and use standards as long as the using companies comply to the letter of the law with their use.
Continue reading ‘Open Source—Not Open Season’ »
