Consultant's View Articles

Consultant's View, 2012

January 2012
Why "The Cloud"?
Several companies are making a big push for "Cloud Computing". There are a number of new technologies converging into "Cloud Offerings" and the different vendors offer different mixes of those technologies. Between all this, there can be some confusion. There are several main business reasons to go to the "Cloud" but saving money on current operations is usually not one of them. These reasons are
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Evaluating Meetings
Meetings are expensive. Many people who are not authorized to spend $500 on outside vendors can call an hour long meeting of engineers that can cost over $1,000. Does anyone check to see if the meeting was worth it?
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Consultant's View, 2011

December 2011
Privatizing the Internet
The Internet started as a government project, and then became an education tool. Later, corporations were allowed to join. Ever since then, corporations have been trying to take control of the Internet. Today, a number of sites such as FaceBook, are working hard to build a system where people can spend their time on the Internet solely within their site. They are trying to privatize the Internet. In the early days of the Internet, CompuServe, AOL, and others tried to do the same. The lessons of the earlier attempts may help us understand the future of the current efforts.
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Dangerous Instincts
Every manager knows that we make decisions on "gut feel". In other words, we make decisions based on instinct. That is not a bad thing. However, when we do not "educate our gut" before we make that decision, often it is a wrong decision.
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November 2011
What can we learn from Pirates?
In the latest Harvard Business Review, there is an article on what we can learn from organized crime. Pop!Tech ran a article on what innovators can learn from pirates (focused mostly on people who pirate your goods). The New York Times ran an article on the plight of a British couple who had been kidnapped by Somali pirates. To lead pirates, we express a vision that they can share and
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Unbelievers and Skeptics
As a manager, every time we present the vision of our company, we face some people who don't believe what we say. In a corporation, that unbelief can slow down operations or even totally sabotage our efforts. Some is good, but others
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October 2011
We Want to Believe
One of the most powerful forces in human relations is the "Want to Believe". We see this force operating in Ponzi schemes, startup companies, and companies about to go under. It is the force that keeps many people staying in their position even when things are not very good. One of the hardest parts of the want to believe is
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Is your Strategy Statement killing your company?
Companies and many a non profit organization spend a lot of time and effort writing a "strategy statement". Unfortunately, many an effort results in statements that don't help. The resulting statements are full of big, psychological words that people often misunderstand and cause them to operate counter to what what intended.
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September 2011
Wishful thinking on Complexity
A recent issue of Harvard Business Review focused on "Embracing Complexity". While the analysis is good, it might be wishful thinking to expect most managers to be able to handle it. The problem is that complexity is not what we expect from the world. As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
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Harder, Stronger, Longer
One of the biggest strategic mistakes companies (and generals) make is to rely on tactics that worked in a prior situation but no longer work because of some change in the environment. There have been some spectacular mistakes made in this manner. These changes can be new technologies, new competitive alliances, changes to the population, or major economic changes.
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August 2011
New American Business Success
There is a spate of business books redefining what it means to be a successful leader. Most of these books point out that success and leadership are based on factors that are almost impossible to measure. These criteria can be described as "spiritual".
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No Privacy on the Web
For a long time, many of us have acted as if we have privacy on the Internet. People have done searches that they would not want others to know about. People have sent messages that they would not want to have other know who sent it. But privacy on the Internet is a thing of the past.
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July 2011
New Alternative Currencies
We are seeing new currencies develop. It is reported that there are over four thousand privately issued currencies around the world. One of the latest entries into this field is the BitCoin. These alternative currencies have a number of problems that have not been worked out.
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New Success Paradigm
Now that Bernie Madoff has managed to totally discredit "Greed is Good" as the motto for capitalism, we are seeing a new wave of business books redefining what it means to succeed. What is surprising is how many of these books are defining success in terms that can only be called "spiritual". Is American business turning back to spirituality for its purpose?
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June 2011
Why predictions fail?
Now that Harold Camping's prediction of the end of the world has come and gone, it can help to look at why so many predictions are wrong. Businesses constantly are predicting the future (with sales and profit forecasts) and almost always are wrong. Why is that?
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Doomsday Predictions Wrong
Human history is full of people who have made "doomsday predictions" and repeatedly, they are wrong. It can be easy to see that something bad will happen, but it is almost impossible to tell when that will happen.
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