A Business Technology Place (Since 2008)
It’s Thanksgiving week and I’m thankful for another year of work and learning. During my reflection this year for what I’m thankful for, I thought about what makes life in IT better. What are those things that help IT perform to their best ability? What are those things that help Read More …
What is the secret sauce? What really drives new software features? Do we live in a world where the marketing department rules the day with ROI driven and profit making capabilities from within the software? To an extent, I believe the answer is yes. Businesses exist to make money. Business Read More …
What’s your vision for IT? I was asked to answer that question in a group meeting. I didn’t think for long about it because I knew the answer. “My vision is for IT to be known for service and solutions over processes.” In my 20+ years as an IT professional Read More …
Get this guy on your team! During a recent weekly business review meeting with one my staff members, we discussed movement and progress within one of our key enterprise level accounts. A new contact in the customer’s organization is driving some changes to how we’ve done business in the past. Read More …
Sometimes marketing pieces catch my attention and create thought. I look at the message, call to action, and design elements of the marketing. I consider the effectiveness of the piece in my life and think about how it might be received by others as well. In an effective marketer’s toolbox Read More …
A beautiful thing happened this week. How many conversations do we have each week in the office to be polite but yet stay so general that the conversation is little more than exchanging pleasantries. It’s the quick pass-by in the hallway, the introduce at a meeting, or greeting during lunch Read More …
Disclosure: I am an active TMobile subscriber. Last November I provided commentary about TMobile’s bold moves in the “uncarrier” program and how they are pushing the cell phone industry in new directions. In the latest installment, uncarrier 6.0, TMobile is taking the chains off streaming music. Last week, Tmobile announced Read More …
Can you describe team chemistry with words? 20 years removed from undergraduate college work and I’m still learning about team chemistry. It’s one of the simplest and yet most complex concepts. You know good chemistry when you have it because you can feel it. But yet, you may not quite Read More …
The daily grind of a technology professional ping pongs between two key areas: building stuff and fixing stuff. If there is one parallel between my professional work and home life it is that something always needs fixin’. It’s a constant and can contribute to anxiety, frustrations, and even anger. To Read More …
Then. My freshman year of college was in 1989. I remember my dorm room well. Cinder block walls with two beds, two desks, and two windows. The showers, toilets, and sinks were in the center of the hall shared by all rooms. We had a TV in the room that Read More …
It happened again. My credit card number was stolen again. This time it was the American Express card, a first. (In the past it was always Visa). The good news is that as usual I received an alert from the credit card company based on suspicious activity. It was a Read More …
Are you easy to do business with? Some years back I read this question in a business article about customer service. It’s a pointed question to create introspection about attitudes, business processes, and services. I like to flip the question on myself, “am I easy to do business with”, and Read More …
Disclosure: I am an active TMobile subscriber. A bold and driven business leader. Are you keeping track of movements in the mobile phone industry in the United States? In the two most recent reporting quarters TMobile, once headed for the history books, reported subscriber growth in half million chunks. While Read More …
I love to write about companies that deliver exceptional customer service. Quik Trip, Major League Baseball, Chick-Fil-A, and Disney are a few of my previous examples. This past week my family and I vacationed with Royal Caribbean for the first time. We’ve taken cruises before on other cruise lines, so Read More …
I think it’s safe to say that direct interaction between IT and Operations doesn’t happen enough. I’m talking about IT programmers, analysts, and project managers sitting with Operations and Manufacturing to understand their daily workflow with the intention of providing technology solutions to automate workflow and make it more efficient. Read More …
A recent service incident with email provided a reminder to me that email delivery is not guaranteed for message delivery. In the incident, the sender was using email to deliver a specific 1-to-1 message. It was not a marketing campaign. Since the distribution list was large, they chose to send Read More …
How do we change the culture around here? During a Q&A session this week, after a presentation containing touch points of a future vision, a team member asked me the culture change question. “How do we enact cultural changes here?” The question implied an agreement with the future vision, but Read More …
This is my 300th blog post! So much is written about the strained relationship between IT and other business departments such as Marketing or Sales. Both departments want to achieve the same goal of creating a service for the customer. Both departments want to be predictable in their service delivery. Read More …
The need for business innovation is constant. I was talking to a friend this week about changes in the banking industry sparked by advancements in technology. The conversation topics included the importance of physical bank branches today and the future of branches for banks in the future. During our discussion Read More …
Is the customer always rights? The question is more complicated than face value. Within the context of a single event you could make a case that the answer is yes. But this study posted on LinkedIn about customer experience and expectations suggests the customer may not always know what is Read More …