Silos in the cloud

Risking your business on silos in the cloud?…let me know how that goes

There’s no doubt the world is enthralled by the promises of cloud computing and why not? Freeing up enormous capital expenditures in favor of subscription-based services for functionality someone else ...

facial recognition

60 Minutes: “Say goodbye to anonymity”

In case you missed 60 Minutes on CBS last night, there’s a new challenge to privacy that is coming faster than people realize and was made more urgent by the ...

Sonos

Hello Sonos, goodbye Bose and why proprietary anything sucks

I finally did it…I broke my longstanding relationship with Bose sound systems and bought my first Sonos equipment…starting out with the Bridge and one Play 3 speaker. I brought it home ...

Editor's Choice

Bad Ideas Concept trashcan and waste papers

Delete…the easy solution for lousy loyalty programs

There are two things we can expect every morning when we wake ...
chessclublogo

Work is not a popularity contest…oh, wait…yes it is

The need to maintain great relationships at work has never been stronger ...
crossroads

Despite Tableau IPO excitement, are we headed for the end of the standalone application?

Day 2 of the Gartner Application Architecture, Development and Integration Conference in ...
Integration

Can IT organizations deliver business outcomes?

The Gartner AADI Conference in London kicked off this morning with a ...
Focus Group Room

Big Data ends the era of hunch and extrapolation

I made great money in college recruiting people for focus groups. Those ...
School bus

The CIO is driving IT toward a cliff

There’s an increasing perception across the enterprise that the role of the ...

Latest News

Google Play

Of course Google takes on Spotify and Pandora — it’s a pay as you go world

Today at Google’s Developer Conference (IO) the crowd was treated to the announcement of Google Play, the brand new service that offers a Netflix-style access to music content for as low as $9.99 per month. The announcement rocks the world currently dominated by iTunes, Spotify and Pandora. Google Play offers not just access, but the […]

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Businesswoman shouting at telephone. Image shot 2008. Exact date unknown.

It only takes seconds to lose a customer

Getting the right information on demand is an eternal problem of today’s knowledge workers, and will only grow. Lack of knowledge causes a delay in decision-making, and ultimately leads to bad decisions. This is the essence of the Two-Second Advantage, where a little knowledge in the correct context at the correct time is much more […]

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Next 20 years

Get a jump on the next twenty years of technology

After so many years in technology, I find it hard to see the newest trends as completely new. I’ve become a cynic about hype. Things have cycled so many times in my career that every new fad reminds me of  highly touted ‘movements’ like CORBA and artificial intelligence, and once-hot platforms like MySpace and AOL. […]

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Dark Clouds for cloud

Dark clouds on the horizon of cloud computing?

Cloud is red hot. You can’t attend a conference or take two steps out of your house without hearing something about cloud computing. It isn’t a shocker, as the concepts behind Cloud form a compelling argument for the way business needs to be run. It lets anyone, regardless of upfront spend and infrastructure, be a […]

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Eye in the Sky

I know what you did in Aisle 5

Indoor mapping of consumer location is the latest arrow in the quiver of the retail marketer. When marketers know where things are happening, they can develop interesting patterns for where to put resources like people, signage and information technology. Geolocation also provides the remarkable ability to spot the patterns that predict what to expect from […]

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Business, great white, kimi werner

A different type of shark encounter

If you have been bitten by the process bug, like me, then you always see parallels between business, process, and everyday life. It drives my wife, mother, and friends crazy, but I always see them, and it is usually in the context of how I can make the process better at the airport, church, restaurant, […]

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Prince

The business world is but a stage

Everyone enjoys a good movie, play, concert or any public performance and work is simply no different. I recently saw Prince for the second time, knowing that he gives a nonstop, thrilling performance that gets the crowd dancing in their seats. When the curtain comes down, people are left screaming for more and demanding multiple […]

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benchmarking, data, internal

Need to Benchmark? Don’t wander Too Far from Home.

If you’ve followed this benchmarking series, you know there has been a lot of information shared around benchmarking peer groups or those you compare yourself to when you conduct a benchmarking project. My message in this post is that you don’t have to go outside of your own organization or value chain to get highly […]

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Always be ready

“Always be ready” Business lessons from a rock star

I’ve long maintained that the business world can learn a lot from the arts community.  Here’s another example. Great Big Sea is a band from St. John’s, Newfoundland, that blends traditional Newfoundland folk music with pop/rock.  This year, they’re celebrating their 20th year in the music business.  In that time, they’ve grown from playing the […]

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Screen Shot 2013-05-08 at 4.52.55 PM

Why don’t we just Hadoopify it? Datameer at InterOp Las Vegas

Matt Schumpert took the stage at the InterOp Big Data Workshop in Las Vegas yesterday to talk about the myths and realities of Big Data. Matt is Director of Solutions Engineering at Datameer and has customers that include Visa, Sears, and three out of the worlds largest five banks. He’s an expert on Big Data […]

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The Future

Big Data into the future – InterOp Las Vegas

The InterOp Big Data Workshop ended today with a panel covering Big Data into the Future, led by VentureBeat Founder and CEO Matt Marshall. The lineup was made up as follows: Justin Erickson, Senior Product Manager, Cloudera Ajit Gupta, CEO, Aryaka Stefan Groschupf, Co-founder and CEO, Datameer, Inc Bruno Aziza, VP, Worldwide Marketing, SiSense Getting into it Marshall started off by pointing out […]

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Rows of servers

I have all the data in the world…now what? InterOp Las Vegas

The Big Data Workshop at InterOp Las Vegas wrapped up the morning with a presentation on Big Data requirements by John West, CTO and Founder of Fabless Labs. John kicked off with the challenge of having your enormous data set all ready to work with when you discover any one of the following problems: Your […]

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Smart Rich or Pretty

Forget the ‘big’ part for a moment…think about data – InterOp Las Vegas

Sometimes, just sometimes, what happens in Las Vegas shouldn’t stay in Las Vegas. That was clearly the case this morning when TIBCO CTO Matt Quinn took the stage to talk about the myths and realities of Big Data. In Why Big Data Won’t Make You Smart Rich or Pretty, Quinn provided his perspective on Big […]

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Real-time marketing

Real-time marketing or right-time marketing?

Real-time marketing is all the rage, though as TIBCO Loyalty Lab’s David Rosen is quick to point out, brands really need to be focused on right time marketing. “The speed and reaction of marketing needs to be relevant when the consumer is discovering, shopping or sharing,” he said. Brands need to act with relevance and […]

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Stock trading software

The micro market crash, brought to you by social media

Just over a week ago, the U.S. stock market plunged in early afternoon trading with the S&P 500 losing $121 billion of its value within minutes. This happened after a fake tweet appeared on the Associated Press’s twitter feed describing a terror attack on the White House.  During the momentary plunge, the Dow fell 145 […]

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Flexible

Standard operating procedures can make you more flexible

Most people think standard operating procedures are a strait jacket that limits their flexibility. Yet in our increasingly complex world of work, with so many possible decisions and steps, clever use of standards can liberate. They can actually make it easier to tailor customer experiences at low cost. Consider how standards are helping the Cleveland Clinic, rated one […]

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