Last week I stopped at the local Barnes & Noble's to pick up a book. The tab came to $23.72. I gave the cashier $25 and started fishing in my pocket for 72 cents. The cashier looked up in surprise when I handed her the coins. "Oh, it's too late," she said, even though she had not yet made change. She had already rung up $25 tendered, and she was committed. Read More

A couple of months ago at a Boston Chapter meeting of the Society for Information Management, Alex Cullen, VP & Research Director from Forrester Research made a presentation on the CIO of the future. That's a common topic these days. One of his key points was the commoditization of technology, and the extent to which those in the user community want to use commodity consumer technology in the workplace. Read More

If you're paying attention to the trade press, IT shops are under increasing pressure to partner with the business and to provide meaningful contributions to the business's bottom line. Gartner cites its studies of CIOs' biggest concerns, and CIO Magazine reports the same stories. Read More

When we last left off, we had yet to discuss two remaining elements of value proposition - relationship and price - having covered image and service. Let's complete the picture then explore a recent article in Arrive, Amtrak's "in flight" magazine about the value of relationship. Read More

Some meetings ended early on one of my trips away from Boston a few months ago, and I took an Amtrak "Regional" train back. Not an Acela Express, this train makes 6 or 7 stops (compared to 2 on my Acela trips) and can't reach Acela's speed, but it made no sense to wait two hours for the faster train. Read More

While on the way to a client, I happened to pass a small truck emblazoned with its company's mission statement. "We strive to become the recognized leader in our industry and the provider of choice for our clients." Read More

Over the course of the summer I attended a Salsesforce.com “Success Day”. Salesforce.com gives a couple of short pitches but predominantly, they hold break-out sessions where they parade clients who report successes – successes in their transitions to Salesforce.com and business successes because of it. This is useful to me as a consultant who may want to suggest Salesforce.com as a candidate solution to a client problem. Read More

Earlier this week, I picked up a rental car, and a small sign caught my eye. “Because of a system enhancement, we are unable to issue refunds due from cash deposits until August 13. We value your business and appreciate your patience…”, etc., etc., etc. Read More

Shortly after I published Part 1 of this series, I received a column posted on CIO.com, "What Keeps Top CIOs Sleepless" . Read More

We're currently engaged to help a client IT organization explain and demonstrate its value to its client business community. Why do that? If you're perceived as a cost center, your projects are on the chopping block when budgets get tight. But if you really believe you enable better, faster, cheaper business, you want some persuasive marketing to show you're an "investment center" where the company's money is well spent. Read More

What is it about management that makes it so hard - hard in the sense that few people get it right? Last month, surprisingly, I had several conversations on the topic, and why this topic came up in completely different spheres escapes me. The sample size is small, but the consensus was: We each had very few really good managers; about half of our managers were terrible; and the rest were "fair". Read More

Some time ago I offered to do some pro bono work for a social services agency. My offer arose from my observation that their fee-for-service elder care team was excellent but struggling to grow, and I believed some "for-profit" CRM practices would help. We didn't get there (we will), but what followed was an astonishing view of measurement in a presumably respectable trade magazine. The story begins in the quest for more money. Read More

In the earlier days of the PC software product business, there were lots of new ideas coming to market. Some of them were brought to the world with the creator's great excitement, only to be ignored or rejected by the marketplace. Within the industry, one occasionally heard sentences starting with "If the dogs won't eat the dogfood, ...". This gave rise to another expression, which I'll get back to shortly. But first, I want to relate some personal experiences. Read More

"Re-engineering" was a bust. Loyalty is gone. Nothing was achieved. Read More

"You want to be a tree until it's time to be a branch." Read More

2004, Somewhere in New Jersey: I checked into a hotel I've been to before. After locating my reservation, asking me to sign the check-in form, and preparing the card-key, the manager on duty asked me if I'd been to the hotel before. I said yes. "Welcome back" was her reply, with full flourish. Read More

This is a story about integration and process design, although you may not know that immediately. Read More

Rapid advances in technology. The latest approach to management. If you're trying to improve your business, it's not hard to wonder which way to turn. Let me suggest a guiding theme in choosing your path: Common Sense. Now that's an uncommon approach. It's not that I'm a skeptic - it's just that we've all seen so many technology and management fads that have wasted our energies, cost us time, and - maybe the worst - caused some really good people to go elsewhere. Read More