Once again, Yahoo could soon be looking for a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). That is, if an investor (Eric Jackson) has his way. According to him, Marissa Mayer has been lavishly spending money, Yahoo’s money on events which provided no return on investment. Furthermore, her executive team have made questionable acquisitions in recent past. You can read more about …
Business and IT alignment
Dear fellow IT leaders, please stop aligning IT to business and be the business! Allow me to explain. Generally, in life, one aligns two separate things, two separate items while IT and business need to be one and the same. There are no IT organizations, there is only one organization, one business that you as IT are integral to. Information …
Why Educause matters to me
Each industry has a number of organizations that unify professionals and enable them to network, collaborate, communicate and exchange ideas and knowledge. For me, one of such organizations, is certainly Educause. Educause is an association that unifies all of us who are in higher education (higher ed) information technology (IT) and provides opportunities for collaboration with colleagues and vendors. When …
Attract the best talent, then do your best to retain them
Talented people are hard to find and they are even more difficult to retain long term. They have options and they know it. Having this in mind, it is important to invest in people ahead of anything else. Get the best folks you can and focus on quality over quantity. Once a team is built, then shift your focus towards …
Lessons from T-Mobile and Experian partnership and data breach
Cyber security, information security…call it what you want, but it must be taken seriously and proactively in every organization. Furthermore, your plan and attention must extend beyond the confines of your own networks, systems, applications and walls. You need to collaborate with your partners on join strategies to strengthen your connections, secure your data and protect your intellectual property. As …
Resources follow vision
Complaining about the lack of resources is utterly useless and here’s why. I am yet to meet an organization that has too many amazing people, too much money or too many great ideas, knowledge, technology…and so on. That doesn’t exist, accept it, internalize it and move forward. Instead of complaining, act on delivering value to the entire organization and making …
Why you should market IT services
Marketing your services and products is essential in order to make sales, increase revenue, make your payroll and ultimately survive. Having that in mind, why is it that IT leadership frequently believes (or certainly acts that way) that their services shouldn’t be marketed across their organizations and beyond? Why do they believe that others will just magically become aware of …
To succeed you must leave your office
Get out of your office and have your staff do the same. Now, don’t interpret that as not working or simply hanging out, but as a necessary process to grow, learn and become better at our jobs. Each of us must reach beyond the comfort of our core expertise in order to meet people and learn from them. Meet folks …
Who should you include in e-mails
E-mails are a staple of the business world and whether we like them or not, they are here to stay a while longer. When writing e-mails you should focus on being both efficient (no War and Peace novels, please) and effective (get your point across and go for the desired outcome). Focus on actionable items or knowledge sharing and exclude …
Business logic goes before technology
Business logic, processes and policies need to be in place before a technological solution can be selected. Additionally, start from the desired outcome then reverse engineer the process and steps needed to get there. During this process you must establish ownership and accountability of each of the steps and a clear timeline and what happens when and by whom. Only …