Writing Web Copy
The most perfectly crafted web copy will not do much for us if we do not take the time to do some Search Engine Optimization on the final design and layout of our webcopy.
Archive for September, 2009
IT Strategy Consulting Challenges
David Clark is a former Managing Partner for Gartner UK Consulting. Prior to that, he has been in senior positions at a few of the other “tier one” consulting firms and a couple of enjoyable stints as a CIO positions in industry. His career spans about 25 years during which time he has delivered around fifteen or so IT strategies and had four “done to him”. It’s always a good idea to hear from someone in the trenches about challenges of IT Strategy Consulting rather than reading Business School Case Studies. My brief chat with David validated that. I learnt a lot from my conversations with David and hope you do too!
Sep 29, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Wikimedia’s “Open” Strategy Planning Session
Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia has grown without a strategy. But Barry Newstead in the HBR article titled “Inside Wikimedia’s Open-Source Strategic Planning” says that there are some strategic issues that needs to resolved. Now they are ready to tackle strategic questions like “How to prioritize growth initiatives that involve reaching every single human being? How to make ever increasing amounts of knowledge freely sharable? How to cultivate a healthy, growing and diverse community of contributors? How to enhance quality of knowledge? How to ensure Wikimedia has the resources and capabilities to sustain its work in perpetuity?” Now is a good time to tackle these issues. But what’s unique is that the board of directors is going to go into the strategy session that is ‘open’ to the world. This mean, according to Barry Newstead, Wikimedia strategic planning process will be blogged pretty much as it happens. Their goal is to tap into ‘crowd’ expertise, perspectives and creativity for the benefit of Wikimedia’s strategy. Their biggest challenge, which Barry concedes, is how might one develop a strategy that could provide direction to such a complex and connected organization without losing the voice of its millions of community stakeholders? Barry writes that they are going to use the following core principles as a guide:
Sep 26, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
WidgetPad Introduces Web-based Open-Source Development Environment for iPhone Widgets
WidgetPad Inc., a provider of collaborative developer environments for hybrid Web-based mobile applications, has announced WidgetPad for iPhone. WidgetPad for iPhone helps developers easily create native applications using standard Web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, and distribute them as stand-alone applications via the Apple iTunes store. WidgetPad is a collaborative, open-source environment that will allow thousands of developers to share source code and learn from each other.
Sep 21, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
Lean Manufacturing and IT Strategy
Olivier Drean is EMEA alliance partner for APRISO, which is an editor of MOM (Manufacturing Operation Management) system. He has 15 years of manufacturing experience that is split between production management, Lean Manufacturing consultancy before joining APRISO. Olivier has a Mechanical Engineering degree and a MBA. He has a unique perspective of IT in manufacturing organization. I had an interesting conversation with Olivier and here is an excerpt of my conversations with him…
Raj: What do you think is the biggest problem manufacturing organizations are facing that IT has not solved yet?
Olivier: In the manufacturing world one of the biggest challenges we are facing is a strong aversion to IT by the business people. IT is often perceived as intrusive and with minimal value added vs. automation which can provide a lot of help. This gap has even been increasing by the massive implementation of ERP which is not a dedicated manufacturing tool. The result is a large set of local custom development or initiative has led to a huge heterogeneity in IT systems that prevent people from working together. This has ultimately led to a chasm between business and IT. I think IT can play a strong role in enabling large business transformation project such as Lean Manufacturing or 6 sigma initiatives which has not been exploited by the manufacturing organizations.
Sep 21, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
ASP Launches New Blog
The Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) has launched a new blog. The first post, “What would you do differently if you had to start your software story again” is the first in many from the wide reaching shareware community that make up the ASP’s membership. Ive been a long time ASP member, and recently an ASP board member, and have found it invaluable for the professional software developer. Read the ASP Blog here
Sep 03, 2009 | 0 comments | View Post
