Fonality's HUD for Remote Workers

One more cool video to check out.

Fonality's HUD for Executives

I've spent the last week learning this product. I really like it. It's actually affordable too.

Managing Change

This week I started a new job with AiTech.  I'm very excited to be a part of their team.  I have to admit that the whole experience caught me off guard.   As a consultant to businesses I work with them to manage change all the time.  In fact they usually come to me when they are on their way into a big change.  So this experience has been really good for me.

I had heard grumblings of a possible buy out but those kind of rumors are always around in a small company.  So...I tried not to get too caught up in them.  We'd been down that road before and been all anxious for no good reason.  I had not taken any time to think through the idea of working for another company.  Especially because the owners of Superior had done a great job of keeping everything on the down low.  When I heard there would be an announcement last Friday I had no Idea what was happening.  Much less clue who would acquire us.

At first I was very excited.  More customers to call on,  more resources,  more engineers,  nicer office, smaller commute.  After my first week, I'm glad to report that those feelings still ring true.  I was most shocked by the challenge I had this week giving up certain responsibilities.  For the last 7 years I've spent most of my time in a very autonomous state.  Most decisions fell on me and I was used to making the call.  An experience that I will always value.  So, while I was grateful to have lots of new help this week I was also afraid that somehow I would not measure up.

People always say that the school of hard knocks is good for you.  You learn to fend for yourself and make decisions.  Yep...thats true.  I'm not sure you always make the best decisions.  But you make progress and thats important.  I'm learning to trust the people around me that I just started working with.  I'm learning to give up old challenges and take on new ones.  I'm learning to trust in an additional group of engineers to carry out the projects we are proposing. Change takes most people by surprise so I guess I can give myself a week to adapt.  I must say.  I can't imagine a better fit for working with me than the team at AiTech.  They did everything they could to make me feel comfortable this week.  I even got a couple of nice new pens that gladly I have not lost yet.

I guess the best way to manage change is to give up some control.  To allow everyone to be authentic.  To start by trusting.  Start by giving.  Keep communicating.  Thats what I'm going to focus on as we move forward.  I'm excited to see what happens!

Relationships Rule

As long as I've been in technology there have been companies trying to be a one "one stop shop".  I find it interesting that this seems to be a real challenge to pull off over the long term.  When I was with McLeodUSA I was selling phone systems and the other reps were selling phone lines.  What I found interesting was that the success or failure of our selling together still ended up to be all about relationships.  The other reps that could form solid trustworthy relationships with were very successful.  Today the likes of Loffler in technology and ADP in benefits\payroll are making headway to become your "one stop shop" as a business.

Time will only tell if these strategies will work out for them.  Now that the "recession" is at an end (depending on who you talk to)  I think we will see more of these kinds of mergers happening in the technology business. I've spent the past 10 years building my own personal network of trusted technology resources.  I often ask myself what it would be like if we all worked for the same company.  I may get the chance to find out....who knows?  Whatever happens I still believe it will be the quality of my relationships that rule my success or failure.  I've learned that if I am working with a business partner and it seems too good to be true....it probably is.  If I have red flags about their behavior, lack of action, treatment of my customer or me, I need to address it right away.  If they are not willing to discuss or see my point it may not be a good fit.

I'm currently working on a project that involves multiple partner relationships.  Needless to say we've run into some snags on the project.  We met yesterday with the customer (who has been great to deal with) and made progress towards coming to an understanding of how we would all share the pain of what has gone wrong.  It was not an easy conversation but it was extremely rewarding.  I felt my relationship with my business parter and the customer grow stronger.  This is what good business is all about.

My advice is to work with partners and customers who are interested in a quality long term relationship.

Have a great weekend!

Microsoft Office 2010 Introduction

Here is a look at what is ahead for Microsoft Office. I'm really excited about this release because Microsoft is taking Google head on. Greater competition should lead to better products. I'll keep my readers up to date when I get the guts to install the beta version on my production laptop.

How Citrix XenApp works

Sorry if I'm going a little bit crazy on the videos this past month. I'm finally having some time to catch up and share some of what we've been working with over the past few months. This is a terrific explanation of how application virtualization works.

Google's experimental fiber network

If Google pulls this off it could be really cool. It will be a game changer. Keep an eye out for updates on what will happen with Google fiber to the home. 1GB per second sounds awsome!

Simplicity 3 - Product Focus

How do companies make decisions about which technology platform they should be on?  What are the critical points in the decision making process?  How can they spot a consultant who is not likely to guide them down the right path?  I've worked with a few firms lately who's existing consulting firms have attempted to guide them down a dead end path.  Why would they do this?

My focus for this series of blogs is about simplicity.  On the surface it seems that staying focused on one particular technology for resolving a particular technology issue would be the simplest path.   For instance:  Choosing Microsoft Exchange and Outlook as the only way to provide email and calendar sharing.  Well,  it is for the consultant.  But not for the customer.  It's easier for the consultant to learn and promote one product line very well and promote its benefits to their customers.  Its complicated to create an evolving suite of solutions from a variety of products that give the customer the customer high quality solutions that fit their business process and stage of growth.

I would argue that this will ultimately offer the customer the simplest solutions.  This is because the customer will know when their is a fit in terms of product features and price.  This makes the solution simple.....easy to understand and move forward with.  It's the consultants job to bring a variety of solutions that make the decision easier for the customer and also fit into the long term plan provided  by the consultant.

Sometimes I get brought in late in the game.  By that point the client is very frustrated that they have been brought down a dead end path.  Sometimes it is a tough pill to swallow but it is worth it.  Usually its not as tough as it looks up front.  Lately we've been able to help customers make this jump by moving them to the cloud.  So the capital costs are far less than they used to be.

Thanks for reading.  Many blessings to your path.

Hired! A pilot's job search takes off

Mostly this blog is about my adventures in technology for the SMB (Small and Medium Business) marketplace.  I get pretty excited when I see technology truly making a difference in a persons life.  Check out this article about how a mans life was deeply impacted by getting involved with blogging and social media.




Hired! A pilot's job search takes off

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What about the Buzz.

I'm still learning the best way to post videos to my blog and add comments. So I'm sorry if the formatting is not super clear in my blog.  I've posted the Google Buzz video because I think this an interesting step by Google.  They are making a valid attempt to bring our social networking together with our online business applications.  This is another step in brining people to the place where their main online destination is Google.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

Google Buzz

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009

Faster is better!

I find it interesting how the computer industry is always working to make their equipment run faster.  Sometimes I wonder why they are constantly trying to push the envelope.  Recently I've been working with a client who's network is experience a great deal of slowness.  This is very frustrating for the entire company.  The employees and management are at their wits end.  It seems most people are ok with a bit of slowness in their IT equipment from time to time.  It really becomes a problem with it grinds to an almost stand still.

I think the reason people are so interested in their equipment working fast is that they have the most powerful computer in the world right between their ears.  They want their computer/mobile phone/internet connection to move as fast as their thoughts and Ideas.  I think this is why IM and Iphones are so popular.  They move faster.  Many times it feels faster than making a phone call.  No small talk needed.  Just hard cold facts.... abbreviated.

Now I'll share something with you that is kind of embarrassing.  Sometimes when I'm heading down the road I look up contacts on my phone.  My usual tactic is to plug my headphone in to my phone in the parking lot before I launch (I know, I know...Bluetooth works better).  Next I wait until a stoplight to look up the name in contacts.  Then ideally I hit dial just as I leave the stoplight.  This should work except my 1 and 1/2 year old windows mobile phone can't keep up with my fingers and it actually creates a pretty dangerous situation as I'm still clicking while I'm accelerating down the on ramp.  I need speed!  Even though the GUI (Graphic User Interface) of the phone is somewhat annoying it pales in comparison to how slow the phone works.  The slowness has caused me to hate the phone instead patiently waiting for an upgrade.


I see this same kind of frustration with customers who experience applications or machines that are slow.  I had a client a few years ago who did software development.  Their  developers were so frustrated with the slowness of their machines that they uninstall-ed the antivirus software.  This ended horribly as their entire 80 person company was taken off line for a week with a virus.


My conclusion.  FASTER IS BETTER!  but not at too high of a cost.  I'm excited for the faster and faster processors and web based applications.  I especially like what Google has done with their apps and I love the Chrome browser.  I look forward to using it.  I'm actually kind of embarrassed for Microsoft with their doggy bug ridden Explorer 8.  Unfortunately many people are stuck with it because so many apps are built for it.  Their are many other ways to get FAST.  But I'll hit on that in later blogs.  Good luck getting fast.



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Communicate, Communicate, Communicate!

What I love about the consulting business is that it always has something to teach me.  In the past week I've been in the middle of 3 projects.  It's been hair raising at times but it's also been fun.  In the past when I had a difficult situation to deal with I would get nervous and lose sleep.  Sometimes I would allow this anxiety to delay the process of communication.  The end result was that there was more frustration and confusion for my customers, myself and my staff.  In short.....more drama.  This week the 3 C's have been driven home again for me.  I've had a bunch of times when I ran up against road blocks for me and my customers.  I was excited to take them head on.

The tendency these days is to kick off an email and say "I've done my part".  I don't think that counts anymore.  I've had too many times where somebody missed my email or it was read and then forgotten.  My new rule is communicate verbally and written as soon as possible.  The best result of that behavior is better relationships and more trust.  Who does not need more of that?

I hope you find this refreshing

Lately I've been paying a lot of attention to the colors and screens on my computer.  I think it's because I spend a lot of time looking at the darn thing.  Might as well be fun to look at.  It started when I installed Windows 7.  They have a bunch of cool themes that are free with the Professional version.  I found this so refreshing that I began to look for other places to spice up my world.  For the last 2 months I've been running Google Chrome Browser.  Once again, a bunch of cool themes are available.  Besides the fact that the browser rocks and is really fast.  Its fun to look at with lots of cool features.  Finally I've decided to change my blog theme for a more refreshing spring look.

I hope you find it refreshing.