Inspiration

Introducing Collaboration Tools? Three Required Personas for Success

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 17, 2011 ⋅ One comment

When introducing collaboration tools to an organization – creating the corporate intranet, defining project sites in Sharepoint, etc. – there are multiple skills you must master – well, at least get better at. You need to capture the ideas and communicate the data such that your target reader understands what you are trying to convey [...]

Change and the Crop Duster

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ September 24, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Drive south through the state of Indiana on I-65, and before you hit Indianapolis you will come across an impressively large array of wind turbines, the new vertical symbols of energy self-reliance and innovation. I remember not so long ago, when this section of the road was just miles of cornfields, as far as the [...]

Google+ is Active, not Passive, Social Networking

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ July 4, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

This past week saw the introduction of Google+, the search behemoth’s entry into the social networking fray. A slew of posts, articles, opinion pieces, etc. were sure to flow – and as I settled down with some time and a backlog of links to review, here are my initial thoughts on the service. Do I [...]

The Hegemony of Large Numbers – Ignoring Common Sense

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 28, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Ok, maybe I’m stretching the meaning there, but that’s a cool sounding title, and what I see as an interesting phenomenon. People get excited about Large Numbers, and think they have meaning and importance simply because they are Large Numbers. Big Errors For example – years ago, when an application manager was whirling around the [...]

Twitter and the First Amendment

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 21, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Apparently, 2011 is the year when Twitter, Facebook, and smartphone videos are graduating from Social Networking toys to evolutionary, revolutionary Sociology tools. Can they be controlled by governments or big business? It’s been argued that any such controls might run afoul of Amendment No. 1 from our Bill of Rights … how amazing for a [...]

Market Driven Data Quality (Data Darwinism)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 19, 2011 ⋅ One comment

Just trying a little contrarian thought this week … Have you ever noticed how much time and energy goes in to data validation? I think it stems from visual forms development and the wide variety of clever data entry controls that are available – everyone wants to write an app that gets the oooo, cool! [...]

Vintage Technology

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 9, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Here’s one of those videos making the rounds via eMail. I found this in my inbox at work, from an observant friend who apparently likes the same web sites I do (although I had originally this as a great example of minimalist site design). It’s interesting to note how the magical becomes the mundane. I [...]

Chargebacks vs. Allocations – Defining IT’s Relationship with the Business

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 16, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Some IT departments prefer chargebacks, while others do not. My own preference is to allocate IT costs to the business units, based on some reasonable balance of simplicity and accuracy. General services could be allocated by headcount, COGs, or revenues, with each business unit taking their proportional share. Some easily identifiable items might be allocated [...]

Fun with Ngrams – Art, Science, Programming

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 19, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

A recent gift from Google Labs – the NGram viewer, a fascinating tool that searches the Google Books database for words and phrases, and charts their relative frequency. For example – let’s take some of the themes of this blog … Apparently, Art and Science have grown closer, and enjoy a somewhat parallel existence together. [...]

External Radiance Projection 2010: A Christmas / Upgrade Story

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ November 10, 2010 ⋅ One comment

No, I’m not a Christmas fanatic – but when you live in Chicago, you learn to look for nice weather in the weeks approaching Thanksgiving, to put up the lights before the wind and cold conspire to make it a painful experience. Basically, I gotta burn a vacation day – but why not? It’s an [...]

Categories