Inspiration

PacMan at MoMA – Interaction Design

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ June 16, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

One of the benefits of ditching cable and going to internet streaming TV is that I’m watching more TED talks for a mental stretch break. True, I’m missing half of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but I catch stuff like this from Paola Antonelli, on bringing video games to New York’s Museum of Modern Art … [...]

Impressive Networking Success Metrics for a Current Job Search

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ May 25, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

No, not mine! When talking with folks searching for their next job, I always stress “old-school” networking – face-to-face conversations to get that next introduction, leverage the other person’s network, generate leads on positions, or introductions to more folks that might be able to help. I am definitely a fan, I know it’s a powerful [...]

Innovating with Ideas – Real World Remixing

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ April 7, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

Three good stories from the past week – great for me, since I am hearing feedback and “remixing” for things published here on this blog. But good, because they are nice examples of people taking ideas and tweaking them to fit their particular situation: Phil saw my presentation earlier this year on IT Strategy, and [...]

Suburban Robots that Monitor Reality (The Internet of Things)

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ March 13, 2013 ⋅ 5 comments

Another month, another presentation – something I am trying to do more of this year, somewhat to the detriment of my blog post frequency. However, I may have one or two new posts to put together based on the content of this deck. Here’s a link to the slides I am presenting this week (Thursday [...]

IT Strategy for the Fast Twitch Crowd

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 10, 2013 ⋅ One comment

This evening (Monday, 11 Feb 2013) , I did a presentation on Developing IT Strategy in a “Consumer IT” Environment – an expansion on some of the ideas that I have written about previously. I’ve posted my slides here – I realize that they do not “stand on their own”, and need some explanation, but if you weren’t in [...]

Ten Bucks in Ten Minutes

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ February 6, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

I really do like networking events – group meetings with other with other IT professionals, discussing topics of common interest, with a reasonable amount of vendor / consultant-sponsored gentle selling, and/or some solid job networking with fellow techs looking for their next successful step along the career path. However, I admit to a wee bit [...]

Reading for Understanding – Business

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ January 20, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment

You are only as good as what you know, and half of what you know comes from books Truth be told, it’s not an original thought – I heard it many years ago, but it rang true for me personally. I still have many of my old college textbooks – engineering volumes bound in impressive [...]

Developing an IT Strategy: Approach

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 26, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Previously: Timing The new year approaches, and most IT groups aspire to start out with a completed IT Budget, derived from a well thought out set of short-term Objectives, that align with an IT Strategy – that itself aligns with the overall Corporate Strategy. If your timing is a bit off, and you haven’t established [...]

Developing an IT Strategy: Timing

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ December 23, 2012 ⋅ One comment

In some companies, IT struggles to find a voice amid the other functional areas of the business – Finance, Operations, Sales and Marketing, even Human Resources. “Business Alignment”, a regular item on lists of Top 5 IT Concerns each year, pops up because (I believe) it’s difficult to glibly draw a line connecting IT systems [...]

Five Lessons on Social Media from an Unexpected Source

By Jim MacLennan ⋅ October 7, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

I heard a fascinating (and funny) true story the other day, detailing one person’s interaction with a consumer product manufacture and their social media outreach programs. Fascinating, because as the story unfolded, I kept getting these Aha! moments of insight – validating important concepts around building and fostering communities of practice. Funny, because some of [...]

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