I haven't written one of these hands-on hardware / software evaluation posts for some time - it's not that kind of blog, really - but I've been asked a lot of questions about my Surface Pro 3, and this is an easy way to let many folks know the answers. Also - I am making some interesting discoveries with the new device - some you might not think about at first. Am I surprised by some of these issues? Yes…
I still get pulled into conversations about ERP; there are plenty of businesses out there, of varying sizes, that can benefit from the structured process and transactional discipline. Reference calls on behalf of the vendor are great - I'm happy to take them, primarily because most vendors are OK with letting my team be frank. We'll talk about the software package you are buying, in whatever detail that can fit into the allotted time, warts and all. But more often…
Have you ever waded into a process improvement project that had trouble finding a place to start? Consider, for example, a strategic sales team (for RevCo, famous maker of Widgets), working their established product families to generate breakout new customers and revenues. They've implemented a CRM system, but are having problems getting adoption and seeing benefits. The difficulty, of course, is that they have not changed their marketing strategies, and can't see beyond "automating our current process" as a measure…
The topic was training users for an upcoming project rollout, and the debate (as always) roamed back and forth between "traditional" (classroom training, scripts & workbooks) versus "experiential", pairing existing users with their counterparts (who are new to the system), walking through the basics (screen navigation, terminology, and step-by-step instructions for the most common required tasks). Training methods are a common area of debate and discussion with system implementation folks, and I can make a great case for any and…
This past week saw my first experience with video conference calling - something obvious to consider in these tight economic times. Some observations - I got quick feedback that my original camera position was disconcerting for the others. I had put it off to the side, which made me look “off camera”, almost in profile, while in conversation. As I thought about it, I agreed - because if I was looking at me, it would be weird / annoying. I…
It's been a while since I've led a requirements session for an interactive application - but no worries, I found it's like riding a bike. After a few minutes the old habits come back, and iterative ideas and cascading creativity starts to flow. What has changed, however, is the application platform, the office environment, and the various knowledge capture tools at our disposal. So, in the spirit of knowledge retention and sharing, here's a brain dump of ideas that I…
In my first two posts about alternative KM tools I wrote about audio - digital voice recorders and voice-recognition software. One could consider this "old-school" technology, because the stuff has been around for a long time. Another technology that's been around for a long time is PC-based video - around, but possibly not as accessible as it is now. YouTube and the various Internet video sites are a relatively new phenomenon, mostly because breakthroughs and video technology that reduces file size…
Ok, don't freak out now ... All I want to point out is that the apparent need for screen prints of every step in the process is a bit overdone, especially when we're talking about technical documents. Screen prints / images in the documentation typically means the electronic documents get unmanageably huge, even if you shrink the .JPGs, and few people know how to do that. Plus, you indirectly commit yourself / your organization to a huge maintenance burden. because…
The question of the "erosion" of the term has been posed before (good thread!). Over the past few weeks, I've slogged through web content about ... Open Source Software (aka FOSS): Projects and products are becoming commonplace; as evidence, I submit articles such as this (1 of 2), that take the airline magazine approach of chatting up basic ideas like "ROI is often soft" and applying to the Current Topic. There's nothing really stunningly insightful here, just talking about the…