What I mean, of course, is that we need to stop using the phrase, “Shadow IT.” It is completely non-descriptive of exactly what we mean. You want “ninja IT” so that employees can stop being prisoners of IT. Let me explain. As you know if you’re a regular reader, my contention is that there is […]
The Dis(Honesty) Feature Film Kickstarter
I enjoy Dan Ariely’s work, partially because he writes well, partially because he can be wickedly funny, and partially because his findings are based on ingenious psychology experiments. I was delighted to find that he and Yael Melamede of SALTY Features launched a Kickstarter to produce a film on the subject. I backed it several […]
Top 5 Ways To Do Cool Stuff At Your Dorky Job
I’m returning from Interop in Vegas, fresh from a talk about how to climb the career ladder, “So You Want To Be A CIO”; I thought I’d share a point that resonated with the audience: everybody wants to do cool stuff at work, but: “nobody trusts you to do cool things if you don’t have […]
Got A Terrible Manager? So Does Everyone. Succeed Anyway.
People blame things on bad management because, well, it’s fun. But they’re also looking for a scapegoat. If you want to create great work, you must also realize that most management is imperfect and that you must succeed despite this. In one of my roles years ago, my staff was bitterly complaining about executive management […]
On Causing Unreasoning Love In Customers: You Are Amazing! You’ve Got This!
What turns something from a death slog-fest into a life-affirming event? As it turns out, an over-the-top amount of encouragement. In any profession that causes as well as alleviates work pain, we’d do well to remember that. I ran the Black Mountain Marathon a few weeks ago. Beautiful conditions at the start line; it was […]
Team Trust: Leadership Not As Important As You Think?
I thought I’d share something interesting about trust among teams based on research I recently did. Team trust level is something that gets pooh-poohed by those who scorn “touchy feely” stuff, but it’s critical to any real success. Just about every two years, I’ve done research about enterprise project management, and I’ve just gotten back […]
Government Cloud Computing: A Current Bibliography
I gave a webinar today called, “Beyond Fairy Dust & The No Police: How Cloud Computing Makes Government Better“. Below is the “virtual handout” for the webinar, which lists recent activity both in the government cloud world as well as the platform-as-a-service world. A recording is archived here. Enjoy! Suggested Gov Cloud Reading Extreme Heroku: […]
College or Workplace Evaluations: One Size Does Not Fit All
My #2 son procrastinated his college application essays until just two days ago–the very last minute. Why? He’s a math and music guy, not a writer. That’s right: a key evaluation mechanism relies on his Achilles heel. There’s a reason that this sounds like your experience in the workplace; the sad part is that it’s […]
Hack Your IT Budget: Give A Little To Get A Lot
When it comes to IT budgets, the fact of the matter, based on research that I did for InformationWeek, is that many, but not all organizations are fairly flexible with IT, despite the crusty old practice of only planning expenditures once per year. So why is budgeting a topic that makes IT folks cringe? At […]
Is Lean Startup The Future of The Workplace?
It’s kind of like an orange juice commercial from the 70s: “Lean Startup: It’s Not Just For Startups Anymore.” Or that’s how it seemed to me on the first day of the Lean Startup Conference. Though many observers, including myself, have urged the adoption of Lean Startup (and startup principles in general) into the workplaces […]