Rationally diffuse: Aggregating from the right perspective
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how centralization (or decentralization) doesn't matter, about doing the right things at the right places. With some further discussions and feedback, I wanted to...
View ArticleRationally diffuse: Centralization doesn't matter
In a recent discussion of the progress of IT@Illinois and comparing it to "rationalization" efforts at some of our CIC peers, the group felt that we have found the way to do IT "right" for a large...
View ArticleAnyone can be replaced, but how do you make yourself less so?
You need to make yourself as valuable as possible to your employer in any job market, but especially a market like the current one where there are lots of people eager to have a job. Being good...
View ArticleState of the IT@Illinois
Last Friday was an interesting point in the IT@Illinois discussion. Together with Craig Jackson, Chuck Thompson, Dan Jacobsohn, and Kelly Bridgewater, we organized the Friday morning caffeine break to...
View ArticleCentral IT, governance, and shifting the stack
This post is going to be somewhat of an open response to Ingbert's comment to my post on the IT@Illinois launch, and it will segue a bit into talking a bit about some aspects of a concept I've been...
View ArticleIT@Illinois kicks off
Yesterday was the kick-off of the IT@Illinois project to envision the future of IT at the Urbana-Champaign campus of University of Illinois. Going into the day, we knew a little of what Sally Jackson,...
View ArticleCompetitive advantage from IT
Andrew McAfee is a professor at the Harvard Business School, and he writes some interesting things in his blog about his research and thoughts on the new dynamics of the enterprise. In his latest blog...
View ArticleThe Savvy Manager
This is a column I wrote for Systems Management News that I am reposting here.Being a manager in IT is an challenging and often thankless job, but there are steps that we can take to make things...
View ArticleAdd Value to your Business by Understanding the Business
The new issue of Systems Management News is out with my latest column. In this month's column, I talk about adding value to your organization by building better understanding of your organization and...
View ArticleThoughts on Technology Accelerators
One of my blog's visitors asked me some questions about technology accelerators as described in Good to Great, and she said it would be ok if I posted the response here as well.If technology cannot...
View ArticleSystems Management News
In case you have not noticed in the navigation, I started writing a column called "The Savvy Manager" for Systems Management News. The magazine is targeted at system administrators, data center...
View ArticleEvaluating ideas
One of the things that comes up in tech transfer and in IT all the time is whether something is a good idea or whether it is truly innovative. A podcast I listen to is called "Killer Innovations" from...
View ArticleMonkey business
William Oncken, Jr. and Donald Wass wrote an article several years ago for Harvard Business Review about time management called "Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey." As you can imagine, Oncken and...
View ArticleBehavioral interviewing
We're in the process of interviewing candidates for a few technology licensing manager positions, and the method of interviewing always comes up. After this year's Super Bowl, one of the first things I...
View ArticleTalking to the Other Side
No, I don't mean talking to ghosts here like a character from an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I mean talking to the other side of the organization, the non-IT side. As technical people, we can easily fall...
View ArticleGood to Great: Technology accelerators
I am reading Good to Great at the moment, and it was really exciting to read about the role of technology in a company going from good to great. Every company that really went from good to great had...
View ArticleInnovation lessons from Blizzard
Colin Stewart at the Orange County Register has compiled eleven lessons that Blizzard has learned by being innovative with its products. In case you have not heard of them, Blizzard is the company that...
View ArticleIs there critical mass for a Microsoft shop?
Working in a Microsoft shop has been a lot better than I originally expected it to be five years ago. Obviously there are still the drawbacks with things like licensing costs and the operating system...
View ArticleInnovation budget
For the last few weeks, I have been working on my FY09 budget that runs from July of this year through June of next year. It can be quite the challenge to predict the needs of the future year...
View Article10 ways IT workers can enable better business-IT alignment
Aligning and integrating IT with the business takes the work of people both outside of IT and inside of IT. While it requires coordination and teamwork, there are things that we as IT workers can do to...
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