Information Technology Blog

Just like two wrongs don’t make a right… two losers don’t make a winner!

In relatively current news Microsoft has pursued expanding its empire, issuing an unsolicited $44.6 billion takeover offer for Yahoo.  While Yahoo seems to be genuinely mulling over the offer, they are hoping to increase the offer price from the current $31 a share to upwards of $40 a share.

While I think that neither Microsoft or Yahoo are losers,  I think that a acquisition is a bad idea for the simple reason that the corporate culture of both companies couldn’t be further from one another.  One could even argue that the brands project more of a “ying and yang” feeling off each other than a “let’s be attached at the hip” kind of attitude.

If the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition does happen, what should you expect to see?  For starters, a new name for Yahoo is likely.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Yahoo! renamed Micro-Hoo! or MS Yahoo (Much like that of Microsoft owned MSN and MSNBC).

When companies merge (either mutual or hostel) the brands need to mesh together well with like ideals, styles, cultures, and visions. A classic example of an acquisition/merger gone wrong is Sears and Kmart.  Their #1 issue is that what is in the best interest of Sears is not necessarily in the best interest of Kmart, and vice versa.  Another perfect example is Sprint and Nextel.  In their case the problems are both different cultures and different wireless technology.  And let us not forget the Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) acquisition.  Compaq, the world’s largest PC firm, seemed to want to give IBM a run for their money.  But, in the classic example of biting off more than you can chew the result of the acquisition (or merger) was less than successful.

Think about it this way…  when two companies merge that are big competitors, it’s like sticking a group of Yankee fan and a group of Red Socks fans into a sports bar and expecting them not to brawl.  The rivalry mindset can’t be turned off like a switch.  Expecting the different groups of people to successfully collaborate usually isn’t realistic.

A Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition (or merger) will almost certainly have a fall-out including:

§  Rebranding crisis

o   All of Yahoo’s technology will have to be moved under Microsoft’s label

§  Massive layoffs of Yahoo employees

§  Hotmail style transition of Yahoo’s systems to a Window’s powered infrastructure

It’s my crystal ball prediction; if a Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition (or merger) is completed then they’ll ultimately be atop the list of acquisitions (or mergers)-gone-bad.  The exec should take my advice, for whatever it’s worth, and go it along.

Small Business Services Comparison:

Product	Yahoo	Microsoft
Search	IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition	Search Server 2008 Express
Web Hosting	Small Business Web Hosting	Office Live Small Business (SB)
E-Commerce	Small Business Merchant Solutions	Office Live SB, Commerce Server
E-mail	Small Business Email	Office Live SB, Exchange
Search marketing	Small Business Search Marketing	Office Live SB, AdManager, aQuantive
Internet Access	AT&T Yahoo High Speed Internet	None

New Technology at your Fingertips

New Technology at your Fingertips

Have you heard about the latest data storage devices from SanDisk?  Well, it has a big storage capacity, packed into a very small size.

At the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) convention in Las Vegas (www.cesweb.org) this past January SanDisk issued a technology announcement about their new 12-Gbyte MicroSD card.  The device is small enough to fit on your fingertip.  The cards are primarily designed for use in portable multimedia devises as well as phone storage.  Thought the options for use extend far beyond just that…. 

Remember when you needed a zip-drive to copy the content of your (or your work) computer?  No more…  Without doubt the MicroSD card could store the entire document content on most computers.

Michael Romero, Sr. Director of Marketing, SanDisk told a reporter at CEA that the 12 GB card is a “working solution.”

At last year’s CEA SanDisk introduced their 2 Gbyte MicroSD card.  Then, in mid-later 2007 SanDisk released an 8 GB card, with a retail price of $129.99.  Clearly, storage technology is on the rise, within just one year it has risen from 2 to 12 Gbytes.  The price of the 12 GB card has not been released yet, through a ball park guess is that the card will have a retail price between approximately $150 - $175.

Also in from SanDisk… a 4 GB Titanium USB drive, which they claim is nearly indestructible.   What makes this devise so great?  Owners can download the content into SanDisk’s online back-up hub, which is password protected.

If you owe one of these latest and greatest products from SanDisk, tell us what you think!       

The Digital Age: Exploring Power Management

As a result of the new age of digital technology, companies are moving toward a swift growth in data center expansion.  As a way to extend its processing capabilities, many companies are investing in the latest and greatest server technology.  My company, not being the exception, has also found itself investing in new IT processes. 

The problem in these new moves, energy costs are on the rise.  Companies are finding themselves with high utility bills, as a result of increases in the power use. 

An August 2007 survey, The State of Energy Efficiency in the Data Center, conducted by CMP Research, found the following as sited issues for optimizing energy in their facility:

·         45.4% of IT Managers said that a Lack of Space was the reason for not expanding their existing facility.

·         33.1% said they had higher priority technology projects

·         26.9% said they, forget technology projects, they had higher priority business projects

·         25.4% had an inability to cool existing racks

·         25.4% listed that they had no circuits for new servers… bummer

·         25% said they had no budget for more power/cooling

·         24.6% reported no budget for more servers…ouch!

Not dealing with the problem of increasing the use of energy, doesn’t mean it will go away.  So, why not plan on finding some solution solving resolutions, well many will tell you, there are other technology priorities, no budget, or even perhaps they weren’t even aware of the benefits.

So, has your company jumped on the band wagon of data center expansion?  Try conducting an assessment of the expansions and processes to determine how to identify and eliminate inefficiencies and misuse. 

Baby’s New Best Friend—The Robot!

A recent report published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, by University of California, San Diego, found that a two-foot-tall metal man won over the attention of a classroom full of children aged 18-24 months.  The kids intermittently spent time with the robot, known as QRIO, for a period of more than 5 months.

The report states, “Our results suggest that current robot technology is surprisingly close to achieving autonomous bonding and socialization with human toddlers for significant periods of time.”  

The robot, QRIO, used in this study had full access to its arsenal of programmed social behaviors.  In addition, a controller could send commands to the robot, prompting it to wave, dance, sit, stand, laugh, etc.  Within the first 11 sessions of interacting with the robot, the toddlers began to treat QRIO more and more like a peer.  QRIO was even programmed to respond to touch.  For example, if a child touched the robot of the head, it would giggle.

So the question is, can placing robots, like QRIO, into the classroom greatly enrich the environment, and provide aid to teachers?

To weigh in your thoughts… post a comment!

If you have an interest in building your own robot being, check out Lego Mindstorm models and kits sold at Lighthouse Bookseller today.

Teamed to Bleed

When discussing teams, it is first important to understand what a team is.  A team is easily defined:  People doing something together.  It could be to the launch of a new adventure campaign, the development of a software product, or the implementation of a training program. 

The something that a team does isn’t what makes it a team; the together part is. 

And, the together part is what makes teams such a challenge.  While companies have fully embraced teaming, the path to team success is not easily traveled.  Some teams bleed along the way, wounded by obstacles that prevent teams from achieving their potential.  But when teams succeed, the benefits to employees and the organization are tremendous.

Teamed to Bleed:

Not all teams succeed.  Unfortunately, many companies and managers have found teams prone to problems that make them ineffective.  Teams become confused about goals, they have difficulty in reaching decisions; individuals don’t accept their roles; team leaders don’t always act like one.  As a result, the team bleeds.

The downfall of teams occurs when organizations expect teams to win, but they establish structures so this can only occur at the expense of the employees.  This expense is often in terms of longer hours, extra work (sometimes even at home), more meetings and expecting the same output in less production time.

In this environment, any team success that is experienced can only be short-lived because it precludes any employee buy-in to teams.  Too many organizations believe that they can get something for nothing with teams.  Teams can only succeed when they are established as an investment in employees.

Going from 'No Team No' to 'Go Team Go'

Whether you work in IT, technology, marketing, accounting, manufacturing, or nearly any other field or industry, at some point you are likely to find yourself in a team environment.  It is important to understand ways for your team to function both effectively and efficiently. 

Teams aren’t just for sporting activities, training exercises or competitive entertainment. What began as teaming for social-technical-business experiments and spurred the Total Quality Management movement has become the standard operational and organizational structure for businesses today. ‘Go Team Go’ is how the majority of businesses work.

Teams have invaded corporate America because businesses have found success achieving organizational goals through the team approach. The benefits of teams are too powerful to be ignored; teams increase productivity; they improve communication; they make better use of resources; they are more creative and more efficient at solving problems; they make and implement higher quality decisions. Some other benefits:

Teams save money. Organizations have discovered teams help save money.

Teams do work that ordinary workgroups can’t do. When a task is multi-functional in nature, no single person or crew of functionaries can compete with a team of versatile specialists

Teams mean better quality goods and service. Teams increase knowledge, and knowledge applied at the right moment is the key to continuous improvement.

Teams mean improved processes. Processes occur across functions. Teams, straddling all the functions contributing to a process have better “process vision.”

Teams “differentiate while they integrate.” Teams allow organizations to blend people with different kinds of knowledge together.

Hence, it’s no surprise that 73% of companies have used teams in their organization and 51% of all employees are in teams of one type of another. The acceptance of teams in today’s business environment has become pervasive in all areas of organizations. There are many types of teams: task forces, steering teams, quality teams, work area teams, self-directed teams, pilot teams, process analysis teams, project teams, cross-functional teams.

Stay tuned to future posts on the topic of teaming, to further understand what a team is, what happens if you are “Teamed to Bleed” and reasons why some teams fail.

Also, get active in the blog please feel free to post comments and feedback!

Stretch Your Brain Power

Book Spotlight:

Sudoku for Project Managers

By Frank V. Payne with Brandon McCormick

In this book you can explore project management principles while working your mind.   This book highlights the following topic areas:

·         Changing expectations and roles of project managers

·         Managing finances on a project

·         Measuring profit & the cash flow statement

·         Organizational cost management

·         Developing and managing a project portfolio

·         Understanding justification, selection, & approval

·         Determining the time value of money and future value

·         Project financial analysis

·         Identifying & calculating the 4 basic financial metrics

·         Risk management, decision making, and sensitivity analysis

So, the next time you expect to find yourself with idle time at home, on the road, or on the plane, flex your mind mussels with a Sudoku puzzle. 

Try sample puzzles at  www.pdfpad.com/sudoku/

To place your order for the Sudoku collection, visit www.lighthousebookseller.com today!

Book Spotlight

Value-Based Metrics for Improving Results:  An Enterprise Project Management Toolkit

By:  Mel Schnapper, Ph. D., Steven Rollins, PMP, PMOP

This comprehensive guide illustrates how to establish, implement, and manage an effective metric program for achieving improved performance in your business and in attainment of your professional or personal goals.  Featuring an implementation roadmap that can be applied in most any organization, Value-Based Metrics for Improving Results for developing an presents a unique, universal methodology for developing and using metrics as a management tool to baseline, monitor, manage, improve, align, and reward performance of most any business function at any level.

Dazed and Confused: The Power of Mind Mapping

In today’s fast paced and technology driven business world we’re introduced to more and more information at our jobs.  As more information becomes available we are expected to gather and use that information in our organizations.  Sometimes the sheer volume of information can be daunting, never mind the idea of using that info to our organization’s advantage.  So how are we supposed to quickly gather and use the information as well as organize it?  The perfect format is a mind map.

Mind mapping is a form of radiant thinking where ideas are displayed graphically with the main idea in the center and branches arrayed outward representing aspects of the idea or corresponding/related ideas.  Beyond being a generally beneficial tool for personal organization, mind mapping holds great value for businesses who can properly utilize it.

Mind mapping can assist in three basic areas; thinking, learning, and communication.  Obviously, all three of these areas are used extensively in any organization, so anything that could benefit these areas in individuals would also benefit the organization as a whole.  Mind mapping assists thinking by making brainstorming, decision making, and planning easier.  All three benefit from the form mind maps take.  Since a mind map is a closer representation of how people actually think than a hierarchal list, brainstorming is made easier and more efficient.  A main idea or subject is placed at the center and you can write ideas as branches off of that main subject.  Those ideas then develop further branches as more ideas come to you based on that idea.  In this way a mind map allows you to show the natural associations your mind makes, like the sight of a park might make you think of your child, his upcoming birthday, and of a toy he wanted.  A hierarchal list would have difficulty relating a park to a birthday gift. 

In decision making, a mind maps allows you to display multiple layers of pros and cons for each decision available to you.  This allows you to take into account all aspects of any one decision and to make a fully informed decision.  For planning the same idea applies, all aspects of an event can be laid out on one page allowing you to take in the full scope of the event and all its necessities.  Mind maps make learning easier by allowing note-taking and note-making to be more efficient.  Again mind maps are able to more accurately reflect the natural functions of the brain.  This means that when we are taking notes we’re not left just copying what we see or hear but we include our own connections and relations in an organized and interesting format that has been shown to increase information recall up to 80%.  In note-making, we can take information from our heads and put them down on paper in an organized format much more quickly and easier that the traditional methods of making notes.

In the communication area mind maps help in two ways.  The first is in giving oral presentations or speeches.  Instead of shuffling through a big stack of note cards with your main subjects on them during a speech, you could use a mind map with all your ideas displayed radially on one sheet of paper.  Beyond helping you to personally keep up with key ideas and thoughts, a mind map can be shared with others working on a particular project or decision to help them understand better what your thoughts are on the matter.  Mind mapping software is especially useful for this purpose because it provides a standardized format that makes it easier for everyone to read and understand.

Using mind maps can increase organization and processing of information company wide.  Above and beyond that, it can make your job a little easier.  Start using mind maps today and see how much help they are.  Hopefully, with the proper map, you won’t be so dazed and confused.

The Flash Drive of Tomorrow

The future is here!  Well, no flying cars yet.  Ok and no robot servants either, but the future of data storage and mobility is here.  The U3 smart drive is basically a USB flash drive, with one vital difference.  You can now keep your software on it as well.

You’re probably wondering “What’s the big deal?  You can store any kind of data on a regular flash drive.”  The big deal is you can now run software from the flash drive, not just store it.  This means you can virtually turn any pc into YOUR pc.  The U3 component comes with pre-installed software that is similar to the Windows XP start menu.  Whenever the drive is inserted into a pc a launch window comes up giving you options like running an internet browser, playing a game, or accessing stored data.  And the best part about this is, when you’re done you simply eject the flash drive and there’s no trace that you were there.  This means whoever uses the pc after you can’t access or see anything you were doing on it.

This opens up all kinds of new possibilities.  Business travelers can carry vital data along with the program needed to access it so a certain computer isn’t always needed.  Students can have their essential programs along with saved documents saved to the drive and are able to access it from any computer, saving the hundreds or thousands of dollars for a laptop.

Of course, there are limits to what the U3 can do.  The biggest size currently available is 4GB, limiting the amount of programs that can be saved on it.  The programs available in the U3 format are currently limited as well, although many major developers are creating U3 forms of their popular software.  Also, the way the programs are ran on a U3 drive makes it run a little slower, but these cons are greatly overshadowed by the pros of what a U3 flash drive can do, as well as the future potential these drives represent.  Since it doesn’t look like the flying cars and robot servants are here just yet, you’d better get out there and get your little piece of the future.