The Cloud is a Game-Changer

New technologies come and go all the time, and new fads come and go all the time.  But some of them, when they are true game changers, do stick. Take virtualization, for example.  Boy has it stuck! One hotly-debated trend right now is, of course, the Cloud.  What is the Cloud, really? Many people like […]

Keep moving forward. Especially Today.

How can you tell if your team and organization is making forward progress?  And I don’t mean just any progress, but progress in the right direction? What I’ve noticed is, depending upon your role in the organization it can be extremely difficult to know on a day-to-day basis if you are working on the right […]

Why is IT Like Plumbing?

I offended someone one time by referring to systems administrators as plumbers. I certainly meant no offense…after all, can you imagine life without plumbers?  Furthermore I was considering myself in that category, as after all I am a systems administrator as well.  Anyways, even though it was a couple of years ago, sorry. I still […]

The Pitfalls of Going Too Fast

I know I always advocate for “velocity!” and “Speed of iteration beats quality of iteration” (John Boyd) and “Move fast and break things. If you’re not breaking things you’re not moving fast enough” (Mark Zuckerbeg).  For a startup environment, where the goal is to get to minimum-viable-product (MVP) as quickly as possible, even with bugs […]

If Everything’s a Priority, Then Nothing Is

Typically I am very organized about my day-to-day work, and also my short-term (3 months or so) planning.  I use Trello for the “month” timeframe, iCloud Reminders for the “week” timeframe, and a paper notepad and pencil for the “day” timeframe.  Sometimes, when I’m being particularly unproductive, I’ll even go into my calendar, either iCloud […]

Is The Cloud Right For Your Organization?

One of the biggest buzzwords in industry right now is, of course, “The Cloud”. But for all the positive marketing hype, I see just as much negative pushback, especially from the older IT crowd. For example, I see this meme (or some variation thereof) a lot: There’s no cloud, it’s just someone else’s datacenter. My […]

Intuition and Decision-Making

I bought my last new car about 3 years ago.  At the time I spent a few moments wondering about what I wanted.  And one thought was, I could get a hybrid, with the idea of saving money. So a used Toyota hybrid runs, let’s say $25,000. Let’s say it gets 50 miles to the […]

Keeping an Open Mind

I know there are people who don’t like social media.  Mention Facebook or Instagram and you’ll get a derisive snort.  “I don’t use that, it’s a waste of time!” Well, good for you. But I have to be honest, if you have any sort of broad-sector consuming facing product or service, if you’re not on […]