Joel Stoddard

Global IT for multinational companies is a lot like network connectivity for the rest of us. It’s hard to believe that we used to do things another way. With that said, these types of changes are hard and globalization strategies are not meant to be executed from paper manifestos, instead projects are needed to help reorient a company’s sta…[Read more]

This is a really good perspective. To me the difference between underinvesting/overinvesting is partially a reality and partially perception. As a business, it is much more important to invest properly in the things that matter rather than investing in technologies that provide questionable value. I worked for a company that invested heavily in…[Read more]

Duke, there has been a shift in the way the company as a whole views customers, but it aligns more to the appointment of Satya Nadella as CEO. Satya has made “customer obsession” a core value for the culture and is really anchoring the company as a whole around it. This does not necessarily change how we segment our customers, it just gives…[Read more]

Great response Steve. This is such a juxtaposition to the information in the Google case. Google is building their customer relationships in an oddly personal but very antiseptic way. What about Milwaukee’s customer base makes customer relationships so important? Is it the fact that people rely on these tools to generate income? Or maybe that…[Read more]

Kevin – I agree with your position that the CIO should try to seek out some additional funding, but he needs to be prepared to deal with reality that he may not get the extra funds. The action to seek extra funding shows good faith towards VWoA’s stakeholders and will provide a definitive answer on the priority of the project.

When I…[Read more]

Sam – You bring up some great points. I got bored reading about the process, I can’t imagine the fortitude it takes to actually make it through the months of planning. The new process would benefit from some lean principles. I would argue that making the process more lean would also help when dealing with stakeholders. It would basically…[Read more]

Great points LeRena. I agree that the system is an improvement, but I do wonder if the timing of their prioritization could be the downfall of the system. Many organizations are transforming using agile methodologies for project management. Scrum is a very popular flavor of agile and its purpose is to deliver smaller chunks of value throughout…[Read more]

Life can be viewed as a series of systems. There are a couple systems that stick out to me, but one of the simplest examples is money and time. We need time to do the things we like. The things we like are rarely free. As a result we need to work to make money. Working leaves less time to do the things we like. This classic example is…[Read more]

At Microsoft, there is no shortage of customer segments. At a very generic level, Microsoft’s customers are diversified into: consumers, small-to-medium business, enterprises, and partners. Consumers are individuals buying products and services for personal use. Small-to-medium business is pretty self-explanatory, but its distinguishing c…[Read more]

Matulovic is definitely at a crossroads, but needs to hold firm on the prioritization delivered through the system. For VWoA, project prioritization is not an option, it is a necessity. As a result, there is a limited pool of resources for a vast amount of work, which means some set of work will not be done. If Matulovic tries to please…[Read more]

The new process for managing priorities at VWoA is heading in the right direction, but it needs some iteration and time to become more effective. The process is young, as time goes on it will become easier to plan from year to year and expectations will be better set around available resources. To improve the process, VWoA needs to be fully…[Read more]

Excel is awesome. I do a lot of work with external data sources (Databases, websites, files, …etc). If you haven’t played around with PowerQuery (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39379) yet, it is worth your time. PowerQuery basically makes it easier to connect into a variety of data sources. Once you are connected,…[Read more]

If anyone is interested in learning some of the behavioral theory behind many of these gadgets, apps and websites, you should read hooked (http://www.hookmodel.com/#book). Hooked is a model for developing habit forming technology, and it uses the model to show how companies are ingraining technology in every part of our lives.

Retailers, payment processors and credit card companies are not doing enough to keep our financial information secure. From my perspective, improvements need to be made across the board, because I am certain that we have not seen the last high profile attack. Many of the systems that work together to actually make a transaction happen from the…[Read more]

Kevin – I agree with your statements. Security is not always about creating an unbreakable system. In many ways, connected systems will always be breakable in some way. Instead, security is often about raising the barrier to attack to a high enough level that attackers will go after easier targets. Magnetic strips have been an easy target for…[Read more]

Saquib – You have the makings of a good SpongeBob episode. To the question, “why would they tell a lie?” What if Plankton decided he could finally steal the crabby patty formula by stealing all of the Krusty Krab’s customers. The best way to do that would obviously be a negative yelp campaign that would force the visitors across the street to t…[Read more]

My five year old hates socks. The first thing she does when she comes home is kicks off her shoes and rips off her socks so she can run around barefoot. Often times before leaving the house, I need to do a sock check to make sure that she did not actually put her boots on without socks. I decided to use this ongoing challenge to explain the…[Read more]

Companies like AirBNB essentially trade in trust. It is interesting to see the evolution of this independent broker style of crowd sourced services or sales. From EBay to Uber to AirBNB, the level of personal trust involved in this space is escalating. Of the examples provided, I would argue that AirBNB is the most personal because people are…[Read more]

Sunnylake’s IT staff has made a critical error in responding to this incident. Given the nature of the attack and the fact that ransom requests are involved, the IT staff should have escalated this immediately to the FBI’s cybercrimes division. The cybercrimes division has the right forensics skills, threat awareness and resources to help a com…[Read more]