Nicole Martin

IT trends come and go, so the key point I want to remember 5 years from now is that IT learning opportunities are available to whomever spends the time to seek them out. Resources like Lynda.com and Code Academy offer a wealth of knowledge right at your fingertips. I had taken some coding courses prior to this class and had forgotten how fun it…[Read more]

In addition to the financial measures already mentioned, like ROI and NPV, I’d suggest that Seimens find a way to measure employee engagement ratio. A company that has engaged employees is more likely to retain those employees and foster innovation. My company distributes an annual survey to obtain a variety of employee metrics, including…[Read more]

Interesting link Andrew, thanks for posting. I had no idea there were that many self-published books in the market. I completely agree with your position. Publishers and agents exist to weed out the drivel, so as a consumer looking to boost my knowledge on a given subject, I’m happy to pay for their expertise represented in the book’s price.

The age of agents and publishers is not dead. The service they provide to identify and promote talented authors will always be needed, even with the advent of self-publishing. Further, some readers will always prefer an actual book to an eBook; it’s in their DNA. I think to stay relevant though, publishers and agents will have to learn to accept…[Read more]

Noble work Michael. I too volunteer at an animal rescue organization, Main Line Animal Rescue. Their main focus is the abolishment of puppy mills, which is a huge problem in Lancaster, PA. They do this through educational programs and media campaigns, including huge billboards that can be seen along the PA turnpike. The consortium of volunteers at…[Read more]

I’m going to take the other side of the argument and say I disagree with the statement that abundance is more disruptive to society [as a whole] than scarcity. It’s true for developed nations, like the US, but I’m thinking of third world countries – the bottom of the pyramid. In our class with MB Sarkar we learned of companies who are developing…[Read more]

Agreed Will, I think it was a very smart marketing ploy on the band’s part to pique interest in their music, selling more copies of their earlier records as music fans awaited this new option. I think it’s also worth mentioning that Radiohead songs are now individually downloadable on iTunes. I guess they got over wanting fans to buy their records…[Read more]

Digital media is much cheaper to produce and easier to get to the masses, so for a record company, it should yield a financial windfall. However, that isn’t necessarily the case because of piracy issues, meaning people download music from the internet (or share with their friends) for free, leaving the record company and artist with nothing to…[Read more]

Many others have commented on the four major web services offered by Amazon, and Mike Jacobson listed the reasons why a company might be interested in this technology, so rather than repeat those observations, I’d like to focus on the pros and cons for my company. However, I can only think of cons. Much like Paul above, my company could likely…[Read more]

The fact that these two initiatives were deemed “global” from the start impacted their design, development, & implementation for the better. There was no need to backtrack, redesign, or force a multinational installation into a global framework. The knowledge that these systems would be accessed and used globally helped the developers design the…[Read more]

Yes, information technology has enabled the emergence of global brands. Industry trends, customer preferences, and competitor data is now readily accessible so companies can target their next move. Further, speed to market for new products has increased dramatically with technological advancements. Companies are much more in tune to what divisions…[Read more]

Ali, are you saying the cloud is more secure now that the celebrity hacking scandal took place? Possibly true, but it’s reminiscent of our week 1 hospital hacking case – where there’s a will, there’s a way. The cloud seems like such an unknown to me. So much could go wrong that I’m actually surprised it’s being embraced so readily by so many. Call…[Read more]

Like Will, my company also does not embrace BYOD as a feasible option. I’m in financial services, but I work on the trading floor so there are all sorts of compliance reasons why we are not allowed to use our personal computers to access trading systems. Security is also a concern, as our competitors could see the trades we’re making and follow…[Read more]

Hi Chris/Will – my company has an app that we can access via our own smartphones to get to our work email account (Good app). Many people use it but I do not, simply because I don’t want to be checking work email all the time. And, whether a possibility or not, I don’t want work to have access to my device. It’s my personal computer, basically,…[Read more]

Dan, that’s a great example and one that didn’t initially spring to my mind when I was reading this article. I recently interviewed several candidates for a position we had open and it came down to two individuals. They were both very capable and could hit the ground running, however, one likely would have stayed in the role longer than the other.…[Read more]

I work at Vanguard, and because it’s such an established company, could likely populate every box on the business model canvas. Rather than answer this question from the company perspective though, I’ll answer it from the group perspective. The Investment Management Group has many key resources that help provide value to our clients. First and…[Read more]

Hi Josh. See Nicholas’ post below on Temple’s implementation of Epic. I hope Thomas Jefferson doesn’t make the same mistake!

My company intentionally under-invests in IT. We are a low cost provider of mutual fund products, so every penny we can save, we do. We typically are not first adopters of any new technology or upgrade either. The intention of this is to avoid buggy code that would be tested out by anyone who upgrades to the .0 version of the software. However,…[Read more]

I agree with you Rosemarie. If Matulovic didn’t communicate a $150 million budget shortage to the teams vying for resources then that was a failure on his part. Keeping the team abreast of the situation will help them understand the severity of the situation and one of the main reasons behind why their project might go unfunded.

The Supply Flow Project was unfunded simply because it wasn’t deemed important by VWoA. In fact, “optimize supply flow” ranked last on their list of priorities. Clearly VWAG did not communicate the significance of this project to the organization as a whole. In my opinion, Matulovic cannot take funding from other funded projects – that would cause…[Read more]