I grew up in Endicott, New York. Its claim to fame is being the birthplace of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). In the mid-60’s through the mid-80’s, Washington Avenue (the main retail district) – also known simply as “The Ave” – was a-buzz with retail activities from family-owned retailers such as Burt’s (a department store) and Kline’s (a…
Recession Plagued At a recent stockholder’s meeting, the Vice President of Sales for a global manufacturer reported, “The economy has been tough on our industry. Sales volumes significantly declined and have not nearly returned to pre-recession levels. The company has laid off employees, cut expenses and, unfortunately, has had to cut price to remain competitive. Competitors have cut price…
A while back in a meeting with several colleagues – Master Black Belts, Black Belts and Green Belts – someone asked the question: “How credible are our accreditations of Lean Six Sigma?”This is a very good question. I ran my own business for 13 years and remember the struggle of traditional project Management several years…
Several years ago I had an awakening. I came to the realization that technology, by and large, did not live-up to its promises and that this gap between promises and reality was ever widening. This was (and is) especially true of business information systems – most usually referred to as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
At a recent Gov 2.0 Summit, Ellen Miller, a recipient of prestigious technology accolades and an advocate for Open Government who promotes the use of technology to increase transparency, said that the data in the USASpending.gov dashboard “is almost useless”. Miller stated that some numbers on this dashboard are “over reporting, under reporting, and not reporting”*,…
