| CIO Today: Microsoft is trying to morph its next generation of Office, due for release in 2006, from a personal productivity tool into a group collaboration suite enabled by its SharePoint technology. Because it's being built atop many elements of Windows Server, it will incorporate a number of technologies from Microsoft's Office and Information Worker platforms, including SharePoint Server, Form Services and Excel Services. The article reviews several of the new features, including new content management capabilities and a switch to XML as the designated file format for Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications. Gartner advises caution in proceeding with migration plans, as it is not yet clear which features will work with earlier versions of Office — and which may not. There are also migration costs to consider. | Sponsor: HDI | | The ROI of HDI: Budget for Growth
HDI membership means access to a host of events, opportunities and ideas, all designed to maximize your ROI, while growing individual and team skills. > Click here for more information. | Forbes: The author offers a fascinating take on the way companies and their customers communicate, largely through voting with their feet on the customers' part and through advertising by companies. Both sides miss a lot in these limited interactions, he says. That's changing, however, as the Internet and other interactive technologies allow customers to make a lot more noise — both positive and negative. Companies must modify their communications strategies so they can really hear what their customers are saying and respond appropriately, he says. Some companies are already taking steps in this direction, using customer forums for insights or — more radically — opening up their design processes to customer input. ebizQ: Because technology has improved so much, it's rarely a make-or-break factor in strategic initiatives. Rather, now it's all about business and operational controls. This has been a problem for companies because of the limited options for monitoring and managing these controls. Many companies have chosen to use the balanced scorecard approach, only to find themselves struggling with metrics overload and a narrow operational view. This author suggests supplementing the balanced scorecard with risk management tools, which he says also make it easier to achieve business/IT alignment. Because they offer improved visibility into many different aspects of a company, they make it easier to produce relevant business processes. | | Special Offer: Free White Paper How IT Asset Management Synchronizes Business and IT
This paper discusses the ability of IT organizations to leverage their investment in IT Service Management (ITSM) to enable enterprise IT Asset Management (ITAM). ITAM, aligned with ITSM, provides the necessary foundation to deliver benefits of simplification and standardization. In turn, these benefits strongly contribute to the primary goal of an Adaptive Enterprise—that is, to be an organization where business and IT are synchronized to capitalize on change. Read the free white paper now! | | | | Baseline: These short profiles of five members of the Baseline 500 list of top information managers are loaded with lots of insights from folks who know their stuff — and who are facing many of the same challenges as their peers. Chesapeake Energy, number one in Baseline's ranking, built prototype process controls for items like transactions, documentation changes and financial statement closings on Microsoft Access personal databases, then translated them into more industrial-strength SQL Server databases to control processes companywide and satisfy Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Mitchell Gregory, CIO of number 65 Sonic Corp., gives members of his IT staff ample opportunity to work on non-tech projects in order to better learn the business. The other profilees are Owens Corning, Amazon and Wilmington Trust. BMC Software: This short case study on KAZ, an Australian provider of IT services and business process outsourcing, has a promotional slant — appearing as it does on vendor BMC Software's site — but it's far from a hard sell and includes some nice tips on achieving IT/business alignment. Of particular interest is a six-step road map to alignment. It has plenty of the same buzz words — communication, metrics, et al — but also some specific tips such as establishing account executives or liaisons to develop client relationships with business managers. Optimize: The maintenance of software applications — specifically who is responsible for paying for it — is typically a sticking point between a company's business and IT factions. In this Q&A, Forrester research analyst Phil Murphy suggests that both sides must first realize that additional funds are required to keep applications running after they are put into production, then allocate a reasonable amount to each application and move on with their lives. He suggests that application portfolio management tools, which help companies track the labor that goes into maintaining apps, are a good way to get a better handle on costs so they can redirect at least some of the money toward more strategic applications. | IT Marketplace | | | | | Tell the IT Business Edge audience of technology decision makers about your product, service, event, or job. Click here to list it in the IT Marketplace! | | 3 QUESTIONS:
Put Me In (Business), Coach
With John Baldoni, a leadership and communications consultant and coach who works with Fortune 500 companies as well as non-profits, including the University of Michigan. He is the author of six books on leadership, including the forthcoming "How Great Leaders Get Great Results" (McGraw-Hill 2006) and "Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders" (McGraw-Hill 2005). Question: Why is coaching important to management?
Baldoni: Management today really is about working with people, bringing out their best so the team and organization can do its best. That parallels coaching. Coaching is an enabling process, providing people with tools and resources, as well as guidance, to succeed. Coaches also challenge and cajole; they push people to achieve their best. The secret to coaching is to find out what motivates people. For example, some of us want more money; others want promotions. All of us want to be recognized. Managers as coaches discover those motivational factors and use them to get their employees' attention and focus on opportunities for development. Question: What skills should coaches possess?
Baldoni: Coaching comes down to three things: observation, listening and guidance. Legendary coach John Madden put it best: "Coaches watch for what they don't want to see, and listen for what they don't want to hear." That means they are observing how people perform as well as how they interact with others. Coaches are good listeners; you have to engage the employee in conversation and have a dialogue with him or her to build trust. And lastly you focus on areas for growth. Focus on areas of development that will enable the person to do his or her job better. Question: What are some coaching tips, especially when it comes to achieving business objectives?
Baldoni: First, plan ahead. Focus on what you will say and why you will say it. Schedule a convenient time for both of you. Allow at least an hour. Open with a positive; tell the individual what he is doing right. Then focus on areas of weakness; these are opportunities for growth. For example, if the individual is not adhering to a budget, timeline or having difficulty with coworkers, ask why. You can state why such behavior is unacceptable. Provide ways to improve. Get the employee to suggest ways to improve as well as provide your own insights. Gain agreement on improvement; if there is no commitment to change, coaching is useless. Set a timeline for when improvement should occur. Schedule another time to meet, perhaps in a month or two months. In between, offer feedback, either face to face or even via e-mail. Be positive and upbeat.
If managers expect their people to help achieve departmental objectives like bringing projects in on time and on budget, they need to tell all of their employees what the objectives are, why they are important to the team and the organization. You need to engage your folks, often through coaching, with what they need to do to fulfill the business objectives. That requires time and patience as well as attention to how we fulfill the business objectives. | | Also from IT Business Edge: Leveraging Open Source Leveraging Open Source gives you a comprehensive view of open source adoption in the enterprise. From Linux's growing role in the mid-tier server market to open source corporate blogging software, the open source movement is making inroads in the enterprise. Click here to sign up! | By the Numbers
6,000 Worldwide users of a software program that allows medical professionals to view, share and store images on their iPods. 30 percent Middle managers looking for a new job in 2005, up from 21 percent in 2004, according to Accenture. $399 Lowest "new user" price for enterprise versions of Microsoft's Office, compared to a single-user price of $70 for Sun's StarOffice. Breaking Headlines
internetnews.com: CIOs may want to keep a close eye on their business intelligence vendors, as industry experts are predicting that BI will become the next application to attract large software incumbents looking to beef up their offerings. Consulting firm Robert Frances Group predicts that only four vendors — SAP, Oracle, SSA and Microsoft — will remain standing in the ERP space by 2007. While users will have fewer choices, they may get some price breaks as competition between the behemoths intensifies, RFG says. The firm also believes that more industry-specific verticals will emerge as the market matures.
Red Herring: Turns out that creating mashups with Google applications isn't just for startups. IBM will integrate Google's free, downloadable Desktop for Enterprise application with its own Omnifind search technology. The link-up will allow IBM customers to search unmanaged data such as personal e-mails or Microsoft Word and Excel documents — which, according to many experts, accounts for 85 percent of all data in an organization. The deal will help advance IBM's strategy to deliver "information as a service" to its customers and show that it takes the problem of information management seriously. For Google, which recently announced a software distribution deal with Sun Microsystems, it's another step into the enterprise space. MarketWatch: A third of middle managers surveyed by Accenture described their company as mismanaged, a sentiment that led 30 percent of them to be looking for a new job, up from 21 percent in 2004's survey. Nearly six in 10 said they would consider switching jobs. Forty-eight percent of survey respondents described themselves as highly satisfied with their employers, down from 67 percent in 2004. Thirty-seven percent counted themselves as somewhat satisfied, up from 25 percent in 2004. The number of dissatisfied managers nearly doubled, from 8 percent in 2004 to 15 percent this year. Among their biggest beefs: inadequate pay and compensation, trouble balancing work and personal life, and lack of a clear career path. Emerging Trends
Baseline: This columnist says companies shouldn't be so youth-centric in their hiring strategies. Apparently, many companies are overlooking experienced fiftysomething job prospects, some of whom were laid off during the dot-com bust and have been able to find only sporadic consulting gigs since then. She cautions that companies seeking only younger, cheaper workers may get exactly what they pay for. Older workers often have a much better grasp of not only technology but the overall business and markets, she says. Entrepreneur: While the U.S. has long been the world's innovation leader, some business and academic leaders worry that the nation's lead is narrowing. Some scary stats: American companies account for just 52 percent of U.S. patents; only 29 percent of papers appearing in leading physics journals in 2004 were authored by Americans; and a recent survey found that 4 million fewer Americans started new businesses between 2003 and 2004. America also lags behind other countries in key areas such as household broadband penetration and undergraduate degrees in engineering. The non-profit Council on Competitiveness, a group of labor leaders, university presidents and CEOs, is encouraging the development of "innovation hot spots;" greater investment in research and education; and more green cards for foreign-born, U.S.-educated scientists and engineers. CNN: OK, we admit it, we were skeptical when it came to folks talking about using the iPod for any kind of a real-world business application. Well, some medical professionals at the University of Geneva proved us wrong. The chief of nuclear medicine and a radiologist created a software program that allows hospital staff to view medical images on iPods — which obviously are far cheaper than the specialized equipment usually required to do so. The software incorporates Apple's iChat instant messaging so that users can share images with colleagues remotely. And Apple's Dot Mac system offers 80 GB for storage of images. The software is based on open source code, which is freely available on the Internet. The hospital estimates there are 6,000 active users of the program worldwide. IT Business Edge: Aligning IT & Business Goals
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Ann All covered a variety of business topics as a newspaper reporter before switching to automated teller machines — which, unbelievably, are just beginning to migrate to a Windows-based platform and more modern networking technologies like TCP/IP — as the editor of online trade publication ATMmarketplace.com. She can be reached at investments
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