Apr 20, 2012 | blog, featured
Ideas Notebook By Matthew Allard
Sometimes you find that you’ve got too many ideas. Ever have that problem? I do this week, and I swear I’m going to do something about it. I’ve got blog post ideas going back several years covering things from social media to technology to life topics and so on. It’s time I liberate these post ideas. I’m giving them to you to take and run with, just in case you’ve run out of ideas and need some inspiration. What better way to end the week, right? Alrightly, here we go:
- Social Networking & The Impact On Your Personal Brand
- Moleskine Notebooks – Going Analog For The Fun of Writing
- How To Balance Social Network Participation In The Workplace
- 101 Uses for Twitter
- Why I Believe The “Smartphone” Isn’t So Smart
- Your Blog IS Your Social Network
- Online Communities – You Get Out Of Them Only What You Put Into Them
- The New Social Economy
- Social Media Is About Sociology Not Technology
- Never Stop Experimenting To Grow Yourself Or Your Brand
- If Words Mean Things
- Old Media Using Social Media
- Building A Better Branded Blog
- Decline Of Technology In America?
- Social Media And The IT Professional
- Anonymity – Pros & Cons
- Can You Connect Up To 6 people?
- Linux: Ubuntu Or Fedora Or ?
- The Most Powerful Social Media Tool: YOU
- Decisions: iOS Or Android
- Personal Branding And The IT Professional
- 10 Reasons For A Windows Hack To Love The iPhone
- Disengage From The Collective That Is Your Corporate Mindset
- “Who Am I?”
- How Can I Help People?
- Linux Software Installers – Why Do They Suck?
- Essential Software For The Blogger
- The New Intellectual
- Is the Theme/Style Of Your Blog Important To Readers?
- Social Realities Of A New Generation
- What Do I Do?
- What Can I Accomplish?
- Powerful Writing…
- Do I Realize How Lucky I Am?
- Social Media In The Enterprise
- Negativity In The Workplace
- Don’t Talk, Just Do
- Social Media Is An Evolutionary Step
- Tear Down This Wall (Cubicles That Is)
- What Is A “Social Entrepreneur”?
- Enterprise/Corporate Culture Clashes
- Good Enough
- Social Media Shoehorn
- Blogging Is A Commitment, Social Networks Are A Fling
- Making It Happen
- Why My Blogging “Rock Stars” Are From the Z-List
- SharePoint Can Be An Internal Enterprise Social Media Tool
- Labeling Things And Why It’s Ok
- Why Paper Publications Will Never Go Away
- A Culture Without Culture
- To Meme Or Not
- Step Away From The Ledge – It’s Going To Be Ok
- Help People
- Want To Be A High-Buck Consultant?
- Positive Growth Through Negative Feedback
- Virtualization: For Technology Only?
- Build Your Own Brand Armies
- Networking For Fun And Profit
- Fostering New Communication In The Enterprise
- What Social Media Has Taught A Techie Geek
- Afraid To Succeed?
- Stodgy Or Stale Brand? 10 Sure-Fire Ways To Freshen It Up
- Social Media Does Not Equal Marketing Or PR
- Fearing Free (Free Rage Fears?)
- The Problem With Technically Excellent Solutions
- Be Your Own Editor
- Thinkers – The Ones To Watch
- Getting Back To Where We Came From
- Go Where Your Forefathers Couldn’t
- Unsung Heros: Headhunters
- The Line In The Sand & When You Step Over It
- Landing Pages – Why Bother?
- Put It On paper
- Gen Y & Why They’re different
- Engage HR For Change
- Friend Counts Do Mean Something
- Anatomy Of Twitter
- Lack Of New Examples
- The More You Share
- The Android Dilemma
- Is Your Day Job Your Only Gig?
- When Self Promotion Goes Too Far
- The Joys Of Building Community
- Is Social Media Respected In Corporate Environments?
- Lets Not Screw Around
- Why The Old Tools Don’t Work
- Why The Old Tools STILL Work
- Corporate Obsolesce
- The changing Face Of Social Media
- What’s The Big Deal About 4G?
- What’s Next For Social Media
- The Dark Side Of Social Media, And Why It Sucks
- You Will Live Online
- Why Tablet-Haters Loose In The End
- 10 Billion Apps
- Do What Comes Naturally
- The Decline Of Social Media
- Social Media Posers
- Ongoing Standards Wars
- Shortsightedness Of Newspaper Publishers
Well, there’s a handful of the post ideas I’ve got in my notes. That was just from one page of a OneNote notebook of post ideas! Sometimes, you just run out of time or simply never get back to the ideas you had when you thought of the topic. Whatever the case, I figure somebody might make use of one or two, or ten of these. Better to set them free than keep ’em in a dusty digital notebook right?
Blog Header Photo credit:
JOH_1994 by
star5112. Thanks for a neat picture of post-it notes that captured my thought!
Apr 20, 2012 | happiness
Highly portable computing devices since I’m not only a geek, but a nerd as well.
Mar 30, 2012 | blog, featured
'Toshiba Libretto 50CT' by Jon Callow
Some call it the latest ‘fad’, others point to a long history of people bringing their own technology solutions to the workplace, it’s currently referred to as BYOD.
It’s all the rage right? After all, the ability to set your own course, control your own computing destiny, and pick the phone of your choice is our right as modern humans. Besides, IT departments are too overbearing and controlling – they don’t understand our need to get our work done in a timely fashion.
At least, that’s what it may seem like to those hip ‘movers & shakers’ types, and may be those Millennials too. Ok, maybe I’m stereotyping with the Millennials… but experience tells me otherwise.
Costs Of Technology
Therein lies the point of the BYOD movement, too many people think it’s a great cost-saving idea. The problem with that is the costs are simply shifted from client-side hardware procurement, to the data center. Actually, it’s likely to increase IT costs rather than cut them.
Like most great ideas, BYOD cuts both ways. It’s a triumph of corporate workers to have choice! Bringing flexibility to the main tool most productivity workers use every day.
Why can’t we pick a Mac over a PC? Why wouldn’t IT let me provide my own – I’m willing to pay for the privilege! Many more would start talking about the flexibility of different solutions, like tablets and even their phones. After all, are not all these devices computers of one type or another? I know a great number of people who argue the PC hasn’t been more personal than the devices we carry in our pockets every day!
Back to the costs question though. It’s not a simple answer once you start thinking about it. Yes, the company isn’t buying a computer, the support contract for it, the license for the operating system, the software licenses for your apps… um, if they don’t who does?
You see, there is the beginning of the complexity of simply bringing your computer to work and trying to use it in place of a company provided one. It’s not to say it can’t or shouldn’t be done, but there’s more to it than we might think. Sure, the hardware, support and client OS licensing might be eliminated. However companies need to protect their data, which means server storage for everything, which means increased storage costs, which bring increased electrical costs for the data center, and environmental systems which add more cost.
What About Software
What about software? That too needs to be maintained in a reliable, secure, and usable form. Sure, we can move lots of apps to the cloud, but lets face it – hard core spreadsheet users over in Accounting or those documentation wizards writing all sorts of material need real tools, not a web-based version of Notepad! So IT needs to host those applications and stream them to your personal device. This adds flexibility for us as individuals, but it also means the savings on the laptop you would have gotten now goes towards server capacity to host that application. Oh, and we need to think of floor space, and the power/environmental systems again… and more costs.
As an IT Architect, I have this kind of conversation with my peers quite often, and we continue to uncover more pros and cons. Somehow they mostly seem to balance each other out. But the real impact of BYOD, in my opinion, is the third dramatic shift in computing in my IT career. This one bringing a renaissance of choice to IT’s End Users, and expanding the idea of what the IT industry is capable of providing.
Behind The Firewall is an ongoing series where I talk about topics of interest inside corporate cultures. The experiences, ideas, movements, challenges, successes and more that we all experience in corporate environments. From an techy-geek’s point of view – behind the corporate firewall.
Mar 27, 2012 | photo blog
No, that’s not a netbook. On the left: voice and video recorders, the Asus Transformer Prime tablet running Android 4.0, on the right, a pen/sylus/laser-pointer, and of course not pictured is my phone, an HTC Sensation 4G with a custom Android ICS ROM that I also use as my mobile hotspot. Total of less than 4lbs.
What makes up your mobile kit?
Feb 16, 2012 | blog, featured
Courtesy of Dell Inc.
This has bothered me for quite a while, and I thought it about time to mention it. Hang on though, this may be a bit of a rant, but it bears bringing up.
Why do corporate IT departments continue to call their customers “end users”?
Of course, it’s part of the language of IT, part of the culture as well. You know the jokes, “if only we could get rid of the users, our support costs would go down”. Good for a laugh on a stressful day, but what’s really being said there?
Are we that far off the path of providing quality, usable, enjoyable technology solutions for our businesses that all we focus on is the difficulty in doing so?
I think we’re missing an opportunity to re-connect with our co-workers, our customers within the business. They should not be minimized in the we that they are by IT. They’re our co-workers and cube neighbors. They deserve our respect. They’re out selling, or balancing the company budget, or dreaming up a new product to sell. They’re not trying to be challenging, they’re simply using the tools we provide to get their job done.
New Perspectives
The issue I see is that most IT staff are too busy trying to solve problems rather than provide solutions. What it really boils down to is a change in attitude, and revising perspectives. We’re missing the point if all we’re trying to do is reduce call volume.
Just like the larger goal of the businesses we work for – our focus in IT needs to be on satisfying our customers. In order for the business to grow and prosper, it needs to focus on the customer. So too does IT.
New Priorities
No longer is IT about providing a standard computing platform. Or stressing everyone out about security. Of course these are important things, but they are but one aspect of the technology landscape within an organization.
The consumerization of IT is greater than supporting the iPhone or Android devices. It’s an opportunity for IT to join the revolution in our industry. Corporate standards are great, but as more people make the move to provide their own computing platform, we need to rise to the challenge of providing great user experiences and outstanding support.
Raise the Bar
What we need to do as IT professionals, is to look outside our environment for inspiration. Look at how other companies are solving the challenges facing them. Accept the fact that people expect more of IT than we provided just a year ago… heck, more than we’re providing today.
While I’m not an Apple fan, I do admire the user experience all their customers enjoy. Sure, the phrase “it just works” is over-used, the reality is that it’s true. This is the new standard that our business customers expect. This is the new standard we need to meet. This is the new opportunity we have as an industry.
I hope it’s not too late.
You must be logged in to post a comment.