Category

Business Strategy

Oct 04
Narcissus (Carravagio, C. 1597-99)

Innovation and the Inherent Bias of Technology

By Innovation, Internet of Things (IoT), IT Strategy, Manufacturing 2 Comments

The Imherent Bias of Technology

“Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral” declared Melvin Kranzberg.

Indeed, not only is technology un-neutral, it has an intrinsic bias. In the process of defining and implementing software to perform certain tasks and solve particular problems, the designers make many assumptions and decisions—most of which are irreversible—about the intended tasks, workflows, work environment, and user profiles. Unintentionally, the marketers and designers of software tools introduce a bias.

Douglas Allchin maintains that in itself this inherent bias does not pose a problem, but it does dictate how the technology is being used, and who can and cannot use it. Consequently, the innate bias influences the ability of the organization to realize the full value of the technology.

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Sep 15
James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause

“Uncool” Is Not a Business Problem

By Business Strategy No Comments

How Cool is it to be a Gartner Cool Vendor?

So your company has been named a “cool vendor” in a recent Gartner report.  Once the celebration is over, you might want to pause to think about what does it really mean to be a cool vendor. What impact, if any, will this have (or should have) on your future?

What Does It Mean to be a Cool Vendor?

Gartner describes a Cool Vendor as typically a smaller, lesser-known technology or service provider that offers innovative and potentially game-changing and disruptive technology, business model, or service offering:
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Jul 15
Section perpendiculaire du moulin des Verdiers (Jean-Jacque Lequeu, 1778)

IoT: Build or Buy?

By Internet of Things (IoT), IT Strategy No Comments

Should You Build Your IoT Solution or Buy it?

Heard recently on the web: Should you build your own Internet of Things (IoT) or buy it?

As you might expect, the question (and the answer), sponsored by an IoT platform vendor, were self-serving.

Earlier today, I received a note about a research that maintains that more than a 100 new IoT “platforms” have entered the marketplace in the past 12 months alone, fueling fast growth that will exceed $1.5 billion by 2021.

Which makes no sense whatsoever.
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Jul 06
Garden of Earthly Delights Hieronymus Bosch

Agile vs. Corporate Culture

By IT Strategy, PLM 3 Comments

Agile Software Development

Those of you who practice Agile software development will surely recognize the viewpoints expressed in the following quotations:

“Particularly alarming is the seemingly unavoidable fallibility of large software, since a malfunction in an advanced hardware-software system can be a matter of life and death.”

“In design you have to start at the level of organization of programs and machines, with the design of hardware and software together.”

“Begin with skeletal coding: Rather than aiming at finished code, the 46 first coding steps should be aimed at exploring interfaces, sizes of critical modules, complexity, and adequacy of the modules … Some critical items should be checked out, preferably on the hardware if it is available.”

You may be surprised to learn that these are not brought to you from a recent Agile conference or even from the Agile Manifesto circa 2001. These comments are from a NATO software engineering conference that was held in Germany in 1968!
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