Posted by Brian Fending on June 26th, 2008 — Posted in Music, Personal
For my birthday this week, Rachel upgraded my musical life in the form of an 80GB iPod Classic to replace my 4GB iPod Mini (which is now quite officially the “norahPod”). The brianPod2, as I titled it, is - how do I say this… &%$^$@#%^@#%@ AWEsome. For starters, I get a LOT more of my music with me for commuting and traveling, a color screen capable of accommodating my episodes of 24 and BSG as well as the TED Talks videocasts that I became addicted to last year, and… and a lot of room to move my favorite stuff on & off. I just love this thing. I may never work in silence again. And WHOA… do I really have that much Wu-Tang Clan and Patsy Cline? Who knew???
In short, it is perhaps the single greatest non-alcoholic, non-breathing gift I’ve received in a rather long time. And I had darned well better start a Rachel Birthday Fund now.
Posted by Brian Fending on June 24th, 2008 — Posted in Personal
There are few things nicer, I would think, than coming downstairs to a fresh pot of coffee, right next to the surprise gift of a mug you admired at Target that weekend. Oh, my wife gets me.
This is really quite cool: Embed, for example, OpenSocial containers within something like MediaWiki. All part of the kooky fun (still) going on at Sun’s Project SocialSite!
Posted by Brian Fending on June 17th, 2008 — Posted in Technology
This is a fun exercise: Who are you working with right now - either in a full time gig or in your consulting practice - that you could throw together to run a company starting tomorrow? I have a short list of people that I like for this, but don’t know that I have all of the necessary players to run a startup. For example, I think I have all of the technical and sales heads, but not the marketing, financial, and general support people.
Who are you missing? And why is that, given that we work for or with already-functioning companies?
Posted by Brian Fending on June 9th, 2008 — Posted in Process, Technology
I get a little strong-willed when it comes to doing things the right way. (Read: “Pimp slap.”) Whether it’s telling a company they *need* a development server and can’t get away with a super-secret directory on their live Web server or informing someone that finding a company willing to do your bidding does not constitute “market research,” I’m willing to put it out there that certain levels of effort are unacceptable. After all, the whole “it costs money to make money” thing surely crosses over to, “it takes time to save time,” (bear with me) and, time=money being a given, you need to invest time in proportion to the money you wish to save or make. Right? Well, maybe that’s too convoluted now that I think of it, which may be why it takes a little while to convey these points. I’ll work on it.
Anyway, I got an email from somebody today who was looking to investigate his company’s alternatives to a current email marketing ASP (”outsourced application”, to all of you business folk). The first step? Have the current vendor in, before all of the users of the current tools, to pitch their next-generation solution(s). Never mind that there are ongoing issues with the current product, this demonstration would serve as this company’s baseline for future requirements for applications of this type.
Now, I’m no Harvard MBA… but shouldn’t you sort of figure out what you *want* to do, then try to find a product or suite to accomplish that business goal? I understand to a point just needing to know what *is* possible with any product. That’s market research, reading product slicks, having calls, etc, etc. I also understand that a lot of business users are of the consumer-oriented “deliver me a product to start using tomorrow!” mentality, but this was a seasoned IT person. No kidding. Let the current vendor - with the awful API and really bad implementations - set the stage for Round Two.
I emailed him back, upon learning of this approach and said something to the effect of, “learn what kind of features you want in a car before you drive your car to the dealership for a trade-in… you may just want a different kind of car.” Man, my analogies are weak these days. Anyway, Horse precedes Cart. Requirements precede Vendor flying in for the day. It’s possible to do this with a cross-functional team without a waterfall approach, but even that doesn’t change that defining the business need always precedes a gap analysis. I don’t care where you went to school.
ED. COMMENT (16 Jun 2008): I got some offline backlash for this post from somebody familiar with the situation. I guess my blog is more widely read than I thought. They cited routine vendor management, good practice, no current project, blahblahblah, but it was still - I maintain - awfully bad form to ensconce vendor management in defining the baseline for future requirements (in no uncertain terms!) based on what one vendor has to offer. That’s how companies head down tunnels, and this is no exception. Talk to a vendor all you want, but to prep your business audience with language that invites them not to do any market research - but to rely instead on what this sole, trusted vendor has to say - and you’re doomed to repeat some mistakes.
For my birthday this week, Rachel upgraded my musical life in the form of an 80GB iPod Classic to replace my 4GB iPod Mini (which is now quite officially the “norahPod”). The brianPod2, as I titled it, is - how do I say this… &%$^$@#%^@#%@ AWEsome. For starters, I get a LOT more of my music with me for commuting and traveling, a color screen capable of accommodating my episodes of 24 and BSG as well as the TED Talks videocasts that I became addicted to last year, and… and a lot of room to move my favorite stuff on & off. I just love this thing. I may never work in silence again. And WHOA… do I really have that much Wu-Tang Clan and Patsy Cline? Who knew???
