Category: The IT Director

An acquaintance of mine, who wants to stay anonymous for obvious reasons, provided me the data for the above chart. The data came from their last job hunting experience. While a successful job search — after all, they got offers — there is something very disturbing that I would like to point out.

We are flooded with data and we don’t understand most of it. While the below HBR tip of the day has specifics about communicating outside the company, I think that the basic concept — helping people understand the data — is a fundamental part of being a Business Analyst. The standard mantra you hear is…

As a developer, I was so tempted to put messages like this in the parts of the code that should never execute. I did a couple of times, although never this clever. I’m not up on the latest programming languages, but I imagine that it is still possible to have these places of despair. These…

Mobile phones are going to be here for a while. At the risk of writing a post that will be useless in a few years, here are some thoughts on helping you stay in control. Make the phone act like a tool that is invisible unless you need to use it. Immediately after installing a…

In telecommunications, the concept of Signal To Noise Ratio has been around for a long time. The basic concept is the signal (what you are trying to communicate) and the noise (all the crap that isn’t the signal) are related. The higher the ratio of signal to noise, the better. High ratio: more signal, less…

If your job doesn’t fundamentally depend on your email*, then ask yourself if you control your email or if email controls you. Our Email Is A Monster (Oatmeal). Some ideas to consider: No matter how focused you are, when that little window flashes up in the corner of your screen or your phone beeps, you…

A good article from the Nielsen Norman Group, a group that focuses on technology (generally software) user experiences. The site itself is a good resource for those developing technology for larger groups of people such as companies or the general public. Summary: As people consider whether to use the new “creepy” technologies, they do a type…

If you are fortunate enough to work at a company that has an intern program, make sure you take advantage of it. Having interns in an IT department is a great way to find new talent, extend the skills of existing staff, and bring young energy into the department. Requirements for interns are not high.…

An excellent writeup by Scott B. Weingart of what happens when you send a text message. Written in a way that you can easily read it as deep or as superficial as you want.

Article. We surveyed tens of thousands of people across different companies, industries, and sectors and consistently discovered that when their reasons for working are closely aligned with the work itself, their performance spikes. Otherwise, it suffers. While all of us could list hundreds of unique reasons why we do virtually anything, our research shows most…

The best business process is one that the employees want to follow. The best business process is one that is easier than all the alternatives.

An interesting article about Disney and how they made tech invisible.

I’ve used this technique before but haven’t heard it called this. The key is getting people to start throwing out stuff. No one wants to be the first. I believe it is also easier for some to respond to something than it is to come up with a blank sheet idea. Even if their reaction…