Newsletter topics: Software, Knowledge Management, Communications, Business (cartoon), Desire, Report Generation, Process Analysis

• Software Warranties - Make Some Hay 
• Are Knowledge Products Born Or Made?
• Communications, Continuity and the Small-to-Medium Enterprise
• A Day's Thoughts (cartoon)
• Become Your Dream  
• Producing Company Reports
• Process Analysis Is Not Process Improvement 

 

An eternal question: do I have to develop or, must I discover, the “next big step”?  Whichever is true will direct the way I invest my energies and resources, no matter what I am undertaking.  Normally, development is the desired answer because that gives everyone involved a sense of control and predictability.  But headlines are grabbed by leaps of intuition, by flashes of genius, and not by methodical improvement.

It is a rarity when a game-changing knowledge product emerges through discovery, almost by sheer accident, and I am comfortable telling all who will listen that if you want a new market-altering knowledge product, you will have to, as in “Field of Dreams”, build it, and they will come.  The beauty is that it can be done; the downfall is that too many people start “too late” in the chain.

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While the hyped-up impact of the misnamed Swine Flu pandemic turned out to be grossly exaggerated, the scenario provided a long-overdue reason for enterprises to ask, “What if it had been the real thing?” One need only look south to Mexico City to see in glaring reality the impact of a locked-down city and the effects on day-to-day communications and commerce. And though 2005 is a "distant past" at this point, if anyone finds Mexico City's situation disturbing, it still pales in comparison to the tragedy of post-Katrina New Orleans.
 
Certainly those along the south Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. have taken business continuity planning more seriously since the days of Katrina, and many large Northeast institutions have done likewise since the horrors of 9/11. But generally speaking, the majority of small-to-medium sized

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That’s just one of the aphorisms written on decals, t-shirts, cards and on street art that James De La Vega has been creating since 1993 to give inspiration and hope to people who just happen to be walking by. James de la Vega is an artist who lives and works in New York City’s Spanish Harlem, but has a busy store on St Mark’s Place in the East Village. You can find him sometimes sitting outside his store, smoking his cigar, greeting all the returning professors, businessmen, artists and young people who come to enjoy his positive and philosophic messages, to the sound of Latino music which he says is also part of his message.

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by John McGrann

 

In any company there are two primary aspects to reporting: the definition and the technology.

The definition refers to reports required by customers, usually residing under the direction of the business managers. For example, Finance teams define what reporting is required to meet statutory and regulatory requirements. They define what information is included, who receives the report and when the report needs to be delivered to the customer.  The IT team is responsible for advising on, developing and supporting the technology used to meet the needs of business reporting. The IT role is to focus on how reports are delivered effectively and efficiently using the most appropriate reporting tools.

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Business owners understand the need to introduce long-term improvement initiatives into their organization.  The pay-off that some companies are experiencing is astounding.  Unfortunately, not every company has found the same success.  Subsequently, they give up somewhere in the middle of the journey with lots of money invested and little to show for the investment.  At the same time, the employees have chalked up the improvement initiative as another “program of the month.”

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Bruce Newman is the editor-in-chief of the PI Newsletter.  Contact him at: newsletter@prodinst.com

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