Top Tech Cliches

March 2nd, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »

Yesterday, I ranted about the tech sector's love of the overused prefix "e".

As some of you pointed out, why not? Companies, like Apple, are laughing all the way to the bank using the "i" prefix on their product lines (iPhone, iPod, iMac and now iPad).

For fun, I'd like to build on a list started by "SSS" in the comments section.

Here's SSS's:

- "e"
- "i"
- "Soft"
- "Mac"
- "PC"

Here's mine:

- "Micro"
- "Byte" (that one hits close to home!)
- "Tech"
- "Wired"
- "Data"
- "Meta"
- "Mobile"
- "Cyber"
- "Digital" or "d" for short
- Anything ending in "-fi"
- or "2.0"
- or "dot com, dot anything really"
- or starting with "smart"
- or "green"
- or "Tele"
- or "wiki"
- or "net"

Also, add to my list:

- using all lower case letters to look cool.
- using this _, instead of proper punctuation to look cool
- using @ to look cool
- using periods between syllables or words to look cool (like the rapper, Will.i.am)
- using kindegarten-esque primary colors for each letter in your logo to not look cool, but rather to look like Google (which would be cool, if you were even a fraction as big as Google).
- using thin, minimalist and undersizedt font styles to look futuristic and cool.
- using what appears to be a random sequence of upper and lower case letters in the name of a product or company logo to look like a password (and therefore cool).
- Using highly unreadable fonts that moosh together like a captcha in the name of a product or company logo (so not cool! please stop!).

Feel free to add to the list. I'm sure there's plenty that I have missed.

Federal Teleworkers

March 1st, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »


The recent snowstorm in the northeast has led the U.S. Government to acknowledge the benefits of employees working remotely. TechRepublic reports that “according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, about a third of the D.C. area employees at their office and the General Services Administration logged on to their agencies’ mainframe computers, most likely from their homes. That’s productivity that wouldn’t have happened without teleworking capabilities.”


Teleworkers can save the federal government a lot of money, and can do the same for a lot of businesses. So what is everyone so afraid of? In 2008, PCWorld published an article entitled “17 Telecommuting Disadvantages” which includes, among others, the following reasons:


  • Technology gets in the way. You can't count on coworkers or clients to have the PC skills or hardware necessary to set up a remote meeting with screen sharing, webcams, etc. A lot of time is wasted sorting out those issues. Nor is this problem limited to others: When your own Internet access gets flaky, you can't get your work done.

  • You miss the "meeting after the meeting." You see it all the time when you're in the office: The meeting is supposedly over, everyone says their farewells, and the folks in the office hang up the speakerphone. Almost immediately, the conversation continues around the conference table in a far less inhibited way than it did when everyone was involved.

  • The lack of immediate, nonverbal feedback.When you attend a meeting in person, you can see when people look uncomfortable at an idea you propose, or when their body language indicates they are offended by a joke you tell. It's hard to fix social or team problems that you can't see.


Obviously, as with everything, telework has both advantages and disadvantages. The question is – which side wins out?

I think there are those people who have personalities that lend themselves very well to telecommuting. Other people are less blessed in this arena. I'm one of the latter. I find it difficult enough to manage people I'm sitting next to, much less people I rarely see. It also depends on the kind work you do.

When work is global, multicultural, multitimezone and multicompany, special project management challenges arise. If you work in such an environment, drop me an email at curt@journyx.com because I'm researching data for a book on this topic right now.

Curt Finch is the founder & CEO of a resource management software company.

Lose The “E”

February 28th, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »

We live in the era of "E". There are e-Payments, e-Statements, e-Shedules, e-Invoices, e-Readers, e-Business, e-Tailers. The list goes on to e-Finity, it seems.

Enough already!

Here's why it's time to lose the "e":

- This whole "do it online" thing is not so new anymore. We've all been online for almost 15 years. Even the Clampetts no longer call it a cement pond anymore.

- "e" sounds stupid anyway, since it stands for electronic and electricity has been around for going on a hundred years. Shouldn't it have been "d" for digital to begin with?

- We don't call the alternatives p-as-in-paper-Statements, p-Invoices, P-Schedules, etc.

- To my knowledge, after the invention of the Gutenberg printing press, no one called books p-books (as opposed to h-books (as in handwritten).

- It's tantamount to calling your car a "horseless carriage".

Tomorrow's blog will be about the overuse of the word "green".

(just kidding!)

p.s. Apple will live to regret the whole "i" thing, by the way. But, that's a rant for another day. Stepping off my soapbox now.

Linux and Dating

February 26th, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »


TechNewsWorld recently published a funny article about the dating habits of linux devotees. The article was inspired by a recent post at The Blog of Helios that drew all kinds of comments from “geeks” and non-geeks alike. One of them said, “There's a reason opposites attract. Less common ground makes for more interesting conversations, and you can get to appreciate other people for who they are, rather than unconsciously dismissing them because they're not GPL-compatible.”

I was not aware, back in my dating days, of any sort of technology like people have now to assist in finding a date. Things were much more random and hit and miss. I know many people now who've gotten married through sites like Eharmony or met people on Craigslist.

From what I can tell it seems to work pretty well for them.

Follow me on Twitter and I might just give you an iPod, but we won't be going on a date. I'm married.

Nintendo DSi As eReader

February 25th, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »

I still believe its only a matter of time before Nintendo wakes up and adapts products like the DS line to the business crowd.

It's a short walk and maybe this is the first step:

Nintendo is entering the eReader fray. This June it will be releasing "100 Classic Books" on a game cartridge. The line-up of authors are more like Jules Verne and Jane Austen, rather than Dan Brown and Nora Roberts.

This is definitely just a big toe in the water. But, it's the big toe of what could be a very big player.

Keep in mind, the Nintendo DSi line already features two screens. In other words, it opens like a book and could easily read like a book with pages on each screen.

The real goal of the eReader business is to grab that text book market. That's where the big money is. Picture that video game generation making a seamless transition from Mario Brothers to the Norton Anthology of American Literature on their Nintendo handheld that they know and love so well.

What else could they use it for as they transition into the professional world?

Technology at the Super Bowl

February 25th, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »

You may not have realized it, but there were a number of cool technologies that kept the Super Bowl running smoothly this year. CBS Sports used high-speed, high-definition cameras for replays. AT&T beefed up their text, photo and call capacity, adding 3 new towers and putting a distributed antenna in the stadium. In addition, Sprint spent $2 million to make sure they would not be shut down by “information overflow.”

There were also GPS tracking devices for vehicles, high-tech security scanners upon entry, and bomb-removal robots in reserve, just in case.

Things have changed since the first Super Bowl in 1967 which only sold 62% of its seats where
the result was Packers: 35 Chiefs: 10.

Curt is the founder & CEO of a timesheet software company in Austin, Texas.

Where CRM Is Going

February 23rd, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »

In two words; the answer is "social networking". But, it comes with the condition that there are firm metrics to prove that it's helping the bottomline.

This, from the research gurus at Gartner according to a new report outlining their predictions for the future of customer relationship management.

Here's what's in the fine print:

- Everyone loves to talk about using social networking tools for better collaboration in the workplace. Businesses, however, will be less inclined to adopt them; unless they are part of a larger strategy to reach customers and come with a solid plan to increase revenue. By year's end, Gartner predicts 80% of companies worldwide will require a business case before they pull the trigger on social applications.

- As of the start of this year, only 50% of Fortune 1000 companies had an online marketing budget. By the end of next year, it will be 90%.

- Facebook is on pace to have 600 million users by the end of this year. It will be they largest social network in all but 25 countries (There are about 200 nations total).

- Those 25 countries do not include China or India (rising world superpowers).

TechStat Targets Federal IT Projects

February 23rd, 2010 Posted in News and Blogs | No Comments »

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has launched TechStat, a process for identifying failing IT projects that cost the government a lot of money. He says, “We're going to review investments and take decisive actions so we can terminate projects that are not yielding dividends for the American people, turn around projects that can be turned around, and halt those where we believe that there's serious issues."

My friends over at Cognitive Technologies have been involved in a number of Federal project turnarounds, so I've learned by osmosis a number of things about these troubled projects.

One of the most important issues is time tracking. If you don't track IT worker time, you cannot really know how over budget a project is. Organizations which do a good job with timesheets tend to outperform those that do not.

Curt's company has software that helps the accidental project manager.

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