Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares tips for high performance projects and observations that we hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
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Contents
CONTENTS
Foresight is published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Project
Life
Heard in the Hallways
Travels with Patrick
Project
Read any of the major IT vendors’ sales literature and you’ll see words like partner, collaborate and trust mentioned over and over. The resurgence of “solution selling” has vendors of both hard goods like software and technology, and “soft” products like services talking in flowery terms about relationships and partnerships first, and the actual product or service they want you to write a check for second. While there are many merits to buying solutions, and having a vendor who is legitimately a trusted partner is a thing of beauty, too often the bottom line costs and associated returns are lost in all the warm fuzziness.
The IT industry has always had a difficult time directly justifying the cost of goods and services, and attempts to assuage the conscientious CIO with accountant words like ROI and TCO, often without providing hard numbers or commitments behind those claims. The savvy CIO does not buy into the features or partnership talk, rather he or she makes an expenditure tied to a quantifiable monetary return.
This figure should be the primary criteria in deciding to continue doing business with a vendor. Too often, we focus on intangibles without a specific monetary value assigned to them: “value” of the relationship or “satisfaction” with the product, when we could be determining hard numbers tied to switching costs and sunk costs. Just as a veteran investor pulls their money out of a particular investment when it is not meeting their return goals, and a fool pumps more money into the investment hoping for the “big break,” a CIO needs to focus on meeting their ROI goals for a particular tech investment with the same steely eyed determination, jumping ship when returns objectives are not being met. If a vendor’s product or service is not delivering value, pull your money out of that investment and reallocate towards a new project, or horde the cash until a viable opportunity appears.
Along these lines, I recently commented about “breaking the consultant habit” in InfoWorld magazine, which can be viewed here:
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/08/28/35FEservices_1.html
Life
Personal networking is a funny thing. When you least need an opportunity the floodgates seem to overflow, yet when you are in need it seems you are a “lone gunman” with nary a friend in sight. Cultivating a network has many clear business purposes, but also lets you build a collection of people around you that are peers, more advanced in their career, and where you were several years ago. This group provides inspiration, motivation and satisfaction that comes with helping others. Try to take a few minutes each month and “work” a group of letters of the alphabet from your contact list, and drop a quick email or call to check in. It is amazing what you can learn, and the relationships you can rekindle and forge anew.
Heard in the Hallways
I love learning new words, but also suffer from being a terminal technocrat without the discipline to keep something as quaint as a dictionary and notepad next to me to record and later lookup new words that I discover when reading. I was recently referred to a small toolbar application from www.answers.com that lets you Alt-Click a word and get its definition and pronunciation, as well as synonyms and other notes while in any application. It is especially useful when reading newspapers or other publications online. I do not have any financial interest in the company, I am just a satisfied “customer” of this free tool.
Travels with Patrick
My wife and I recently completed a 2400 mile (3888km) motorcycle trip from our home in NY to the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Mid-way through the trip, we encountered awful rains and cold winds. Reasonably dry and warm in our waterproof riding gear, I noticed how different the environment was from our prior sunny days. The rain and flat light made colors more saturated, even while their intensity was muted by the overcast sky. Constant glancing at the otherwise monotonous forest bordering the road rewarded me with a great view of a Bald Eagle, and the rain and winds churned the sea into an angry cauldron, adding an element of excitement and fury to normally pastoral coastal views.
When we pulled into a small inn for the evening, the lady at the desk noted our dripping riding gear and said something like “You must have had a really miserable ride.” I relayed my experiences about the different “look” of the wet world, and excitedly shared my story of the eagle while she rolled her eyes and with a look of disdain handed me the key, perhaps chalking up the excited ramblings of a smiling but otherwise soaked motorcyclist to too much time on the road inhaling motorcycle exhaust.