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Blog: Claudia ImhoffApril 8, 2007Wake Up, Directors - IT is Important Too!Ron Powell (publisher of the B-EYE-Network) sent me an email about a recent survey of 450 Directors of publicly traded companies (with revenues of over $1 billion) conducted by Deloitte Consulting, LLP. Apparently most corporate board members are really good at talking up a good story about how they support aligning IT with the corporate strategies they develop. Unfortunately their actions say otherwise... Continue reading "Wake Up, Directors - IT is Important Too!" » February 6, 2007The Best and Worst Super Bowl AdsAh -- it's early February. The weather is awful, the winter doldrums are in full swing, but there is one bright spot -- the Super Bowl ads. If you are like me, you don't tune in for the game. You are there to see the $2.6 million 30 second ads... Continue reading "The Best and Worst Super Bowl Ads" » January 8, 2007RFIDs and Your PassportIt's 2007 -- the year that my passport expires. Passports last for 10 years and a lot has happened since I last renewed mine. The most significant change is the addition of an always-on radio frequency identifier (RFID) to ALL passports issued after January 1, 2007. Don't want the government -- or hackers -- to get your personal information from these chips? Read on... Continue reading "RFIDs and Your Passport" » August 23, 2006The ODS is alive and well, thank you very much.Ah – the much maligned and misunderstood Operational Data Store (ODS)… I am at the Data Warehousing Institute conference in San Diego this week and I heard an astounding thing – a declaration that the ODS was dead. Gee, I must have missed the obit… Continue reading "The ODS is alive and well, thank you very much." » July 12, 2006Retro is IN -- Innovation is OUT?Most Americans hate innovation or maybe they are just afraid of it? So goes the story line of a recent Information Week article. The author, John Soat, thinks we should "party like it's 1999". Do you agree? Continue reading "Retro is IN -- Innovation is OUT?" » May 2, 2006Are We Losing Our Edge?I got a newsletter this week stating that the US was losing its innovative edge. The author listed three reasons causing this loss and some rather startling statistics to back them up. Here is his text and my thoughts about them... Continue reading "Are We Losing Our Edge?" » December 20, 2005Was It Something I Blogged?Today, IBM announced it was acquiring Bowstreet - the portal company I mentioned in my November 29th blog. As you recall, I was less than flattering about Bowstreet's assertion that all you needed was a portal to integrate all your data sources together -- data warehouses need not apply... Continue reading "Was It Something I Blogged?" » October 19, 2005The Top 10 Cars for CEOsYes, I said cars – not cares. It must have been a slow month for CEO Magazine because this article was a cover story of October’s magazine (page 53). Is it just me or does this smack of the “excessive exuberance” of the 1990’s when CEOs were judged more by the cars they drove, the nightclubs they visited, or the size of their boats rather than their business prowess? If you really want to know what car you should drive, Mr. or Ms. CEO read on. Continue reading "The Top 10 Cars for CEOs" » October 12, 2005Overstock.com's (Too) Honest CIO?Here's another good one for you. Overstock.com's CIO, Shawn Schwegman, recently sent a note to the company's key business partners apologizing for a number of problems that these partners have had to endure due to Overstock.com's poorly architected IT systems... As if that were not bad enough, the CIO's problems were compounded late in August by the revelation that he sold a sizable chunk (about two-thirds) of his Overstock.com stock right before the company disclosed a shortfall in its sales due to the 5-week long inventory software upgrade glitch... Seems like the CIO's candor upfront was not all it was cracked up to be? Or perhaps he should not have written anything? Was his stock sale just unfortunate timing or some form of insider trading? I will let the regulators sort that last bit out. Read on to see what was in his letter and the lessons he learned. Continue reading "Overstock.com's (Too) Honest CIO?" » September 14, 2005Technological Barriers Wreak Havoc on Katrina Victims TooThe past few weeks have been filled with heart-breaking stories about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Here is one that should not have happened if there had been a bit of foresight by FEMA regarding a hurricane victim's ability to apply for aid online... Continue reading "Technological Barriers Wreak Havoc on Katrina Victims Too" » September 1, 2005Pitney Bowes Buys Up the Rest of FirstlogicAnother company bit the dust today as Pitney Bowes announced it was buying up the rest (90%) of Firstlogic in a deal valued at $50.3 million. One can't help but wonder why Firstlogic would agree to this... Continue reading "Pitney Bowes Buys Up the Rest of Firstlogic" » August 11, 2005IT Job Prospects: The Best of Times or the Worst?I recently read two very opposing articles regarding IT hiring. One was an InformationWeek article on a report from Robert Half Technology that was incredibly optimistic about the hiring plans of CIOs. This article claims these plans were at the highest levels in three years. The other article appearing on the exact same date in the exact same magazine (InformationWeek) claimed that Gartner Inc. research predicts all is doom and gloom and that the demand for IT workers is in fact shrinking. Seems to me that InformationWeek is getting really mixed signals... In any case, you decide which report you believe -- then let me know, OK? Continue reading "IT Job Prospects: The Best of Times or the Worst?" » July 12, 2005Florida Dangling Over New Voting MachinesVisions of the past -- a Florida county is at odds with the state's Attorney General over voting machines. The county's Council claims that the proposed machines could be rigged for political advantage because the machines lack an audit trail... Well, at least there would be no hanging chad! Continue reading "Florida Dangling Over New Voting Machines" » May 10, 2005We need Mis-Chief Officers in Corporate AmericaEvery now and then, I read or hear about decisions made by COOs, CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, etc., that just buffalo me. I scratch my head in wonderment, questioning why no one said anything to these people? It is then that I realize that perhaps these underlings were too afraid for their jobs, their future with the company, or maybe their lives? Or maybe they just didn't care enough to say anything. That's when I realize that what these executives need is a jokester to keep them grounded -- a Mis-Chief Officer, if you will, similar to the court jester of old... Continue reading "We need Mis-Chief Officers in Corporate America" » April 26, 2005Do you need an enterprise data model?One of the questions that I get quite often is "Do I need to create an enterprise data model?" In the case of a recent phone call, the caller stated that his company never built applications; they only bought off the shelf software so why would he need such a data model. Here are my reasons for creating the model despite the buy versus build philosophy. Continue reading "Do you need an enterprise data model?" » April 20, 2005The problem with averages...I can't tell you how many times BI designers have told me that their users want to see reports filled with averages -- average sales by store, average customer purchase, average inventory levels, and so on. Do people really understand how misleading and erroneous these figures can be? Here's my tip for you. Continue reading "The problem with averages..." » April 18, 2005Travel warnings without trustIn a recent Conde Nast Traveler Magazine (March 2005), they reported on their readership poll (designed with Carnegie Mellon’s Risk Perception and Communication and Harvard’s Center for Risk Analysis) that was aimed at the most fundamental travel question – to go or not to go. Their analytic results were surprising in some respects. Continue reading "Travel warnings without trust" » April 11, 2005Data Quality or Data Integration - which is more difficult?I read an interesting article in the Business Intelligence Pipeline Newsletter recently asking which was the more difficult challenge - assuring data quality or integrating data from across your organization. They have a voting booth set up so you can cast your vote for which you believe is the more difficult task. I have my own opinion as well. Continue reading "Data Quality or Data Integration - which is more difficult?" » April 1, 2005Gone Phishing... NOT!Three power houses, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Consumers League and Microsoft, have gone after alleged online identity theives -- those despicable people known as phishers. However, it appears that Microsoft is going one step further by filing 117 separate lawsuits against these creeps. I greatly approve of Microsoft's actions here. |
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