There's a good chance that if you've been around new technology, you've heard about the technology adoption life cycle. This model is used to explain how people respond to product and service innovations that require the end user to change their past behavior. Under this model, consumers self-segregate along an axis of risk aversion with the risk-takers (innovators) on one end and the risk-adverse (laggards) on the other. In between these two extremes are the early adopters, early majority, and later majority.

According to InfoWorld, "Too many organizations unwittingly give their competitors a free kick by having Web sites that are low on usability and high on annoyance."

In the "State of the CIO 2006" survey conducted by CIO Magazine, CIO's identified the 10 biggest barriers to job effectiveness. Here's what they said (bolded) and my comments about each one (not bolded).

A recent issue of CIO Magazine addressed the perceptions, often negative, that companies have for their internal IT departments. This is commonly discussed subject and rightly so since many IT projects cost more than was planned and deliver less than what was expected.

Just about every time Microsoft has bested a rival, it has been because they played the platform card. With a platform, Microsoft was able to eliminate even the most dominant applications. For example, Windows, the platform, allowed Microsoft to displace Lotus 1-2-3 with Excel, WordPerfect with Word, and Netscape Navigator with Internet Explorer.

According to a survey done by CIO Magazine in February 2005, these are the top-10 things that IT leaders consider to be the most effective at changing the perception of IT within a company. My comments (in italics) follow some of the bullet points.

In the feedback section of a magazine that I read there was an interesting perspective that at first blush seems like a new idea, but I think is just a matter of semantics. Dan Crawley, an IT Manager, suggests that, "There is no such thing as an IT project excluding basic things like regular maintenance. Any project or initiative should have a specific business purpose, and therefore be acknowledged as a business project and led by someone outside of IT."

I've always thought it was an admirable quality for a company to have a lot of patents. I think it shows a dedication to research and development along with an implicit, corporate-wide belief in providing value to customers and shareholders for the long-term. While there have been recent stories of patent-hoarding by companies that don't actually produce anything, here's a list of top patent-holding companies in the US that should be recognized and praised for their work.

A recent issue of CIO Magazine offers these 10 tips for ERP implementations (see ERP definition).

In a recent report, eMarketer wrote that, "...e-mail marketing's slow demise continue to be premature, as a new eMarketer report shows that nearly three-fourths of US online advertisers used e-mail marketing in 2004." They go on to state this other very impressive statistic, "Projections from eMarketer show that e-mail volume in the US will rise from over 2 trillion message this year -- personal, commercial and spam -- to nearly 2.7 trillion by 2007."

A day or two ago I posted some comments on improving project management. Looking for ways to improve the project management process is an admirable thing to do. But sometimes, it really just makes sense to cancel a project and move on.

I've written about outsourcing to foreign countries before, but I've never really thought about what might be going on in those foreign countries. All the whining and complaining has been done by others and I'm more interested in looking at what is actually going on in these countries that receive the bulk of outsourcing dollars. And so it was with great interest that I read an article from the April 1st edition of CIO that described the challenges that India, arguably the country that most people think of when it comes to outsourcing, is facing.

I entered a writing contest over at Marketing Pilgrim. In my article I look at search engine optimization tactics vs. strategy. One factor in the contest is how many page views an article attracts so please click through the link and have a look. Thanks!

The Internet has proven to be a particularly good platform for deploying new technology. Of course, these new technologies are largely made up of existing components that have simply been bundled in a new way with a thin wrapper of added value. The unfortunate thing is that so many new ideas are coming to market all accompanied by a lot of hype that it is difficult to tell the worthwhile from the waste of time.

In a previous post I described the popular technology adoption life cycle in its original form. I say original because Geoffrey A. Moore, in his book Inside the Tornado, argues that the model is flawed in that it fails to describe a particular phase that he dubs the chasm.

There are many Web 2.0 sites vying for the attention of users. Two related web sites that I use frequently are Digg and StumbleUpon. Both do a good job of introducing new sites to me that I may otherwise have not discovered. However, I'm finding that I'm slowly leaning toward StumbleUpon as a more effective tool.

It seems that at least once a month, the answer to a question posed by a co-worker or manager is "we need a blog" or "we need a wiki". The problem as I see it is that these answers are sometimes being given because both of these technologies are popular, fun, and cool. And who doesn't want their work to be popular, fun, and cool?

The company I currently work for equips all of its employees with laptops. That's a popular trend given that employees are becoming more likely to work outside of their offices. Nothing wrong with that, if you ask me. Lucky for me, my company also leaves the laptops pretty much wide open in terms of administrative access meaning that I can install new software whenever something seems promising.

For a little while now I've been trying to decide how Rational (now part of IBM) could be so successful at pushing their monolithic, process-laden software development methodology, especially in the face of increasing evidence that such methodologies aren't particularly useful. The answer to this came from Jeff Sutherland of SCRUM fame. He recently posted a link to a PDF titled How to Fail with the Rational Unified Process: Seven Steps to Pain and Suffering. Basically, my understanding of the RUP was incorrect and that most implementations of RUP are faulty.

There's an article over at CNet about outsourcers and their attempts at distinguishing themselves from the rest of the pack. Most of the article is of little interest, but there was one part that got me thinking.

So I'm working on a web site and while I generally don't do the graphic design work, I decided that I could help my client by showcasing some of the logos that other companies have used. During my search for good examples I stumbled on an examination of the colors most often used in company logos. [note that the page is gone so I can't link to it any more]

One of my clients has decided that they're going to give .NET development a try. They're not planning to migrate existing applications, which makes sense in my opinion. There's no need to convert something that's already in production. However, a new system being built will be done using the .NET Framework. Surprisingly, the push to use .NET didn't come from the developers. Instead, the decision came from a group involved in keeping their eye on the "big picture". And because it came from non-developers, there was next to no resistance from upper management.

If you're an IT professional you probably haven't thought of offshore outsourcing as a particularly funny topic. It certainly hasn't been something I've laughed about. Well I've got to hand it to CIO Magazine (August 1, 2006 issue) for bringing some humor to the issue. If you're from the US or even Canada and don't like satire, you're probably best advised to move on. For those that do like satire, say if you're fans of The Onion, read on... And note the following are meant to be tips to IT workers in far away lands on how to work with their North American counterparts.

A recent issue of CIO Magazine provided a very good overview of where the latest trends in outsourcing US IT jobs to foreign countries. In some places, the benefit of labor arbitrage is disappearing. And while India remains the leader for outsourcing, other countries are stepping up to the plate.

Gartner recently made a report available titled, To Save Time on Product Selection, Flip a Coin. And in case you're thinking that the title isn't clear, here's the summary of the report, "Instead of extensively testing and evaluating numerous products, IT buyers can draw up a shortlist of suitable tools and then flip a coin. This method must be used with great care, but can save managers time and money."

According to Forrester research, the future of technology related careers will include moving in and out of the IT department. Gone are the days where one would start out as a programmer and move up the ladder from there.

In today's LED-Digest, there's a discussion about the merits of fixed-width designs vs. fluid layouts. For the most part, people on the list seem to prefer fixed-width. Here are two comments from members explaining why.

A few days ago, Business 2.0 with CNN reported on 50 people that matter and 10 that don't. I found the list of 10 more interesting.

A recent Forrester Research survey found that IT decision-makers at both small and medium companies think that their IT shops are best at supporting tactical efforts (e.g. improving efficiency). However, when it comes to innovation and other strategic contributions, the IT teams fall short.

Mashups are playing a big role in what people are calling Web 2.0. The term was new to me when a co-worker mentioned them. At the I put the term on my list of things to check out and moved on. Well, I finally got around to looking in to what the buzz is about.

It's always amused me when some no name offers his opinion that is contrary to an arguably very successful business leader. Of course, that's what I'm going to do now. I'm the no name and the comments by Rupert Murdoch are my target.