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A Monthly Journal for Venture Partners and Enterprise Software Executives |
Industry Articles
The Sterling Report partners with industry leaders and experts to publish original and interesting material.
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Leadership – Are You Giving Back
By Rick Johnson, Founder, CEO Strategist, LLC
Published: January 2010
We often talk about coaching and mentoring being key
ingredients to effective leadership. Two thoughts come
to my mind every time I hear the words – coach & mentor.
My first thought is that it is very rare for any
organization to provide actual training on how to coach
or mentor employees. It is often left up to the
individual as a leader to figure that out. My second
thought is the realization that most of our actions
toward our employees come naturally as a result of the
kind of leadership model we have personally created. |
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Measure More Than Revenue
By Jerry Sparger, Founder and CEO, Global Business Solutions, LLC
Published: September 2009
When evaluating sales performance, companies typically measure revenue booked against plan. While revenue results will tell you how well you have done in the last period, they cannot predict how well you will do in the future. Revenue is a trailing indicator, meaning by the time you measure it for a period, it is too late to change it. Even if you are accomplishing all of your sales goals, revenue numbers will not tell you how prepared your organization is to adapt to market or economic changes. |
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The Power of Process
By
Steve McConnell, Chief Software Engineer, Construx
Software Builders
Published: May 2009
How do you convince people to pay attention to their
software development processes? The word ‘process’ is
viewed as a four-letter word by some people in the
software development community. These people see
‘Software Processes’ as rigid, restrictive and
inefficient. They hold that the best way to run a
project is to hire the best people you can, give them
all the resources they ask for, and turn them loose to
do what they do best. |
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On-Demand Services Market Predictions for 2009
By Roger Burkhardt, President & CEO, Ingres
Published: May 2009
Wondering what the on-demand services market will bring
in 2009? Sure, we’re more than 5 months in to the new
year, but I still have a few predictions. These
predictions are based on THINKstrategies’ latest survey
research and ongoing consulting work with IT/business
decision-makers, IT solution providers and various
technology investors. |
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Measure and Manage Your Customer Profitability
By Gary Cokins, Global Product Marketing Manager, SAS Institute Inc.
Published: April 2009
Business is no longer just about increasing sales. It’s
about increasing the profitability from sales. It is not
enough only to measure gross margin profitability for
sales of products and standard service lines. Most
products or service lines require fairly standard and
predictable work activities that do not vary from
month-to-month and are therefore not dependent on
customer behavior other than volume. Companies should
instead start to identify the differences in the
cost-to-serve between different types of customers
(called the fully loaded costs of serving a customer). |
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Success through Visualization
By Emmet B. Keeffe III, CEO & Co-Founder, iRise
Published: April 2009
Today’s challenging economic climate is keeping everyone
on their toes. Companies must keep a close eye on their
bottom line in order to keep operations running more
efficiently than ever before. At the same time,
customers are demanding more than ever from corporate
applications. |
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Seven Predictions for Open Source in 2009
By Roger Burkhardt, President & CEO, Ingres
Published: March 2009
2008 was an eventful, breakthrough year for many open source companies and 2009 will be even more so, especially in terms of business purchasing patterns, software business model shifts and enterprise software stack evolution. The current economic conditions will certainly prompt businesses to look more closely at alternative IT solutions – and open source technology will be one of the big winners next year. |
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Truly Protecting Data in an Open and Collaborative World
By Michael A. Concordia, President, BitArmor
Published: March 2009
Data breaches are becoming daily news, where organizations put personal information about millions of consumers at risk by not taking adequate responsibility to ensure their protection. Their consequences – which include violations of personal privacy, bank account and credit theft, appropriation of competitive intelligence and compromised national security – have never been fully accounted for, but they are massive and, in a growing number of cases, disastrously expensive to remedy. |
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Sales Success Secrets for 2009
By Dennis Sommer, Founder & CEO, Executive Business Advisers
Published: January 2009
The jury is still out about our current economy. Some
say we will be experiencing a mild recession and others
say we are on the brink of a depression. It doesn’t
matter where you fall in the debate, one thing is
certain, business growth is not as easy as it once was.
If you have been reading the news headlines, many sales
executives are focused on cutting costs and laying off
employees. This does help short-term profitability,
however these actions are precisely the wrong strategy
to take if you want to grow your company in a bad
economy.
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Benefits and Risks of the SaaS Model – A Case Study
By Sam Santhosh, Chief Executive Officer, Calsoft
Published: December 2008
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a concept whose time has
come – after the early hype and disillusionment the
model has matured and is here to stay. Contrary to
initial perception that it was something for large
software companies to leverage; small companies and even
startups have started moving from traditional
application software to the SaaS model. In this article,
I will illustrate a real life example of a small
software company that has become very successful by
moving to the SaaS model and highlight the new business
risks that arise.
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The New Software Service Value Chain – Agile, SaaS and Community
By Ryan Martens, Founder & CTO, Rally Software
Published: November 2008
The Software Service Value Chain focuses on the changes
required of software engineering, operations and support
organizations to support the cultural shift associated
with the move to a true service model. In traditional
software as product models clear feedback on customer
uptake, usage and sales blockers often takes 6 – 8
months after release to reach product management and
engineering. In the era of software services, delivery
teams get immediate feedback from customers and have the
ability to take decisions rapidly.
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The Growing Risk of Web Application – Vulnerabilities in SaaS Offerings
By Lars Ewe, Chief Technology Officer, Cenzic Inc.
Published: September 2008
Industry adaptation of Software as a Service (SaaS) has gained significant
momentum during the past several years. As a result, more and more critical user
data is being managed by SaaS offerings, as opposed to the traditional in-house
hosting model. In return, this means that SaaS providers are becoming the
gatekeeper for sensitive information, whether it is in the form of personal data
(credit card or SSN information), or corporate data (customer or business
information). Security breaches can therefore be potentially devastating for
both users and SaaS providers. |
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Customer Loyalty Is the Goal
By Dr. Laura Brooks, VP Research and Business Consulting, Satmetrix
Published: August 2008
The ability for companies to move beyond measuring satisfaction to understanding
who will recommend them is improving their success. Net Promoter is more than
just the question or the score. It is a discipline that focuses on creating a
customer-centric view. By implementing a Net Promoter discipline throughout the
corporate culture, companies are finding they can increase positive word of
mouth and drive profitable growth. |
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Latest SaaS Trend: Better Quality Than Commercially Licensed Software
By Steve Woods, CTO, Eloqua Corporation
Published: June 2008
Businesses that use software as a service (SaaS), where a software vendor hosts
and operates an application for use by its customers, typically have pointed to
the cost benefits of its use. Since they do not have to purchase expensive
commercially licensed software and absorb the associated costs of deployment,
maintenance, training and upgrades, businesses have felt that this is the
primary benefit that makes this the better option for them. |
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Finding the Balance Between User Creativity and System Controls
By Tim Tisdale, CTO & Co-Founder, ThoughtBridge
Published: June 2008
It's the age-old question. How much freedom do you give users when it comes to
IT systems? In the past, this question was not an issue discussed during IT
meetings. Most systems were mainframe-based and transaction-oriented. Changes
made were planned well ahead of time with many controls and checks in place. I
can remember when PCs were a novelty and networks were based on protocols other
than TCP/IP. The Internet has changed the approach on how we think about systems
forever. Every day, I see business leaders’ priorities shifting from thinking
about IT as an unfortunate cost they have to incur, to instead, a strategy for
winning the race against competition. |
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Top 10 Laws for Being ‘SaaS-y’
By Byron Deeter, Partner, Bessemer Venture
Partners
Published: May 2008
In the emerging sector of Software as a Service, one of the biggest challenges
for many of the top CEOs is the lack of successful role-model businesses. There
are still only a handful of public pure-play SaaS businesses, and thus the body
of 'best practices' is very limited. Ironically, on top of this, one
of the hardest things veteran software CEOs have to do when they start to run a
SaaS company is to forget much of what they know about running a software
company. |
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SharePoint to Serve-up ‘Gourmet’ Business Solutions
By Eric Baughman, Director Training and Education, CorasWorks Corporation
Published: May 2008
Enterprise performance management is now being adopted due to CEO failures
to successfully implement their strategy plus needs to focus on more
differentiated customer-service levels. Enterprise performance management
integrates methodologies such as balanced scorecards, strategy maps, budgets,
Activity-Based Costing (ABC), forecasts, CRM and resource capacity planning. It
is not a process or a system, but rather an umbrella concept intended to align
manager and employee behavior and limited resources to focus on the
organization’s strategic priorities and objectives. |
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Performance Management: Strategy Implementation Failure's Cure
By Gary Cokins, Global Product Marketing Manager, SAS Institute Inc.
Published: April 2008
Enterprise performance management is now being adopted due to CEO failures
to successfully implement their strategy plus needs to focus on more
differentiated customer-service levels. Enterprise performance management
integrates methodologies such as balanced scorecards, strategy maps, budgets,
Activity-Based Costing (ABC), forecasts, CRM and resource capacity planning. It
is not a process or a system, but rather an umbrella concept intended to align
manager and employee behavior and limited resources to focus on the
organization’s strategic priorities and objectives. |
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Web 2.0 Social Learning
By Cindy Rockwell, CEO, CustomerVision
Published: April 2008
When will corporations identify the need to get onboard with the changing
dynamics within their workforce and their customers? Communities and social
mediums for connecting like minds to create and share ideas are growing
exponentially every month. |
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Would You like a Side of Mashup with Your SOA
By Brent Carlson, CTO, LogicLibrary, Inc.
Published: March 2008
What’s an IT organization to do with Web 2.0? Tools like mashups have the
potential to provide great value to enterprises, but if not handled properly,
can also tie down strategic initiatives like SOA. Get some insight into how to
balance the benefits and risks of the Web 2.0 world within corporate IT by
reading this article. |
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The Case for Enterprise Cost Systems
By Matthew Smith,
President and CEO, 3C Software
Published: March 2008
Companies have invested significant resources into ERP systems to integrate a
myriad of business functions, including operations, sales, finance and
accounting. While their promise of integration is impressive, they consistently
fail in delivering one facet vital to understanding profitability for process
manufacturers – costing. Enterprise cost systems are designed to handle the
rigor required to develop a comprehensive approach to managing production costs. |
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Reusing Critical Enterprise Resources
By Robert Morris, Chief
Strategy Officer, GT Software
Published: March 2008
The ability to define hard cost savings through SOA projects provides a strong
value proposition for enterprises seeking to deploy new applications. At its
heart, SOA is focused on reusing existing application and business logic to
deliver new business services. Savings can be dramatic, not just from reusing
inanimate resources such as data and applications, but also from the
redeployment of programmers from maintenance to building reusable services. This
article explains many of the ROI principles that are involved in cost-justifying
SOA projects and strategies. |
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Move Over SaaS, Make Room for AbSD
By Rob Meinhardt, Co-Founder and CEO, KACE
Published: February 2008
There’s a new kid in town sharing the spotlight with SaaS. AbSD (Appliance-based
Software Delivery) offers a similar, disruptive approach for delivering core
business applications. This new model of software delivery offers many of the
same benefits as SaaS models and a few additional benefits that create an
advantage for certain types of applications. |
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The World Needs a Ruler: Life with Carbon on the Balance Sheet
By Lawrence E. Goldenhersh,
President and CEO, Enviance
Published: February 2008
In horse racing terms, the first quarter of 2007 represented the ‘trifecta’ for
advocates of greenhouse gas regulation and carbon constraint. In three
consecutive months, decisions in the scientific, financial and legal communities
drove this nation past the tipping point on greenhouse gas. This article
analyzes the genesis of this tectonic shift in the national attitude towards
greenhouse gas, discusses some requirements that are fundamental to the
emergence of a rational system for managing it, and highlights some early trends
amongst industry leaders attempting to deal with this financial challenge. |
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Identity Authentication: Are You Willing to Risk Your Reputation on It
By
Steven L. Grandchamp, CEO, OpenLogic, Inc.
Published: January 2008
A damaged corporate reputation translates into huge economic losses that span
decreased brand value; low share price; lost customers, partners and strategic
relationships and difficulty recruiting and keeping top-notch employees. Some
businesses, such as Arthur Anderson, never recover. Corporations, and their
financial institutions, need to understand that they can and must manage
reputational risk in much the same way that they manage other types of risk –
through sound strategies, modeling, business intelligence and technology. |
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Making the Leap: Driving Process and Change in Retail
By Eric Olafson, CEO, Tomax Corporation
Published: January 2008
Organizations have been plagued with entrenched silos – which pose as monstrous
hurdles to managers that wish to optimize business process and align both
strategy and execution. Traditional IT solutions have been a curse, not a
resolution to the presence of stagnant silos. Eric Olafson, CEO of Tomax
Corporation, discusses innovative methods to transcend business and technology
silos and achieve true business process optimization. |
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Enterprise Wikis – the Mash-Up of Content
By Cindy Rockwell, CEO, Customer Vision
Published: January 2008
The land of Web 2.0 Enterprise Wiki takes knowledge, content and documents and
mashes them up into a reason for organizations to once again look at one of
their greatest and most expensive assets, information. The new challenge is to
develop and share content, knowledge and information rapidly and make it
highly accessible and integrated into day-to-day workflow. |
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Financial Implications of the SaaS Business Model
By Todd Gardner, CEO, SaaS Capital
Published: December 2007
The Software as a Service (SaaS) market is growing rapidly in response to a
variety of macro-market trends. Although the rapid growth of SaaS offers an
exciting time for entrepreneurs and established software vendors, the SaaS model
also poses significant business challenges – not the least of which is cash
flow. The good news for SaaS vendors is that the very financial elements that
make SaaS companies require more capital are the qualities that make them good
borrowers. This article discusses how the pay-as-you-go, subscription model is
driving aspiring SaaS players to pursue funding alternatives to support their
business operations. |
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SaaS: A View from the Front Lines
By Kent St. Vrain, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Paxonix
Published: December 2007
Much has been written about web-based applications, regardless of what you call
them, Application Service Provider, on-demand, online, web-based, Software as a
Service, etc. The concept has been discussed and written about from many angles,
many from an academic or philosophical position. This article is an attempt to
apply some perspective from the front lines – those who are out talking to
prospective customers about these solutions every day. |
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The Compliance Equilibrium
By Robert Gardos, President and Founder, GridApp Systems
Published: December 2007
As compliance standards continue to rise, IT departments are challenged to
improve procedures and better prepare for their formal audit. Organizations
must equip their database professionals with the resources to understand and
implement their new regulatory responsibilities. This article will outline five
steps the management can take to better understand the importance of the
database tier in meeting compliance requirements and will also provide best
practices for equipping these professionals with the tools they need to manage
their compliance duties. |
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Quality: The Missing Link in Software Development
By Brad Johnson, Director of Product Marketing, Lifecycle Quality Management, Borland Software
Published: November 2007
Imagine if businesses across all industries – from pharmaceutical drug testing,
to automobiles, to iPods – waited until their products came off the
manufacturing line to determine how well they functioned. While we can argue
that technological advances have moved us far beyond the days of a ‘trial and
error’ approach, the reality is that software development continues to be more
art than science. Consequently, project cancellations and failures have become
ubiquitous and cost overruns, schedule slippages, low quality and poor
reliability have become disturbing norms in the software industry. |
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Flipping the Coin for Talent: How Well Are You Hiring?
By Dr. Maynard Brusman, Principal, Working Resources
Published: October 2007
The new reality is that it is becoming more critical for companies to hire
talented managers in order to maintain a competitive advantage, but that
talented people are scarce, more mobile and demanding. The best people are those
who can combine intelligence, data, and skills in a way that enables them to
synthesize data into information and apply their knowledge to address new and
emerging problems. |
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Virtual Appliances: An Alternative Approach to SaaS Value
By Dave Cotten, Vice President of Sales, rPath
Published: October 2007
The greatest challenge for software application companies today is accelerating
new license growth while maintaining a reasonable level of expense for sales
and R&D. Many have hailed Software as a Service (SaaS) as the best solution to
the license growth challenge – after all, SaaS can enable new license sales to
a set of customers that historically didn’t buy software because they couldn’t
afford the cost or complexity of the technology. |
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Trends in Clean Tech Investing
By Paul Holland, General Partner, Foundation Capital
Published: October 2007
Clean technologies that started merely as pie-in-the-sky ideas are now quickly
becoming trillion-dollar markets that established utilities, transportation
industries and others are beginning to rely on to put energy efficiency into
practice. By the same token, former technology executives are driving new
urgency into these markets by combining the pace of high tech with cutting edge
science. The result is already benefiting the average consumer on a broad scale
and will ultimately transform the future of our global environment. |
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Guidelines for Mitigating Risk with Open Source Governance
By
Steven L. Grandchamp, CEO, OpenLogic, Inc.
Published: September 2007
It’s an all-too-common scenario: A programmer at a Global 2000 organization
faces a looming deadline. After some research, he selects an open source
software package that meets his technical needs and will allow him to get his
job done quickly and efficiently. He downloads the selected software and goes to
work, unaware of the potential implications of his choice. As in the scenario
above, open source software often comes into an organization with no further
consideration than whether it can do the job at hand. While open source software
provides a functional, flexible and cost-effective option for enterprises, there
are issues to consider that can have a significant impact on a business. |
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Virtualization – Challenges for Static Approaches to Network Security
By
Jeff Palmer, Chief Executive Officer, Blue Lane Technologies Inc.
Published: September 2007
Earlier this year at the RSA Security Conference, RSA president Art Coviello
talked about how older static security technologies (like the use of signatures
to detect and block hackers from gaining access to protected information assets)
are crumbling under pressure from cyber criminals. Art was widely quoted for
good reason. He’s right. While there is no doubt that his predictions about
signature-based security solutions becoming a waste of money (in the near
future) will eventually ring true; I think even the security-savvy audience at
RSA may have missed the irony of Art’s prediction. |
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SMB
Market – What is the secret sauce for success?
By
Vas Srinivasan, Vice President of Marketing, Sonasoft Corporation
Published: September 2007
Even though the SMB market looks very attractive, potential aspirants to conquer
it face many hurdles. The SMB market is highly fragmented, diverse and
unconventional. Prospecting for SMB customers is not an easy task. Contrary to
what is expected, the sales cycle can be as long as that of enterprise companies
if it is not handled properly. Also, conventional approaches and channels used
to reach enterprise customers will not yield the desired results. |
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The
Rebirth of Enterprise IT
By
Chip Hazard and Jeffrey Bussgang, General Partners, IDG Ventures Boston
Published: September 2007
When Nicholas Carr wrote his now-famous Harvard Business Review article over
four years ago, “IT Doesn’t Matter”, the most damning claim to our industry was
that IT had become a commodity input – irrelevant as a source for strategic
advantage. Many pundits, from Larry Ellison on down, began pontificating on the
maturation, consolidation and eventual death of the enterprise software business
– at least for companies whose names are not IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP or
Symantec. |
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Investing in Israel – A Silicon Valley on the Mediterranean
By
David Anthony, Managing Partner, 21Ventures, LLC
Published: August 2007
American and British investors constantly ask me about investing in Israel.
Their first questions are: Why aren’t you investing in China? Why aren’t you
investing in India? Why ‘Israel’? They go on and on about their concerns in
Israel of political scandals, missile threats and Hamas. They inquire about
terrorism, the Intifada, early elections and shifts in foreign policy. Then they
ask me about Israel’s economy, and that’s when the discussion gets interesting. |
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Increasing Software Provider Profits through Effective Usage
By
Chris Dowse, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Neochange, Inc.
Published: August 2007
As growth rates in some verticals slow and new business models put pressure on
prices, software executives are looking for new ways to grow profits. At the
same time, enterprise buyers are struggling to achieve the levels of
functionality utilization and user penetration that delivers desired business
results. For many software verticals, enterprise buyers are achieving less than
20% of their potential business value. This effective usage challenge represents
a significant opportunity for profit growth if providers are willing to redirect
their focus and investments. |
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Realizing the Cost Benefits of Call Center Multi-Sourcing
By
Bruce Dresser, Chief Marketing Officer, Echopass
Published: July 2007
Companies adopting a multi-source approach to staffing call centers are often
benefiting from a diverse and specialized pool of less expensive labor – but at
what cost? Is customer service affected? Does the reduced cost of labor offset
the increased inefficiencies? When done right, the pitfalls associated with a
multi-sourcing strategy can be avoided. Learn how a common hosted call center
technology platform is the essential component to achieving success with a
multi-sourcing strategy. |
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Aiming for Organizational Nirvana
By
Farhat Ali, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fujitsu Computer Systems
Corporation
Published: July 2007
ROI is one of the most popular metrics that can be used to measure the financial
attractiveness of a business investment, but calculating an accurate figure is
not easy. Yet, when it comes to scheduling applications, the return is quite
clear, as they help businesses get more done in less time and with fewer
resources. From simple room booking to facility management, the result is a more
productive business environment creating more time to devote to important
business activities. |
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What’s a Minute Worth?
By
Ann Hamann, Vice President of Marketing, PeopleCube
Published: June 2007
ROI is one of the most popular metrics that can be used to measure the financial
attractiveness of a business investment, but calculating an accurate figure is
not easy. Yet, when it comes to scheduling applications, the return is quite
clear, as they help businesses get more done in less time and with fewer
resources. From simple room booking to facility management, the result is a more
productive business environment creating more time to devote to important
business activities. |
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Choking on Your Own Success
By
Brian Turchin, Founder and President, Cape Horn Strategies, Inc.
Published: June 2007
Success unleashes its own critical leadership challenges. Unless you deal with
them, failure can follow. Here is how you can tame three such beasts. Business
success can be fleeting. One day, it’s champagne and caviar and the next it’s a
Big Mac. It’s like success pushes you through the proverbial looking-glass into
a new world, where you discover, much to your surprise, that what worked before,
no longer works now. Learn more about some common leadership problems. |
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Love ’em or Lose ’em: Retaining Talented Employees
By
Maynard Brusman, Founding Principal, Working Resources
Published: June 2007
Even in a slower economy, attracting and keeping top talent is a serious concern
for corporations. The problem is exacerbated by a growing propensity for people
to change jobs frequently. After 20 years of downsizing, it is ironic that
corporations are now concerned about losing employees. The problem is one of
getting qualified and talented people into the right jobs and keeping them
there. Dr. Maynard Brusman talks about how to retain talented and valuable
employees for the company. |
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Managing Change Can Improve Bottom-Line Results
By
Terri Levine, President, Comprehensive Coaching U
Published: May 2007
Change is inevitable, and it becomes necessary when companies are struggling
with low productivity, profitability, and poor morale. In such an environment,
you might think employees would embrace an ‘out with the old, in with the new’
culture, but instead, when change is introduced into the workplace there is
often a degree of resistance, anxiety, and sometimes even ridicule of the new
methodologies. |
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Best Practices to Streamline the Annual Budgeting Process
By Don Howren, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Support, ADERANT
Published: May 2007
The annual budgeting process is a painful lengthy process that consumes teams
for weeks and results in a marginally useful plan that isn’t revisited until the
next year when the process is repeated. But it doesn’t have to be that way. By
implementing a few best practices, companies can condense the budgeting cycle
and create more accurate, living plans that better reflect the dynamic nature of
business and provide ongoing support for decision makers. In the end, it’s not
about the budget; it’s about growth and performance improvement. |
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Intelligent Protection: Document Security for Your Data in Motion
By Dave Malmstedt, CEO, Vincera, Inc.s
Published: April 2007
The need to secure sensitive data in motion has never been more pronounced. The
speed of business necessitates e-distribution of intellectual property,
personally identifiable information, and other privileged information via
documents. Ironically, the tools that energize information distribution create
fresh vulnerabilities for companies, so that your mobile 'secret' documents are
more prone to theft, alteration, and illicit use than ever before. Yet with the
right distributed-document security strategy, you can minimize stiff economic
and brand losses without losing speed or efficiency.
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Turning Opportunities into Projects and Vice Versa
By Ludwig Melik, Vice President of Sales, Tenrox
Published: April 2007
Your sales team invests a lot of time managing their pipeline and creating
opportunities. CRM solutions today are improving quickly, helping you manage
your sales team, your pipeline, forecast sales, and track customer
opportunities and service requests. But what happens after opportunities are
closed? How can the sales team gain visibility into the services’ or projects’
execution / delivery? Find out.
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The Hidden Risks in Financial Reporting
By Dr. Soheil Saadat, President and CEO, Prodiance Corporation
Published: April 2007
With over 200 million users worldwide, the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is the
most ubiquitous analysis and reporting tool on planet. Business users can create
powerful and incredibly complex analyses models in Excel. A Google search on the
keywords “financial analysis spreadsheet” returns hundreds of capital budgeting,
risk valuation, cash flow, financial projections, and break-even analysis
models. In fact, spreadsheets are being used in businesses globally to drive
critical business decisions. Yet, with this power comes an inherent risk; find
out how to re-gain control and avoid crises. |
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Mentoring Managers: Key to a Successful Enterprise
By Pam Randhawa, Vice President of Marketing, Phase Forward
Published: April 2007
A strong mentoring program is an often overlooked but incredibly valuable
element in grooming and retaining star employees. It can be a powerful force in
the professional development of staffers, and in turn, a key ingredient in an
organization’s success. Employees who feel someone is looking out for their
careers are more motivated to do their best work and to stick with the
organization. Read to find out more. |
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Is Your Software Competing with Invisible Shelfware?
By Karen Lawson, President, Lawson Consulting Group, Inc
Published: March 2007
Adoption and problems with efficient and effective use of your software are not just your customer’s problem. An insidious new form of ‘invisible shelfware’, a condition where partial adoption and non-compliant use of enterprise applications is the hidden cause behind unrealized ROI, is threatening software execs especially because it directly attacks the ISV business model and impacts the maintenance renewals, expansion and cross sale opportunities. Learn how End-User Experience and Performance Management (EPM) software can protect your revenues and profits.
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The CRM Intersection: Where Business and Technology Collide
By Karen Lawson, President, Lawson Consulting Group, Inc
Published: March 2007
Technology has come a long way. New products in the market are making it possible for business users to create their own reports to analyze data and measure business performance against KPIs. These tools are allowing organizations to challenge their long-held anecdotal beliefs regarding which customers are the most profitable, and are enabling their sales and marketing departments to target individuals and organizations that are most likely to become profitable customers. This article reviews the intersection where business problems meet technology, allowing companies to get the most out of IT investments and to start achieving their business goals.
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Motivating and Retaining Top Talent
By Karen Lawson, President, Lawson Consulting Group, Inc
Published: March 2007
Today’s workplace is a fast-paced and challenging environment. Global competition and rapidly changing technology have resulted in new skill requirements and more complex jobs with fewer qualified people to fill them. Faced with a shrinking talent pool and more ‘me-focused’ employees, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to attract, motivate, and retain top talent. The ‘old ways’ of leading and motivating just don’t work anymore. Effective leaders are those who learn how to create an environment in which people thrive and are committed to helping their organizations succeed.
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Got Ink? Increase Company Exposure with PR
By Charles Erdrich, Vice President, Business Development, Avineon, Inc.,
Published: March 2007
Public relations is often considered to be a part of the marketing mix that is nice to have, but not required. Technology companies focus so intensely on developing and delivering their products and services that their effort to create positive awareness about their company moves farther down on the agenda. While many companies have considered instituting some degree of PR, they often fall short in developing a strategy and enacting a plan to execute PR tactics. Learn how to make a potent mix for sure shot success.
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Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget
By Vas Srinivasan, Vice President of Marketing, Sonasoft Corporation
Published: February 2007
Many companies spend millions of dollars in marketing their products and services, but with limited results. Money is important, but it has to be spent wisely. Excellent results can be achieved by being focused, understanding your customer pain points, and articulating your value proposition clearly. Especially, for small companies the task becomes even more difficult with limited marketing budget. This article talks about some useful marketing techniques that can be successfully employed to get good results.
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How Much is Your Influence Worth
By Dr. Marlene Caroselli, Author, “Principled Persuasion”
Published: February 2007
Leadership guru John Maxwell maintains, “Leadership is influence. That’s it.” He asserts: “Nothing more. Nothing less.” Those leaders who occasionally find themselves seeking balance on the tightrope that spans influence and desired outcomes would do well to consider the ‘worth aspect’ that separates ethical influence from unethical manipulation. Learn more about where to draw the line between the two.
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How is Selling SaaS Different
By Jim Howard, CEO, CrownPeak Technology
Published: January 2007
Pounding out product/feature matrix charts in RFP responses is a losing proposition for an SaaS vendor. While an SaaS product may have every feature under the sun, the reason customers buy an SaaS has little to do with features. Likewise, trying to sell around IT, or other technologists at a prospect can doom most sales efforts. Concerns around control and security will crush even the best SaaS offerings unless they are addressed head-on. Learn how selling SaaS is so different.
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5 Strategies for Managing Linux
By David Dennis, Director of Products, Levanta, Inc.
Published: January 2007
Despite continuous and rapid evolution in the manageability of Linux, a survey conducted by the Institute for Partner Education and Development cited manageability concerns as one of the top three reasons why organizations hesitate to adopt Linux. However, Linux can be made as manageable, if not more, than other operating systems by following five key strategies which stemmed from experiences across a wide variety of customer environments.
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Leadership by Persuasion
By Dr. Maynard Brusman, Principal, Working Resources
Published: January 2007
As a leader, your success depends upon your ability to get things done: up, down, and across all lines. Today’s organizations are politically complex and fluid, which blurs lines of formal authority. Colleagues continually question and challenge authority. The flattening of organizations has created informal power networks that render the old command-and-control style of leadership obsolete.
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Vertical Marketing Works – The Numbers Prove It
By Olin Thompson, Principal, Process ERP Partners, LLC
Published: December 2006
Every company wants to look at the numbers that count the most: revenue and expenses. Increasing revenue and decreasing costs are the results of an effective vertical strategy. It allows you to increase your win rate by increasing revenue and decreasing the cost of sales. This article helps you understand why a vertical strategy is good, and how it can make your sales and marketing initiatives effective.
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Leading Technological Change: Anticipating the Human Response
By Diane Dixon, Managing Principal, D. Dixon & Associates, LLC
Published: December 2006
We readily acknowledge that we are living in 'The Age of Technology' but most would admit that the human response to it has been slower than the growth of technological innovation. Then what keeps people from embracing technology that will help them to do their jobs more effectively and ultimately improve service and/or product delivery? Ignoring or underestimating the human reaction to change is part of the problem. Understanding and anticipating the human response to technology is critical for successful implementation and advancement of innovation.
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How to Win Customer Trust
By Lynn Daniel, Founder, The Daniel Group
Published: December 2006
The question of trust applies in any market situation. Ask your customers if they trust your company to act in their best interests. See what they say. Listen for the expectations they have of your business. If those expectations are not being met, ask why? Remember, meeting those expectations at every point of the customer’s experience is a sure way to create a stronger company. It is a question of trust. It is also a question of the bottom line! This article will help you identify those areas that are critical to enhancing the level of customer trust in your company.
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How to Improve Your Organization's Group Intelligence
By Luis F. Solis, CEO and President, GroupSystems Corporation
Published: November 2006
Chief Executive Officers worldwide are struggling with a common challenge: how to expedite innovation, achieve efficiency, and reduce process cost at the work group level versus the individual level. Whether called group productivity, team effectiveness or simply by the over-used moniker ‘collaboration’, the issue is the same. Is this really worth the worry? In this article, you'll learn the five mission-critical processes for innovation and growth.
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Finding Your Next Big Idea
By Dr. Maynard Brusman, Principal, Working Resources
Published: November 2006
The company that fails to continually innovate new products and services will not survive long. As competition becomes tougher and market challenges increase, innovation is an imperative for business leaders around the world. At the same time, not all innovations produce commercial success. Even the most seasoned executive may not recognize a good opportunity when it presents itself. What, then, can we learn about sources of innovation from both inside and outside the organization? How do you decide which bright idea to back and identify innovations that will yield commercial success?
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What Would General George Patton Do If He Were VP of Sales
By Steve Martin, Author, “Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom”
Published: October 2006
When a German senior officer was captured toward the end of World War II, he said, “General Patton is the most feared general on all fronts. The tactics of the General are daring and unpredictable. General Patton is always the main topic of conversation. Where is he? When will he attack? Where? How? With what?” In sales, just as in war, there can be only one winner, and today’s conqueror can quickly become tomorrow’s vanquished. Learn what one of the greatest military minds in history has to teach you about defeating your enemies on the battlefield of business sales.
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Vendors, Not All Revenue is Equal
By Olin Thompson, Principal, Process ERP Partners
Published: October 2006
Very few companies can be good at everything. Although many executives see that “all dollars are green”, the reality is that different types of revenue come at different costs. Be realistic on what is possible, how much you can afford to spend to get revenue, the timing of the expense versus the revenue and how much risk you are willing to accept. All revenue is green, but sometimes your revenue strategy can make your bottom line red.
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The Blogging Phenomenon: How to Avoid Legal Implications
By Alfred C. Frawley, Partner, Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios LLP
Published: September 2006
Blogging is a phenomenon that attracts new writers every day. In fact, each hour two thousand new blogs are created. There are seven to eight million blogs or on-line diaries currently and the number grows. Individuals and businesses alike are reaching the online community via blogs because it is an efficient and inexpensive way to make your opinions widely known. But businesses should consider how a blogging policy could help avoid the legal implications of online publishing.
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A New Market Opportunity for IT Policy Control
By Teresa D. Wingfield, Director of Product Marketing, Active Reasoning, Inc.
Published: September 2006
Policies define the desired IT controls in an organization and what actions to take when controls, they violated, or parameters exceed acceptable thresholds. A number of factors are increasing the number of policies a company must implement. The alarming growth in security threats is escalating the demand for protection from them. As companies are turning to standards-based control frameworks such as ITIL, COBIT COSO, and ISO 17799 to improve their ability to deliver reliable support and services, they need policies that enforce their best practices and procedures.
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How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Open Source
By Richard Boyd, CEO and President, 3Dsolve Inc.
Published: August 2006
When you spend your career doing something and finally learn to do it well, it is a bit disconcerting when someone changes all of the rules on you. As Alvin Toffler said in this fast-paced and mutable information age, the illiterate are not just those who can't read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. In my North Carolina vernacular that translates as old dogs need to learn new tricks. The whole point of this article is to encourage you to go out and fish, not necessarily to tell you where to find the best fishing holes.
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Why Software Companies Must Consider Government Market
By David S. Bloch, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, and James G. McEwen, Stein, McEwen & Bui LLP
Published: August 2006
Software companies typically sell to other companies and individual consumers. Left out of this mix is another very large potential market: local, state, and federal governments. By most accounts, the U.S. government is the world's largest consumer of goods and services. This article discusses why software companies should consider selling to governments. Discover why the government is a potentially lucrative market for software companies - a market that too often is neglected for reasons having more to do with myth than reality. Determine how to find and win a government contract, and understand specific rules for licensing software to the U.S. Government.
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Don't Let Egos Sink Your Positioning Strategy
By Lawson Abinanti, Co-Founder, Messages that Matter
Published: August 2006
To arrive at a successful positioning strategy requires a quest to discover the truth about your product, and why the target buyer should care about it. Let preconceived notions, personal biases and ego dominate your positioning process and you're leaving too much to chance. At every step during the positioning process, you filter information, make assumptions and decide which path to pursue. Even under ideal conditions, it's easy to head down the wrong path. In this article, you'll learn three steps along the way where ego - or denial or even sheer stubbornness - can lead you astray.
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Crossroads: Deciding If and When a Founder Should Sell
By Javier Rojas, Managing Director, Kennet Venture Partners LLC
Published: July 2006
If you are an entrepreneur that owns a majority or major stake in your business, you are often faced with the question of whether and when you should seek to sell your shares. This can be the hardest decision to make because the stakes are high – both through indecision or a misstep, and at the same time emotional because of the potential changes involved. Variations of our approach can be used by any equity holder of a high growth technology company, but it is most relevant to founder-led businesses – where the founder owns the majority and is active in the business.
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Success with Outsourced Product Development
By Peter Harrison, CEO, Induslogic, Inc.
Published: July 2006
Fortune 1000 companies (F1000) have flocked in droves to outsource their software development as a way of increasing efficiencies and saving millions of dollars. More than 70% of the F1000 outsource some portion of their information technology today, making this activity completely mainstream. This market for Outsourced Product Development (OPD) is currently pegged at $1 billion but is expected to grow to almost $4 billion by 2008. Achieving success in OPD requires creative re-thinking of traditional outsourcing models and careful selection of an experienced partner. Learn how to choose the right model and pick a perfect business partner to stay ahead of the pack
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Reinventing the Software Development Strategy
By John Seybold, Chief Technology Officer, Guidewire Software, Inc.
Published: July 2006
If you’ve spent much time working on software projects, you probably bear the scars from a “death march” release. This is the kind of release that just won’t come together in a shippable state. You work and you work, but you keep finding bugs, and as soon as you fix one problem, you find another, deeper issue that was previously hidden. The main cause is usually that the team left a huge backlog of known and unknown problems to be fixed at the end of the release. Learn how to overcome the problem, and think from a broader perspective of reinventing your software development strategy.
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The Reality of Virtual Opportunities
By Isaac Kato, Principal, General Catalyst Partners
Published: June 2006
People escape to virtual worlds because they provide a forum to express alter egos. Whatever flaws you may have in the real world are erased when you enter the virtual world. As these virtual worlds have become more compelling places to be, people have started essentially living in them. Users have even started to make a living in the virtual worlds, and this provides real opportunities for a host of players.
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Effective Ways to Decrease Cyber Attacks
By Carl E. Banzhof, Chief Technology Officer, Citadel Security Software Inc.
Published: June 2006
Today's businesses are confronted by a far broader and increasingly dangerous set of cyber threats than they were just a few years ago. New vulnerabilities are discovered each day and there seems to be no sign of them letting up. Worms, spyware, software defects, misconfigurations, unsecured accounts, and many more can cause your network to be susceptible to vicious cyber attacks. You need to create a plan of attack for securing your environment. Here's what to do...
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Why CIOs Should Not Make Technology Decisions
By CJ Rhoads, President and CEO, Enterprise Technology Management Associates, Inc.
Published: June 2006
Is your CIO making technology decisions all alone? If yes, the recent findings would make you sit up. When CIOs are included on the decision-making team, they improve the overall use of Internet technology. However, when CIOs make the decision alone, they don't do any better than other decision-making groups. The decision-making record of CIOs on web development and e-commerce is simply not good. So, how does a CEO make sure the best technology decisions are made, and when does the CFO get involved?
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Mergers: A Change Agent for Software Development
By Chris Barbin, Sr. Vice President of Business Operations, Borland Software Corporation
Published: June 2006
Growth through acquisition has always been a leading business strategy for the world's largest software companies. What is new, however, is that many acquirers no longer just want small pieces of technology to integrate with existing portfolios. Oracle acquired Siebel Systems after its expensive battle to win control of PeopleSoft. Then Adobe merged with Macromedia to "own" the digital media market. Soon to follow was eBay's acquisition of Skype. The list goes on... but each merger comes with a major challenge: How to best manage distributed development environments?
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The Software Industry's Other Transition
By Paul Holland, General Partner, Foundation Capital
Published: May 2006
Recently, a new breed of software companies has emerged that help customers grow the top line. By associating their value proposition with increase in revenues, they've been able to appeal to the strategic interests of senior executives and consequently their average selling prices far exceed that of the typical industry average. Technology companies today are hard at work to help their customers make more money vs. simply slashing IT expenditures.
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The Failed Promise of High Tech
By Tom Northup, Founder & Principal, Leadership Management Group
Published: May 2006
High tech promised the business world an easy way to enhance efficiency, save time, and increase access to information. Instead it has reduced interpersonal communication, shattered our ability to focus, made us accessible to anyone at any time, and increased the time it takes to complete projects. In order to achieve success in business, go back to the days before high tech, retake control of our time and rebuild personal communication skills.
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Software Buying Has Changed – Will Vendors Follow Suit?
By Olin Thompson, Principal, Process ERP Partners
Published: April 2006
Software and services vendors talk about agility. They talk about keeping an eye on the market and meeting the needs of the customer. However, do they take their own medicine? How an enterprise buys software and services has been changing. Buyers are smart about buying technology. They are skeptical, risk adverse, and tighter with their budgets. What are those changes, why did they happen and what does it mean for the both the buying enterprise and the selling vendor?
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Corporate IT Security Resources are Wasted!
By Al Payne and Jim Litchko, Internet Security Experts
Published: April 2006
Thirty percent of IT Security resources are wasted, because of the inappropriate approaches that are used to review a corporation's IT security needs and the misunderstanding of the roles and responsibilities for each of the key players: executives, IT managers and IT security professionals. Effective IT security programs are achieved when the IT manager is open, honest, motivated and realistic about the IT security status. This begins with conducting a practical system security assessment and ends with providing adequate safeguard options to reduce risk to an acceptable level for the business.
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SaaS Not a "One Size Fits All" Paradigm
By Yuchun Lee, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Unica Corporation
Published: March 2006
The general paradigm shift will correct itself this year when software as a service will become part of the entire ecosystem. It’s a very beneficial option for the market, but it’s definitely not a “one size fits all” paradigm. Software vendors that will be successful in 2006 and beyond are those that can provide both on-premise and on-demand solutions, in one form or another. Companies that can’t offer both are foregoing half of the market and will start to see challenges to their growth and leadership in the future.
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Are Your Customers Unhappy? Here's Help!
By Morris Panner, Chief Executive Officer, OpenAir, Inc.
Published: March 2006
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provides real-time interaction between application vendor and customer that traditional client server companies can only envy. It is one of the key benefits of the SaaS model. What makes this possible? In any company, it is the customer support team. They are the first line of interaction with customers and the most important asset the company has. Most companies are unprepared for the new role of customer/application support. This article talks about how to get ready for the new world and how it will change every aspect of your business.
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When Best Practices Aren't Good Enough
By Kay Hammer, Founder and Former President & CEO, Evolutionary Technologies International, Inc.
Published: February 2006
To the average person, it seems like gross negligence that FEMA can't figure out how to route ice to the site of a hurricane when the navigational system in a rental car can adapt in real-time when a driver takes a wrong turn. Yet it is important to notice that the most dramatic breakthroughs in software over the past decade - e.g., Google or GPS technology - have not taken place in traditional IT shops, despite the fact that there are pressing needs like Homeland Security and SOX compliance that would constitute a huge market for new solutions.
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Managing New Revenue Streams: Think SaaS
By Robert O'Connor, President and CEO, Softrax
Published: December 2005
Innovation is still the key to growth in the high tech business, but it has broader implications than in the past. Today some of the most important innovations are about the business model - how technology is being sold and delivered. Offering Software as a Service (SaaS) via subscription or utility models is reshaping key customer relationships for high tech companies. Along with the technical challenges, there are significant operational issues software executives must fully understand to successfully manage these new business models.
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The End of the Growth Run: What's a CEO to Do
By Jim Mackey and Liisa Välikangas, Woodside Institute
Published: December 2005
There are limits to corporate growth, which most CEOs will deny. Partly to blame are unrealistic investor expectations: when a company stalls, its market cap falls by 60%. Yet the liability of corporate size is an obvious numerical challenge. For Hewlett-Packard for example, whose 2002 merger with Compaq propelled it to $73 billion in revenue, sustaining the exceptional 17% annual growth rate it achieved over the prior 40 years, would have required adding $12 billion in revenue in '04 and $14 billion in revenue in '05 to put it over $100B today. Actual growth was only half this level slightly outpacing GDP to reach $87B in 2004.
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A Moving Method for Leading Change More Effectively
By Dan Cohen, Partner, Deloitte Consulting, LLP
Published: November 2005
Why do so many change initiatives fail to deliver the anticipated benefits? Research suggests that the single biggest challenge in any transformation is not culture, strategy or systems, but getting people to change their behavior. And people change their behavior less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking, than because they are shown a compelling truth that influences their feelings. Using tactics, tools and examples from the recently published 'The Heart of Change Field Guide', Dan Cohen explains why this is so and offers readers practical suggestions for leading change more effectively.
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Team Spirit Built from the Top
By Jim Clemmer, Author, "Pathways to Performance"
Published: October 2005
Companies can make huge investments in technologies yet have indifferent frontline staff who demonstrate about as much enthusiasm for customers and their needs as a teenager for more rules and supervision. Companies can purchase the same equipment, technologies, products, people, brands, facilities and other tangible assets as their competitors. But they cannot buy the intangible culture of caring for customers or commitment to high quality that makes or breaks all their tangible investments.
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The Chief Enabler
By John Baldoni, Author, "Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders"
Published: September 2005
The reputation of CEOs generally has taken a major hit due to recent corporate governance scandals, but there are signs that the spotlight is returning once again for those at the top. Part of that spotlight is scrutiny, but another part is hero worship. This is unfair to both CEO and the rest of the organization. Right now the tenure of a CEO at a multibillion-dollar enterprise seems to rival that of an NFL running back—three years and out.
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Performance Management Demystified
By Jonathan D. Becher, President and CEO, Pilot Software
Published: September 2005
You’ve heard performance management touted as the cure-all business solution more times than you care to count — and likely in as many flavors. Perhaps you’re not yet convinced that performance management is not just another panacea du jour that will soon take its place in the annals of management and technology trends whose promise fell short. If you have been tempted to dip your toe in the water and see what the clamor is about, perhaps you are struggling with where to begin.
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How Can So Many Chiefs Be So Wrong?
By Rajeev Rawat, President, BI Results, LLC
Published: September 2005
Many a business lobbyist and even some in Congress are assailing regulatory requirements or strict enforcement as being excessive, redundant, draconian, and expensive. They seek to delay or roll back rules. Champions of industry are apprehensive about intense scrutiny of their actions. IT managers are shying away from stepping out to lead change. Aren’t these efforts misguided, myopic, and wrong? Couldn’t they do better by helping businesses and enterprises rebuild the fabric of the American enterprise? Let’s take a closer look.
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You Need More Than Functions to Implement an ERP Package
By Joseph J. Strub, Senior Consultant, 3i InfoTech
Published: August 2005
It stands to reason that, when selecting an ERP package, you must be sure that the software has the functions and features to support your organization. But once that assurance is obtained, now you have to worry about implementing the software. This article looks at four categories of tools that a vendor may supply and can make the implementation easier for your project team, end users, and IT department. Read on to see what tools you may want to have in your toolbox before proceeding with the implementation.
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Three Profiles in Organizational Humility
By Patrick Lencioni, President, The Table Group
Published: August 2005
There is nothing like humility in a leader to bring out the best in people. Humble leaders provoke levels of loyalty, commitment and performance that more egocentric ones can’t quite understand. To a large extent, the same can be said of organizations. When combined with a clear sense of purpose and drive, humility can propel a seemingly ordinary company to achieve uncommon results, usually by creating an environment of teamwork and willingness to learn from mistakes.
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The Eight Steps to CRM Success
By Jerry Sparger, President, Global Business Solutions
Published: July 2005
By some accounts, as many as 70% of all customer relationship management (CRM) projects fail to meet their intended objectives. Technology failures get most of the blame, but technology isn't the cause in most cases. Many failures are due to inadequate business strategy, poor process development and lack of employee support. If you correctly implement technology that supports the wrong strategy or processes, you have automated your failure. To get your CRM used, you need employees to embrace it. A successful CRM project balances strategy, process, technology and employee initiatives so that you address all of them within the time and resource limitations you face.
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Psyche Out the Trademark Office and Get What You Want
By Susan Horwitz, Member, Russo & Hale LLP
Published: July 2005
Too often, companies, particularly the marketing arm within the company, are so focused on product branding that they fail to take into consideration the legal issues surrounding the trademark selection and registration process and the potential for problems with their newly selected mark. This company myopia can often lead to expensive and often futile rounds of arguments with the Trademark Office over the descriptiveness of the mark or over the likelihood of confusion of the mark with another.
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Why Entrepreneurs Need to Worry about Corporate Culture
By Kerry Patterson, Chief Development Officer and Cofounder, VitalSmarts
Published: June 2005
When Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard developed their first product more than sixty years ago, they were able to turn their innovation into an extraordinarily successful company because they had two visions, not one. Unlike most innovators and entrepreneurs who are single-minded monomaniacs in search of the next new idea, they felt equally strong about the nature of the company where their ideas would be nurtured through the product cycle. In a word, they worried about their corporate “culture.” This dual vision made all the difference.
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Increasing Revenue This Quarter: 4 Pragmatic Strategies
By Greg Gianforte, CEO and Founder, RightNow Technologies, Inc.
Published: May 2005
Most firms have significant untapped potential to increase revenue quickly and yet do not act. Why? The four field-proven strategies for increased revenue described in this article require a new player sitting at the table: customer service. In most companies, customer service has more customer interactions than any other department and yet has no formal role in deepening client relationships. Defining a revenue generating role for customer service results in more revenue quickly and often with minimal effort.
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Don't Pass the Buck, Build an Innovation Culture
By Mark Turrell, Chief Executive Officer, Imaginatik, Inc.
Published: May 2005
Innovation is the new watchword for today’s business. Top executives constantly emphasize the importance of building innovative products, offering innovative services, and being more innovative thinkers in order to stay competitive. In a recent Bain & Company survey, nine out of ten senior managers saw innovation as a critical source of future competitive advantage. The ability to consistently capture, build and develop new ideas has a direct impact on revenue growth. Yet while all businesses want to be labeled innovation leaders, corporate America is passing the buck.
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Five Key Components of Market Leadership
By Peter Gyenes, Chairman and CEO, Ascential Software Corporation
Published: April 2005
There is perhaps no greater validation of leadership than the actions of those who follow. Pick up a press release or piece of sales collateral from almost any technology company anywhere around the world today and you are bound to read the words “a leading provider of…” somewhere in the first paragraph. It is a given, and it is almost a requirement, but more often than not this four word phrase is a hollow declaration.
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What Business Value are You Receiving from Your Offshore Strategy?
By M.M."Sath" Sathyanarayan, President and Principal consultant, Global Development Consulting, Inc, & D.E. "Don" Fowler, Advisor
Published: April 2005
Let’s reduce costs by going offshore with some development or service functions! The board and management agree to set up offshore activities in a place like India, China, Russia, Slovenia, or Bulgaria. Time passes. Everyone is happy. Right? Well, maybe. Most companies are finding that their goals are not being met in a consistent way. Issues creep into the picture. These issues are really symptoms of deeper problems.
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Trade Secret Litigation: Are You Asking the Right Questions?
By Jack Russo, Member, Russo & Hale LLP
Published: April 2005
Trade secrets represent the “bread and butter” of software, e-business and other technology companies’ intellectual property. Under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, a trade secret is information (such as a method, program, technique, etc.) that gives a company an advantage by that information’s secrecy. Companies must protect these trade secrets from the inside out, controlling what information is brought in by employees and what information leaves the company through business relationships, through employee termination, or otherwise.
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The New Entrepreneur
By Bill Reichert, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
Published: March 2005
We are seeing a new generation of entrepreneurs emerging from the rubble of the high-tech crash of 2001, and it's a good thing for everyone -- except perhaps for those who yearn for "the good old days." Gone are the "tourists," as one venture partner comments disparaged the dot-com generation. Back are the "old fashioned entrepreneurs," as another venture partner referred to them -- the gritty company-builders who want to create something of lasting value, not just make a quick buck.
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How to Coach a Sales Rep Through a Deal
By Dave Stein, Author, How Winners Sell
Published: March 2005
What about the sales managers? Where were they? Coaching skills are not necessarily a job qualification for sales managers. Other managers were quite competent, but were focused on something else at that time, like winning another critical deal, filling a bunch of open headcounts, or just plain too busy to do an adequate coaching job. As I pose no threat to the sales manager, they or their superiors often call me in for this purpose. I love what I do. I don't want the sales manager's job. I only want their rep to win the opportunity.
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Patent Litigation: Are You Asking the Right Questions?
By Jack Russo, Member, Russo & Hale LLP
Published: February 2005
Patents are increasingly becoming important to the overall intellectual
property of software, e-business and other technology companies. The use
of strategic patent litigation (for both offensive and defensive
purposes) is also becoming critical to growing companies. What must
executives and their board of directors know about patent litigation even
before retaining counsel? We review the key questions you need to ask.
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Playing Hardball: Why Strategy Still Matters
By George Stalk, Senior Vice President, The Boston Consulting Group
Published: November 2004
Today there are two extremes in business competition. Companies can play softball, relying on weak tactics that look like strategies, but do little more than keep the company in the game for the short term. Or, they can play hardball, employing tough strategies designed to rout, not simply beat, competitors. Which of today’s companies are playing hardball? What strategies are they using to win? What will it take for firms to adopt and execute these strategies successfully?
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Extending the Rational Unified Process: RUP to EUP
By Scott W. Ambler, Senior Consultant, Ronin International, Inc.
Published: November 2004
The Rational Unified Process (RUP) has been adopted by thousands of organizations worldwide to help improve their software development processes. Although software development clearly is important, it’s only part of your overall information technology (IT) picture. Not only do you need to develop systems, you must also operate, support, and manage cross-system enterprise issues such as portfolio management, enterprise architecture, and strategic reuse -- to name a few. The Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) extends the RUP to meet the real-world needs of mid-to-large sized organizations.
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Are You Bowling With a Banana?
By Jim Watson, General Partner, CMEA Ventures, and By Tate Holt, Author, Prescriptions for Growth
Published: October 2004
A good sales plan is like a bowling ball. It’s a model of excellent construction; perfectly symmetrical, well-balanced, and weighty enough to produce predictable results when wielded by the right person. Unfortunately, the sales plans used by many software companies more closely resemble bananas. Flawed in shape, size, and composition, they don’t roll well and are too soft to knock anything over -- even if they’re thrown hard enough to get to the end of the alley. The only good thing about them is that they’re soft enough to accommodate three sturdy fingers.
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Internal Service Delivery Should Run More Like a Business
By Scott Hammond, CEO, newScale Inc.
Published: October 2004
Recent surveys show that IT budgets are on track to increase anywhere from 2% to 8% this year. Good news: the IT spending freeze is over. But rather than investing in “novel” solutions that require massive infrastructure shifts, many organizations are instead leveraging technology to cut costs and improve efficiencies surrounding existing core processes. Internal service delivery -- the deceptively costly business of supplying employees with the tools they need to do their jobs -- is one “core process” now in greater focus for today’s forward-thinking companies.
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Business Technology Leadership: What IT Means in the Early 21st Century
By Steve Andriole, Founder & CTO, TechVestCo
Published: September 2004
Things are changing for business technology executives. What defined “leadership” just five years ago no longer plays on Mahogany Row. After the dot com crash, the Y2K non-problem and the nuclear winter that the technology sector has endured since 2000, business technology leadership is now about business performance. The new metrics are all about the business – growth, cost management and profitability. They are no longer about zero latency networks or desktop support. This article looks at these emerging leadership challenges and provides a wake-up call of sorts to any of us still stuck in the 1990s!
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Corporate Technology Spinouts: Why and How
By Andrew R. Garman, Managing Partner, New Venture Partners LLC
Published: September 2004
Corporate technology innovation is changing. Smart companies no longer feel the need to own and control all of their intellectual property. Sometimes the most profitable business model is to use others’ technology. Intel, Microsoft and Cisco have demonstrated this repeatedly. Even more interestingly, sometimes the most profitable business model is to let others use your technology. This article examines the why and how-to of corporate technology spinouts.
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Enterprise Risk Management in Today’s Information-Centric Environment
By Tery Larrew, President and CEO, Vericept Corporation
Published: August 2004
Businesses of all types and sizes are confronting the complex challenge of managing enterprise risk. This means protecting its key information, safeguarding intellectual property, ensuring customer privacy, complying with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, and preventing legal liability. Ultimately this protects the company’s brand, reputation and financial health. With more information being electronically stored and shared, and with communication tools such as instant messaging, peer-to-peer and web-based email being adopted, safeguarding sensitive information has become a challenge.
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Why Aren’t We Selling More?
By Steve Martin, Author, "Heavy Hitter Selling"
Published: July 2004
Although new stories about offshore outsourcing continue to grab headlines, many companies remain silent on the topic. A few, however, have stepped forward to publicly offer complete versions of their offshore outsourcing experiences. Their experiences reveal, as many have been quick to say all along, that offshore outsourcing sometimes does more harm than good. Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson explore the top five reasons why offshore outsourcing projects fail.
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The Internet of Moving Things
By Michael Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: June 2004
RFID startups have gained high visibility of late. But it’s worth remembering that using RF tags to track status, location and condition of assets has been going on for a long time. Highway toll collection and our military use RF technology. And for over 10 years, companies have tracked baggage through airports, racks filled with inventory, trucks coming into dock-doors, and high-value assets through hospitals and other buildings. Yet we keep hearing that the RFID revolution is about to happen. But today, there are a number of things make the situation quite different...
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Emerging Business Models in Offshore Outsourcing
By Ravi Kalakota and Marcia Robinson, CEO and President, E-Business Strategies, Inc.
Published: May 2004
In the early 1990s, former General Electric (GE) chief executive Jack Welch declared that “70-70-70” would be his company’s rule for sending technology work offsite: 70% would be done by outside suppliers, 70% of that overseas, and 70% of that in India. Today, GE is considered by many to be the most advanced practitioner of the offshore outsourcing business model. Offshore outsourcing has surfaced as both a strategic and tactical method of meeting new business demands. Similar to most business ventures, the challenge of offshore outsourcing lies not in envisioning it but in executing it.
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Avoid "Death by Meeting"
By Patrick Lencioni, President, The Table Group
Published: May 2004
The greatest myth that exists about meetings is that they are inherently bad. As a business society, we’ve come to accept that meetings are unavoidably painful and unproductive—one of the necessary evils of organizational life. But the fact is, bad meetings are a reflection of bad leaders. Worse yet, they take a more devastating toll on a company’s success than we realize. The key to improving meetings, however, has nothing to do with better preparation, agendas or minutes. To address the problem, leaders will need to take a contrarian view of meetings and apply a few basic guidelines.
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The Next Wave of Software Business Strategy
By M.R. Rangaswami, Co-founder, Sand Hill Group LLC
Published: April 2004
More than 1,100 executives packed the San Francisco Marriott last month for Software 2004, the first-ever industry-wide conference devoted to the enterprise software business. Dozens of speakers and panels presented their thoughts on the state of the software industry today, and where will go over the next several years. Sand Hill Group co-founder M.R. Rangaswami reviews the key findings from the event, including insights from presentations by Ray Lane (Kleiner-Perkins), Geoff Moore (Author, 'Crossing the Chasm'), and Sanjay Kumar (CEO, Computer Associates).
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IT is Dead? Long Live IT!
By Matt Miller and Steve Eskenazi, General Partners, WaldenVC
Published: March 2004
Remember the hype-infused nineties? When CEO's of the future would come from the CIO function? That was the not too distant past, when 'the internet was everything' and media outlets proclaimed that your 'most valuable asset would be your email address'. Only a few years later, the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other, climaxing with last May's Harvard Business Review Article: 'IT Doesn't Matter'. Matt Miller and Steve Eskenazi take a tempered view of 'post-apocalyptic IT' and the implications for venture investment.
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Engineers are from Venus, CEO's are from Mars
By Doug Roberts, CEO, Avolent, Inc.
Published: March 2004
The gap between business executives and technologists continues to be a leading cause of failure within enterprise software companies. Very few executives possess both business and technical antenna; as a result, it is often left to chance whether or not the engineering agenda is tightly aligned with corporate goals. So what can leaders do about it? Doug Roberts discusses five critical questions every CEO should ask in the pursuit of effectively engaging engineering executives and their teams.
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Predictions for Software Finance in 2004
By M.R. Rangaswami, Co-founder, Sand Hill Group LLC
Published: January 2004
This year will provide many opportunities for growth for software businesses. Contrary to what you might be hearing in the news, the software industry is very much alive today. The tough part is that the business has changed so dramatically from where it was even two short years ago. There is a new landscape of vendors, products and customers shaping the software industry.
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If I'm In Charge, Why Don't People Do What I Tell Them To?
By Steve Martin, Author, "Heavy Hitter Selling"
Published: January 2004
Have any of these scenarios ever happened to you? As you closed your staff meeting, you already knew the agreed upon action items wouldn't get done. After months of wining and dining the perfect candidate to join your executive team, you're blindsided by his or her decision to join another software company. The venture capitalist that seemed so interested last week won't return any of your calls. If people aren't following your lead, perhaps it's time to take a look at the principles of persuasion
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Budgeting Trends for Information Security
By PricewaterhouseCoopers, "Trendsetter Barometer" team
Published: December 2003
Nearly half of fast growth companies suffered information breaches or business espionage over the past 12 – 24 months, despite beefed-up precautions since 9/11. PricewaterhouseCoopers' "Trendsetter Barometer" interviewed CEOs of 402 privately held product and service companies identified in the media as the fastest growing U.S. businesses over the last five years. The surveyed companies range in size from approximately $5 million to $150 million in revenue/sales
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Open Source Challenges For Software Sales Teams
By Henry W. (Hank) Jones, III, Intersect Technology Consulting -and- Law Office
Published: October 2003
Are you "OSS-SOL" or "OSS-OK"? Your road-tested, career-long plans for selling no longer provide an adequate playbook. The old rules for selling software don't govern the entire game anymore. Over seven months ago, the cover story of CIO magazine said "The CIO who doesn't have an open source software plan implemented in 2003, will be paying too much for software in 2004." Way back in the springtime, the emergence of Linux and other open source was the cover story of Business Week. What have you done about it?
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Systems to Grow
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: September 2003
One of the biggest challenges that companies face as they become successful is putting appropriate processes and systems into place. While this may seem like an obvious part of management, the most successful and fast-growing young businesses can be the most challenged because they are moving so quickly that it is difficult to pay serious attention. So what happens when the initial growth party is over?
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The Innovation Equation
By Anthony W. Ulwick, Chief Executive Officer, Strategyn
Published: September 2003
Companies depend on innovation for their long-term survival – yet the innovation process is plagued with uncertainty, risk, surprise and failure. Fortunately, innovation doesn't have to be a chance occurrence or a random event that is contingent on serendipity or luck. There is a better way, but first leaders must recognize that innovation is not an art form – it's a business process
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The Multi-Enterprise Market
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: August 2003
Incredible opportunity continues to exist in the enterprise software market, but the model has completely changed. In years past, common software sales wisdom dictated the importance of first creating customer references within a niche, then leveraging those success stories into other markets. But what happens when customer success depends not on user adoption, but multi-enterprise adoption? In today's market, the solution is the network - and the consequences for enterprise software companies are immense.
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The Next Generation of Analytic Software
By Anita Rao, Vice President, Garage Technology Ventures
Published: August 2003
Rapidly changing business conditions are driving the demand for a new generation of analytic software, making it an area ripe for innovation and investment. Now, more than ever, managers of both large and small corporations require real-time visibility into business operations and the ability to react immediately to a dynamic business environment, or they risk paying a penalty—like writing off inventory, or losing orders due to stock outs. In addition, new corporate governance requirements have increased the pressure on executives to build transparency into all aspects of their business activities. Thus, the growing need for a new breed of analytic software to help achieve the Intelligent Enterprise.
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The Zen of High Tech Marketing
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: July 2003
One of the major requirements for succeeding in software to have a keen ability to deal with not just the details, but with abstractions of details. It's a natural phenomenon for us to lose the ability to abstract as we become more knowledgeable. We live in a world where just understanding the products we sell requires so much concentration and attention to detail that in some ways, we can actually become more impaired as we get smarter because we lose the ability to abstract up to a level that can be digested by others. Mike Tanner writes about the 'Zen' of High Tech Marketing
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Calling all 'Software as a Service' Deals
By Sharon Wienbar , BA Venture Partners
Published: July 2003
BA Venture Partners is aggressively seeking new 'software as a service' deals and even issued a press release encouraging entrepreneurs to get in touch. Sharon Wienbar explains why she and her partners are newly intrigued by the ASP business model and invites readers to participate in a research project on the business model sponsored by her firm
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In Search of the Perfect Business Model
By J. William Gurley, General Partner, Benchmark Capital
Published: June 2003
As companies continue to slog through this muddy economy, many executives are looking deeper into customer metrics in an attempt to uncover some little nugget that might give them a competitive edge in the marketplace. Marketing managers are digging through piles of customer data, evaluating every little thing from the cost of customer acquisition to customer churn, share of wallet and frequency of customer engagement. What if a company could generate a higher level of satisfaction with each incremental usage? What if a customer were more endeared to a vendor with each and every engagement? What if a company were always more likely to grab a customer's marginal consumption as the value continued to increase with each incremental purchase? This may be the nirvana of capitalism – increased marginal customer utility.
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Navigating the Post-Acquisition Minefield
By Mark L. Feldman, Managing Partner, The Five Frogs Group
Published: June 2003
Doing the deal is no longer an art. It's a drill - an exercise in financial and legal gymnastics. Over the last half-century, the same basic variables has been twisted and stretched through hundreds, perhaps thousands, of permutations. A wealth of deal making knowledge has been created. Yet most deals still fail to create value for shareholders. Why? The real art of the deal lies in the post-merger transition - and there are so few artists.
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Category Convergence
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: June 2003
May you live in interesting times! So goes the famous blessing (or curse) that is being played out in our industry today. Certainly, the "times" that we live in are "interesting," and we are all increasingly blessed with both excitement and opportunity. But the "curse" is uncertainty and dramatic change that seem to be happening at a breathtaking speed. In the software and web-enabled services markets, one of consistent themes being expressed today by many is the idea that the industry still has dramatic consolidation ahead of it. Will the consolidation scenario play out? How do Software CEO's respond?
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Prospecting for Offshore Value
By M.R. Rangaswami, Managing Director, The Sand Hill Group
Published: May 2003
Most software companies say they are offshoring at least some of their development or support services. The reality is that most haven't scratched the surface. When most software companies began leveraging offshore services during the technology boom of the late 1990s, the main incentive was to find skilled programmers and other staff – a scarce commodity domestically. Today's sagging economy means smart enterprises are still looking overseas but for different reasons. Wall Street has demanded lower operating costs and offshore services firms have helped deliver. But this motivation may be short sighted.
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Pre-IPO software companies: meet the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
By William Gehrke, Senior Partner, Hale & Dorr
Published: May 2003
If you're like most software investors or entrepreneurs, chances are that M&A is your best chance for a liquidity event. Any ISV thinking about a liquidity event will need to pay serious attention to the Sarbanes Oxley Act; even though the rules are designed for public companies, the implications for pre-IPO startups are immense. Bill Gehrke, Senior Partner at high tech law firm Hale & Dorr, explains what software CEO's and investors need to worry about, and how to best prepare
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Killing The Platform Legend
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: May 2003
The world seems to think there is a well-known process for creating rapid adoption of technology products. The story would read like science-fiction had it not been loosely repeated over the years by such leaders as Cisco, SAP, Microsoft, Autodesk, Oracle, Peoplesoft, Siebel, Intel, and a host of other popular technology companies. In fact, by hiring successful people from companies such as these it can be easy to get the impression that by following the cookbook, success is assured. But here is an important truth to think about: history is written by the winners.
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Leadership Under Crisis
By Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, Managing Partner, Recognition Group, LLC
Published: April 2003
To paraphrase Justice Stewart, flawed leadership is one of those things you know when you see. You don't have to be a corporate restructuring professional to be able to pick out a CEO in denial (a quick perusal of daytime business cable TV should do the trick) or a company embarking on a quixotic new market strategy while ignoring its most basic failings in client service. But as someone who is interested in helping a business navigate an operational or financial restructuring, what sorts of personalities in the executive suite can impede progress? What traits do you look to avoid? And, ultimately, what do you do about it?
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Why BA Ventures likes Consumer Deals
By Sharon Wienbar, Director, BA Venture Partners
Published: March 2003
Dotcoms were the first sector of the economy to collapse and backlash against consumer & retail investment business plans followed. So why is the enterprise software group at BA Venture Partners so interested in consumer deals? Sharon Wienbar, a veteran of enterprise software, makes a compelling case for re-evaluating end user opportunities.
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The Danger of Underestimating Communication Strategy
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: March 2003
The biggest myth in business is that ideas, proof points, and execution are anything more than 50% of the success equation. Whether you're a software CEO raising capital, trying to gain board approval for a new corporate strategy, or closing an enterprise customer, winning comes down to communication. Most executives seem to think that after a decade or two in the business, they've mastered it. They're wrong. Mike Tanner discusses how poor communication causes failure, and how to get better at it in a hurry.
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The Future of Software
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group
Published: February 2003
Putting aside the economic uncertainty of the times, there is a macro-level transformation occurring in the software industry that is slowly happening before our very eyes, but which many software CEO's and executives have failed to reckon with. Understanding the implications of this transformation will start to answer the question about "when things will get easier.
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PR Strategies for Enterprise Software
By Sabrina Horn, President, The Horn Group
Published: February 2003
The software business is still in a slump. So does PR even matter in today's market? Absolutely, writes Sabrina Horn, a Silicon Valley Hall of Fame inductee and President of one of the most widely respected software-focused PR firms in the world. In fact, PR can be a strategic sales tool – if you do it right. Sabrina Horn explains how.
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Software IPO Review: 2002
By Bruce Hadley, Founder, SoftwareCEO.com
Published: January 2003
For software companies struggling through the past year's stagnant economy, with frozen IT budgets and increased encroachment from starving competitors, 2002 probably didn't feel like a particularly positive year. The M&A and IPO metrics, however, point to renewed health — or at least a return to normalcy, which in our book is a healthy thing.
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Find Out What's Really Going On
By Dave Stein, President of The Stein Advantage, Inc.
Published: December 2002
When it comes to the valuation of a technology company, a track record of achieving sales targets is clearly important. However, looking backward at past performance is not an automatic indicator of how a company will perform going forward in time. In order to maximize your firm's return on investment you'll need to be certain that the CEOs and VPs of sales of your portfolio companies are building a solid and scalable platform to support growth through sustainable, long-term sales performance.
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Conquer Team Dysfunction
By Pat Lencioni, The Table Group
Published: December 2002
Like it or not, all teams are potentially dysfunctional. This is inevitable because they are made up of fallible, imperfect human beings. From the basketball court to the executive suite, politics and confusion are more the rule than the exception, which is a shame because the power of teamwork is substantial.
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Software CEO Summit
By Sharon Weinber, Director, BA Venture Partners
Published: November 2002
Early in October, BA Ventures hosted an offsite for the CEO's of it's portfolio software companies. After a review of bubble and post-bubble market data, the floor opened to heated debate on best practice concepts for early stage software companies. Sharon Wienbar reviews the key ideas that emerged after the smoke had cleared, including some surprising opinions on sales strategy.
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Looking at Failure
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group, LLC
Published: November 2002
In the technology sector we worship success. With the Horatio Alger cookbook of striving and succeeding as our inspiration, we spend our waking hours dreaming up new technologies, products and businesses that will change the world and the way we live and work. Our business plans uniformly forecast an "S-curve" growth trajectory that any new venture investor will tell you is so typical that it could almost be a clip-art model. We assume that new technology innovation will be so compelling that (after a few "seed units" of course) the world will basically beat a path to our door. We just expect that with the right plan, the right resource and the right team, we will be fantastically successful. Wouldn't life be so much simpler if business really worked that way?
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Investing in the "Real" New Economy
By Charles O. Heller, General Partner, Gabriel Venture Partners
Published: November 2002
Every article written today about venture capital must begin with the fact that there has been a radical decrease in investing during the past two years. Some wonder if this fall-off is a result of a drop in demand for private equity or a decrease in interest by VCs to invest - or perhaps a bit of both. Charlie Heller provides an update on the current climate and mindset of venture investors, and how startups need to adjust their tactics accordingly.
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A Venture Partner's quarter end advice for CEOs
By Sharon Weinber, Director, BA Venture Partners
Published: September 2002
"How's the quarter?" is the start of most of my conversations with CEOs during this time of the quarterly cycle. Their answers reveal many aspects of their business, not just the scoreboard thus far. CEOs typically come from a couple of different backgrounds, and those past experiences color their approach to running the company. My advice to CEOs of almost any stripe is to "go see for yourself" how the quarter is.
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Are Software Sales 'soft'? Here's what to do about it.
By Tom Lavey, Executive Vice President, MS2, Inc.
Published: July 2002
Many promises were made by early stage ISV's (perhaps YOU) about "viral marketing" or the "network-effect". It was supposed to give you more customers automatically, at low cost of sales because your customers would introduce your product to their customers (or suppliers) and they would introduce it to THEIR customers, etc. etc. until you magically had 80% market share and zero cost of sales. That didn't happen, did it? Why it didn't is the key to revitalizing your company.
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A Venture Partner's Advice to Startup Executives
By Raj Atluru, Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Published: July 2002
One of my biggest frustrations with early stage software companies over the past couple of years is that everyone seems to have forgotten how to "Hug Thy Customer". Let's turn the clock back 8 years. The US economy was just beginning a massive technology investment wave. Large enterprises were driven to upgrade their existing IT applications and infrastructure. Then everything changed.
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The Perfect Software Entrepreneur
By Michael K. Tanner, Managing Director, The Chasm Group, LLC
Published: July 2002
Recently, I visited a conference in San Jose that targeted entrepreneurs in the software / technology industry. You might think that after all the torrents in the public markets and high-tech meltdown during the past couple of years, such a conference would be pretty lackluster. But the aura around the San Jose convention center this particular morning was downright jubilant. It was as if through some freak of quantum physics I had been transported back in time to 1999. And, I did not want anyone to beam me up.
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