risky business

Risky Business column.

Companies desperately need to assess their current situation and future business needs, and then design and deliver on a IT architecture that will deliver insights from all data types.[read more]

Risky Business column.

While big data technologies have enjoyed plenty of hype, there’s a new reality setting in regarding getting more value from big data investments. With this in mind, it's OK to step back for a moment, pause your programs for a time if necessary, and—yes, even change your mind about big data.[read more]

Risky Business column.

Trying to internally “sell” the merits of a big data program to your executive team? Numbers and facts probably won’t make the sales pitch complete. You will also need to appeal to the emotional side of the sale by incorporating the sounds of big data.[read more]

Forecasting is hard, and even those who sometimes get it right, often fail on a continuous basis. But fear not, there are three steps you can take to drastically improve your forecast accuracy, but you’ll have to be willing to put in the work, and possibly put your ego aside to get there.[read more]

Risky Business column.

Instead of investments in IT, machinery, buildings and more, CEOs and CFOs are content to predominantly spend cash on stock buy-backs and/or dividends. Deferring CAPEX spend, or “sweating the assets” will work for a little while, but it’s not a strategy for long-term success.[read more]

Risky Business column.

In the financial world, liquid assets can allow companies to react and capitalize on market opportunities. Liquidity in IT means that companies have enough extra compute firepower, people resources and are agile enough with IT processes to respond to unplanned events and demand, in whatever shape, form or order they arrive.[read more]

Risky Business column.

There’s much work to do before you can take advantage of cloud resources, and just-in-time planning doesn't cut it. With the flexibility, speed and power that cloud offers, there’s really no excuses to let opportunities to capture unplanned demand pass you by.[read more]

Risky Business column.

The rule of three is a teaching, writing or presenting device where a key concept is broken into three easy to remember pieces. Does the rule of three apply to the fields of technology and business? Going forward, let’s be sure to use more tricolons in our training materials, internal presentations and customer whitepapers.[read more]

Risky Business column.

Invariably, there are hundreds of additional arguments proffered by big data vendors and technology zealots inhabiting organizations just like yours. However, there are few crisp binary choices in technology decision making, especially in today’s heterogeneous big data environments. Beware big data zealots that counsel you otherwise.[read more]

Risky Business column.

Increasingly, the mantra of “let the data speak for themselves” is falling by the wayside. There are dangers to reputations, companies and global economies when researchers and/or statisticians either see what they want to see—despite the data, or worse, gently massage data to get “the right results.”[read more]

Risky Business column.

Most people don’t notice that information technology pervades our daily lives. Some IT infrastructure is in the open and easy to spot, however plenty of IT infrastructures are nearly invisible as they reside in locked network rooms or heavily guarded data centers. Let's take off the covers of this often invisible underpinning and examine just a few ramifications of IT infrastructure everywhere.[read more]

Risky Business column.

Technology purchases and implementations aren't like buying widgets. A half-baked solution full of “second choice” technologies may end up being unusable to end-users, and cut-rate implementations that are seriously delayed or over-budget can translate into lost revenues, and/or delayed time to market.[read more]

Mobile is still a big deal.

Taking a look at the latest round of capital investments from the internet giants, it’s easy to believe they’re more infatuated with self-driving cars, robots and drones that deliver packages than driving value to mobile consumers. That should leave a pretty wide open gap for businesses of all stripes to invest in meeting the needs of the mobile consumer.[read more]

Risky Business column.

The information age has brought persons, businesses and societies elasticity, scalability, and the removal of many earlier capacity constraints. While some worldly things are physically scarce, when living in the information age, we need to retrain our minds to ditch scarcity thinking and instead embrace “sky’s the limit” abundance.[read more]

Risky Business column.

Instead of simply a “core dump” of manuals and online training courses, technical employees should also get “hands on” simulations, boot camps and courses led by advanced robo-instructors to fully hit the ground running[read more]