Posted on in it_management
"No company can flourish in an environment that penalizes experimentation or trust."
This quote resonates deeply in the context of IT management today. While the core principles of effective leadership remain timeless, the way we apply them in our dynamic, technology-driven environment requires a modern perspective. Long ago, I read …
Posted on in IT Management
Below is the list of books I have needed for my MBA.
Posted on in IT Management
Recently, I got an email that went something like this:
I have completed a BTech in Electronics and Communication. Now, I am working as a desktop engineer. How can I move my career to the network / server side?
Career moves are hard for everyone. Personally, I've been thinking about making …
Posted on in IT Management
A really interesting discussion has been going on in the LinkedIn IT Architect group. If you aren't a member of the group, I highly recommend you join. The question that fired off the discussion was, "Is 'the cloud' just another name for a hosted / out-sourced (web application) service? If not …
Posted on in IT Management
"Keeping a meeting interesting is a problem that often hurts team leaders who are trying to motivate sales staffs."
Although Tom Donnelly's Inc article is really targeted at sales meetings, I think it has some points that are relevant for all managers. Keeping team members engaged in a meeting is …
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A while back, I sent an email describing the strategic management process. Although the email was written for an internal audience, it's generic enough to be reproducible here...
Strategic Management is a five step process:
Posted on in IT Management
ReadWriteWeb is highlighting the recent hubbub around the fact that IT staffs aren't shrinking despite the rapid adoption of cloud computing. It's always been assumed that outsourcing IT infrastructure would result in reductions in IT staffing. Although that is still generally assumed to be the future, recent studies have shown …
Posted on in IT Management
The Influences Driving Virtualization is a new white paper from the guys at ReadWriteWeb. I recently downloaded and read through it. If you're curious about virtualization, but aren't sure about giving up your contact info to ReadWriteWeb, here are some notes about what you'll find after you download.
"Organizations that …
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The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently requested comments from concerned Internet entities regarding the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) performance of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions. ICANN currently holds a contract with the NTIA to that is set to expire in September of 2011 …
Posted on in IT Management
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has released a white paper detailing how SIRVA Inc., owner of Allied and North American Van Lines, used VMware vSphere and HP hardware to reduce their physical server count by 88%.
In addition to the cost savings associated with the drastic reduction in physical servers, SIRVA also managed …
Posted on in IT Management
Engineering firm CH2M Hill recently began moving away from VMware ESX to Microsoft's Hyper-V. CH2M Hill has been using VMware technology since 2005, but recently began the push toward Hyper-V in an effort to increase savings through more virtualization. The engineering firm believes it will save over \$280,000 in …
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Considering the economy and the crunch that many IT departments are feeling, it is no surprise that many small to medium businesses are curious about using Microsoft's free security product as a replacement to the enterprise security solutions they have been using. Individual businesses will have to decide if Microsoft …
Posted on in IT Management
I got a call from GoDaddy the other day warning me that VeriSign is raising the price of domain registrations. This seems like a big deal because the price hike is happening on July 1st. The truth, though, is that VeriSign announced the price increase six months ago in December …
Posted on in IT Management
The trend today is for increased information technology management in corporate strategies. This is a sign of the importance companies now place on the role of information technology in corporate success. Originally, information technology was seen as a way to save money. At first information technology was used to improve …
Posted on in IT Management
Strategic planning is a subset of the strategic management process. Strategic management is a four-phase process. These phases are situation analysis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. The process is cyclical, and once the evaluation phase is complete, it is time to reanalyze the situation. Strategic planning specifically relates …
