Mobile ad numbers up

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20023371-37.html
What do you know, it seems some people actually do click on those ads on various apps. Maybe they are like me and hit the link on accident when trying to click on another link. But this shows that there is money to be made, even in the smaller less flashy smart phone apps. Advertising has followed technology, from newspapers which in their current form may not last 10 years to websites to smart phones. This story is also about the continuing iPhone/Driod battle for smart phone supremacy. iPhone has been the leader, but Droid has outpaced it, what does Apple do now. This battle will be fun to watch as it unfolds over the next few years, especially with Microsoft unveiling the Windows 7 phone. In the end, the market will decide what product is the best.

Vendor Selection

I think one of the key things when choosing a vendor for a company is that vendor's history. What has that vendor done in the past, how have they worked with their past clients. In that case it may be best to contact those clients to gather information about the working relationship. Even if this is a brand new company trying to get its first contract, make contact with people who have worked with them before to see how they worked with clients. It does not matter if they have the same culture or personality as their clients, what matters is can they get the job done.

Costs should be the number two concern, will you get what you pay for, again contact with that vendor's other clients can help with deciding if it is worth working with that vendor. Now it could be helpful when looking at other clients that have a similar culture to your own, but again, I don't believe culture is important. I would actually be concerned with a company that is trying to work with me based on similar cultures, what are they hiding about their work?

Outsourcing an issue in areas besides technology

Outsourcing has emerged as a contentious issue in the past decade. When someone says "outsourcing" when referring to a job, almost everybody thinks of some type of technology job going to Asia, particularly India. But outsourcing is more than just technology, but it is just as controversial. This past week, Qantas Airways had an engine blow up on one of its planes in Singapore, fortunately the plane safely landed and everyone survived. But now a mechanics union is questioning the airline's decision to outsource maintenance.

I would venture to guess that this, just like any IT outsourcing, has its problems if not done correctly. First off, is this something that should be outsourced. I would argue that no company should outsource its core service, for Qantas that would be flying people. Is maintenance of its aircraft a part of that core competencey? Maybe. If planes are crashing people won't fly that airline. Is there a company that can do a better job maintaining aircraft letting Qantas focus on customer service? Possibly.

In the end, I think if outsourcing is handled properly and the correct business functions are outsourced, then it works for everyone involved. Even people who may loose their jobs can benefit if they look for the right opportunities. Also, look at competitors and learn lessons from their failures or successes. If Qantas continues to have troubles, then maybe a different airline takes another approach to cutting costs. If an IT company has problems outsourcing, another company may step in and claim to be able to do a better job. The people who can be most innovative in an outsourcing world will have the chance to be most successful.

Elections and technology

This Tuesday is an election day, and regardless of your political leaning, go out and vote.

Just as technology has changed business, it has changed politics. We have seen candidates able to increase their profile using technology. I consider myself to be a bit of a political junkie, I vote in as many elections as I can, not just the big ones. And I can do all the necessary research needed without leaving my house. I can research candidates using their websites, I actually will not vote for a candidate who does not have a website, kind of sad. I see what various groups have to say when it comes to things like amendments and propositions. All the information is at my fingertips.

Not only that, people can connect to other politically like minded people via the web. Websites like moveon.org and DailyKos appeal to liberal leaning voters, while I suspect the Tea Party has been helped with use of the web. Even this medium, the blog, has had an impact on politics, remember CBS News and Dan Rather being caught by a blog in 2004? Look at President Obama, I would argue he rewrote how to campaign in today's technology infused world. If I recall correctly, Hillary Clinton first announced she was running for President using a website, not a press conference. There have been many instances and there will be many more, of political candidates using technology to get in office.

Apple loosing its edge?

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/apples-share-run-up-may-have-run-out-of-gas/19686880/

It seems Apple is in some trouble, it is loosing its competitive edge to Google and the Droid phone in sales and now apps. (Note: the writer of this blog may have some bias since I am a Droid user and thus far like it) Google is smoothing out some of the problems with its apps, is available on a wide variety of phones (that has its good and bad points), and Apple does not have any new products on the horizon. Somehow, someway I did not see the Apple hype lasting and figured there would be new competitors in the market, see Google and Microsoft. It seems Apple really must make a decision about where it wants to go as a company, does it stay with its core offerings that have put it where it is, or does it try and diversify its phone opperating system to multiple phones, the way Google has.

Tech Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Ok, so that may be a slightly cheesy title, but considering how much influence and power Microsoft holds in the IT world, it could be an empire of sorts, and in this case the rebels are Apple and Google.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6905PY20101002

Microsoft is entering the smart phone market against Droid and iPhone with a Windows 7 phone. There was once a time when one only bought a Mac computer if you wanted to use it for graphic design and Google was just a search engine. Now Microsoft is trying to launch a counter attack against the success of these two companies with a smart phone software of its own.

What is interesting about this story is how Microsoft fell behind and let its competition gain a strategic advantage in the smart phone market. Not only is this an important IT lesson, but also a business lesson. In today's world, companies that want to be successful have to be innovative and stay ahead of the competition, or else you will be left behind trying to catch up. Now one wonders if Microsoft will be able to compete against these phones without anything innovative of its own. It will not have an exclusive carrier like iPhone and Dorid will be available on the same phones. As someone who uses Droid, I would see no reason to switch, and I doubt anyone else has a real reason to do so as well.

It just amazes me how fast the IT industy can change when a company fails to be innovative.

Additional Providian Trust thoughts

This past week I presented on the Providian Trust case where an old company had to install new technology. This, along with the class discussion on the case got me thinking about a few things. As someone who worked in the healthcare industry I can see where problems arose with the implementation of the new technology with the older employees. There were nurses and therapists who worked for our hospital who had been doing their job for a long time, and were very good at it, but did not use technology on a daily basis.

At one point it was decided that the therapists, and a few other areas, would stop filling out billing forms and giving them to the business office, where I worked, and would input the data themselves. In theory this was a good idea, but this was taking these people away from what they did best and dealing with a program that had problems of its own. Not surprisingly, several problems emerged, but the plan was eventually implemented and as far as I know, it was successful to an extent. I did hear that problems still arose though because these were people whose job has never involved a computer, and as far as I can tell, the core job will never be a computer based job.

So the question the is asked: "Is it always a good idea to add more technology to a job?" In both the hospital and at Providian I would say that there was a need for it. But was it the best thing to do? At Providian they obviously had problems that needed to be addressed, and it was felt that those problems could be fixed with technology. We never did find out the end result of the project at Providian, as there is nothing out there on the web about them other than the case study. But in the hospital, I would grade the implementation a success but would not have done it if I was in charge. In my opinion it is not always the best thing to take a person who has a good skill (such as nursing, therapy, etc.) and assume they can do anything and everything with technology as well as they do nursing. All we did was add another layer of stress to a job that is already stressful at times.

I think when you take someone out of their core competency within the work place problems can arise. Instead I think it is best for a company when you have people talented in different areas working together. Then everybody can be the most successful at their job. In our case at the hospital, we should have let the nurses and therapists continue to just fill out the paperwork and let the people who knew the billing program best, deal with it.