A Pragmatic Approach to Rapid Innovation & Silos

An organization’s Silo Systems can provide a basis for rapid innovation or a quick way to get nowhere. Right now, before going any further, I’ll tell you the key to success; balance. Lean too much toward the silos and you’ll quickly find your organization developing little “quick & dirty” applications to glue them together. Lean too much toward integration and the organization will set sail without you.

Meeting the demands of a rapidly changing business is very difficult for an Information Systems group. Proper design and implementation takes a great deal of time and discipline in a variety of competencies. Market pressures demand that an IS organization develop an integrated products and services platform whereby innovation is continuous and compounding.

To withstand this innovation rate, we look to silos.

Bringo

Marcin didn't have to email me this...as soon as I saw this service released, I forwarded to all of our board members since their time is precious.

Dear Igor,

I saw your blog, and thought you might be interested in a project we have been working on called NoPhoneTrees.com. Our mission is to help users skip phone trees and connect with a real human on the customer support phone lines at many companies throughout the U.S. Users simply choose the company they wish to call, and we'll dial the company directly, navigate their phone tree, and call them back when they are in queue for an operator or customer service representative. The service is available for free, and we've gotten some great feedback so far.

We are in the middle of doing a soft beta launch, and we are trying to get early feedback to refine the site before we publicize the site more broadly. Recently we had a great coverage of our service on Techcrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/15/bringo-phone-tree-killer-this-is-a-genuinely-useful-service/#comments ) and I would like to as if it is possible that you could mention about our website on your blog? We are looking for larger audience who could test our technology and provide us with feedback. Of course, I am very curious to hear your personal opinion as well!

Regards,

Marcin Musiolik
NoPhoneTrees.com

How Big Blue Became Linux's Best Friend

"When open-source developers and IBM took gambles on each other, free software showed it can flourish in the heartland of corporate computing." This is chapter 7 (free sample, so to speak) of a book on Linux and free software's rise to fame and use in the corporate world.

Stellar 'O' or bad 'D'?

Not all Jablokov's are purely cerebral! ;-)

The first mistake helped put West Chester ahead. The Rams took the opening kickoff, drove to the ESU 44-yard line and were stopped. Punter Anthony Belasco kicked a surprising line drive that bounced off of the Warriors' Michael Wiggins for a fumble, which West Chester's Nicholai Jablokov recovered.

For Opera, smaller really is better

Håkon Wium Lie must feel a special kinship with the "Band of Brothers" soliloquy that Shakespeare reserves for Henry V.
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," the king proclaims before his men head into battle.

With all of Microsoft's riches and power behind it, Internet Explorer has dominated the Web browser market since Netscape's defeat in the late 1990s. But as CTO of Opera Software, Wium Lie's job is to figure out how to incorporate the best technology possible in his company's software--and in this, he's stolen a beat on Opera's much bigger rival.

Dinners dovetail with the locales, themes of operas

Consider this "fabulous" post my contribution to community service... Now may I please get back to work? ;-)

In a fine example of something I wish Charlotte did a lot more of, Opera Carolina and a handful of area restaurants are creating immersion opportunities: Dinners coordinated with opera themes to really let you get the taste of a place, in preparation for experiencing the opera set there.

IBM and Xing team up for high-end wireless karaoke controller

No way that the combined might of the entire tech industry has enough toys to make me be in tune. :-P Is this what you guys work on now that I'm gone? ;-)

IBM and Xing have joined forces to help solve this problem, and came up with the Kyoku NAVIs and NAVI II wireless controllers, which allow you to search through thousands of songs right from the device, without having to lug out those lame songbooks. The device can operate in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English, and can even be used to order food and drinks from the bar while you're busy singing your heart out to top 40 hits of the 80's and 90's. The controllers are WiFi based, and can search the IBM-powered song databases in all sorts of nifty ways.

IBM Collab Chief: Stay Tuned For Better Mac Support

My MacBook is waiting patiently for this...

IBM Software will soon offer a better Macintosh client for Notes and is working on delivering Mac fidelity for that collaboration client.

The current beta for the Notes client will be on par featurewise with the Notes Windows client, said Mike Rhodin, general manager of IBM's Workplace, Portal and Collaboration group, aka the IBM/Lotus group.

Wii Opera Browser Free Until June 2007

This could make for an interesting browsing session together with their new 3d controller...

Following confirmation by Nintendo earlier this month that its upcoming Wii console will feature an internet channel, giving full web browsing access via the Opera web browser for an additional cost, Opera Software today announced more details on the service, including confirmation that the browser will be free of charge for all Wii users until June 2007.