The Village View

Oootsourcing done right?

2009-05-07T10:28:00.003-04:00

Being a good Manhattanite, I'm a ZipCar member/customer. Just had to call customer service because I had an outstanding balance (hey, it's call "float" - learned this thanks to my fancy MBA).

Anyway, I just called the customer support line and a very friendly woman answered the phone and helped me quite quickly. Turns out she's in
North Sydney, Nova Scotia.... that's in Canada folks. It was really a great customer service experience. When's the last time you said that? Certainly, I don't feel that way about most calls that are answered by outsource/offshored call centers. Last time I had a call with my bank or credit card company...miserable; tech support....forget it. But none of those was in Canada.

Now, I don't know what they're paying her up there, but I imagine it's cheaper than the States and that's why they're doing it. And the experience was better than call centers in other offshore locales.

Canada, people, you heard it here first!

NYC Emergency alert text/email system seen lacking

2009-04-27T11:54:00.004-04:00

It appears that Air Force One was buzzing around lower Manhattan and northern NJ this morning as part of a photo op. Problem is, lots of folks in that part of the City hadn't heard about the exercise and got worried.

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Check out this video and listen to what the woman says.

New York City is piloting something called "Notify NYC" which is described as "a new service designed to enhance the delivery of emergency information to the public." Problem is that according to the Times, the "text messages and e-mail messages explaining the flyover were sent out at 10:38 a.m., after the exercise was already scheduled to end. "

EIU Global Outlook 2009 - what a downer

2009-03-04T11:44:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I attend the Economist Intelligence Unit event "Global Outlook 2009: What lies ahead for the global economy." Below are a few notes based on diligent typing by my colleague Jeff Winter. The comments by the speaker were interesting. However, combining yesterday's talk with the book I'm currently reading ("Contagion: The Financial Epidemic That is Sweeping the Global Economy... and How to Protect Yourself from It")is really bumming me out. Oh, and don't even ask me what I bought Citibank at. :(

Summary

Government action has been significant

Slump will bottom out in late 2009, with meaningful growth in 2010-11

There are opportunities

Cheap assets

Some industries will do well: Health, basic foods, education, infrastructure

How long will the recession last?

No guarantees, of course, but this quarter may be the bottom, next quarter a touch better, and modest recovery begins towards end of year (Bernanke agrees)

No meaningful recovery until 2010-11

FYI – EIU is suspicion of US predictions of 4% GDP growth in Obama's budget

Housing is key. When housing prices recover, so will the economy

US, UK Japan expected to decline 2.5 – 5% GDP in 2009

Very aggressive stimulus across the globe (US stimulus is 5.7% of GDP; China’s is approaching 15%!)

Interesting facts

Global recession - First time since 1930s that total global output contracts

Banks will take longer than rest of economy to recover (balance sheet adjustments take years to fix)

Housing pricing are falling at an accelerating rate for 21 months (i.e. each month, prices are falling at a faster rate the month before)

Consumer spending is 70% of US economy…recovery won’t happened until consumers return > savings rate has sky-rocketed, hindering recovery

Three crises, feeding on themselves

Financial crisis – leverage, bank write-downs, credit freeze

Developed world recession – withdrawal of credit, spending and investment decline

Emerging market crunch – significant drop, but emerging markets still growing (e.g. China @6% GDP)

- I asked a follow up question about outlook for Mexico/Brazil. Didn't get as much expansion on this subject as I would like. However, Mexico with it's severe dependency on the US is likely going to get hit harder than Brazil. He thought Brazil's financial sector was in relatively decent shape.

Two groups

Debtor nations – have to sell assets to pay down debt…prevents recovery (Uh, this is us, er US)

Creditor nations – have no export markets

China

Vulnerability potential…Note – this is NOT a prediction, but rather a risk

Slower growth > production slows > workers idled / layoffs > profits squeezed > bad loans increase (much borrowing from China) > banks struggle (similar to US?) > SOCIAL UNREST

Japan

Back in recession…GDP contracted 12% n Q4! 5.5% contraction predicted for 2009

Japan’s biggest issue is lack of export markets

Risk of deflation – Japan more like Germany than US

Emerging markets

Hurting, but better than off than developed nations

Three issues

Reduced exports

Less inward investment from rich nations (FDI)

More difficult for indebted nations to borrow

Europe

Full blown crisis

UK hit hardest

Industrial production and housing market

How are businesses reacting?

Strategic acquisitions (if you have money, assets are cheap)

Increased response to key accounts is by far #1 response in survey

Much more focus on risk – organizationally, more reports, investments

Off-shoring – China and India still most popular place

Help Charlie's sister find a job

2009-02-27T09:55:00.003-05:00

Charlie Wood is an Austin, TX-based entrepreneur and fellow Enterprise Irregular blogger. After his sister got laid off, he came up with an interesting experiment to help her out (inspired in part by his going back to school to get a degree in Economics).

...when I learned that my sister Martha had just been laid off from her tech writer/editor position at Freescale here in Austin, I saw her job search as an opportunity cost problem.She's already begun her search for a similar position here in town and will undoubtedly find something suitable. But there's an opportunity cost for the time she spends searching (and not earning).It occurred to me that she would come out ahead if she could pay to reduce that amount of time as long as her out-of-pocket cost was less than the opportunity cost of the time saved....

The first person to lead her to the job she winds up taking gets $500. Specifically, she's looking for a full-time technical writer or editor job in the Austin area. She's held similar roles at companies as diverse as ichat, HP, and Freescale, and is exceptionally smart and very professional.

Please email your job leads to martha.wood.jobs@gmail.com

Does Cloud Computing Mean More Risks to Privacy?

2009-02-24T14:43:00.002-05:00

Interesting NY Times article on privacy with regards to information/data you may store in the cloud. For me this would currently mean mostly Gmail and Facebook, but loads of folks are using Google Docs.

I generally regard my Gmail differently than my work emails (which I know don't belong to me and assume anything written there will someday come to light). According to this article, maybe I should change the way I feel about Gmail too:

a government investigator, or even a lawyer in a civil lawsuit, can get access to records by simply using a subpoena rather than a search warrant, which requires more scrutiny by a court.

The article refers to a World Privacy Forum report that states: “Don’t put anything in the cloud you wouldn’t want a competitor, your government or another government to see.”

"Don't put anything???" Wow and I was mainly just worried about those pictures of over exuberance in college and bad fashion choices in high school.

SAP Buys PasS Vendor Coghead's Intellectual Property

2009-02-23T10:39:00.002-05:00

No commentary, just a few facts from a news report (below) and then some other bloggers' takes (er, below that).

SAP AG has bought the rights to the intellectual property of Coghead Inc., a vendor of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) tools that is in the process of shutting down....Coghead is one of numerous vendors, both large and small, that have developed PaaS tools — cousins of software-as-a-service applications that can be used to create cloud-based apps. Coghead's PaaS offering provides a visual editing environment, workflow and integration tools and a database, along with an underlying computing infrastructure provided through Amazon.com Inc.'s Elastic Compute Cloud.

Coté was interviewed and cited in the Computerworld article:

Coghead's technology is a good fit for SAP, having been a popular PaaS option among the community of SAP developers, according to Michael Coté, an analyst at consulting firm RedMonk. In addition, SAP's venture capital arm invested in Coghead two years ago, a move that "sort of blessed" the PaaS vendor's technology for use by SAP developers," Coté said.

He noted that there also is a "thriving subculture" of SAP developers who are interested in using emerging technologies. One example, Coté said, is the Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment, a Twitter-like messaging service being developed by SAP community members.

SAP Acquires Coghead Assets - NY Times

Coghead customers left high and dry despite SAP acquisition - ComputerWeekly.com

Bloggers

The Future of Cloud Computing in Plain English

2009-02-19T13:10:00.003-05:00

After yesterday's post, some of you may think that I just sit around in my office throwing wooden shoes into the loom. However, today, I listened to a Goldman Sachs conference call titled, "The Future of Cloud Computing." My expectations are generally pretty low for these kinds of things, but I found both the structured part of the call and the Q&A to very informative. The guest speakers were Chris Barbin, CEO, Appirio and Billy Marshall, Founder, rPath. When I say the call was good, I mean that Chris and Billy had quite interesting and informative things to say and I learned something. After the call I found Billy's blog, and on it this video "Cloud Computing in Plain English." While I wouldn't describe it as "pretend like your explaining it to your parents" level, it does give a pretty straightforward explanation of rPath's view on the terms "Cloud," "Virtualization," and "Saas." There's a bit on the difference between Cloud and Saas which you may or may not agree with. I'd encourage you to check it out.

Tweet this: Sage innovates without Web 2.0

2009-02-18T10:07:00.002-05:00

The supposed talking heads of enterprise software often complain that there's little "innovation" any more in the industry. I've never been sure what they mean by "innovation," but most recently it seems it must include an integration to the newest Web 2.0 app as a requisite. What I actually think is more useful, if not sexy or innovative, is when vendors put something out that improves the lives of a large number of users at a large number of their customers. (Man, I'm boring!). I think what Sage has done with it's CRM ACT! 11 is an example of this. (Caveat, I haven't used ACT since I was a sales guy years ago and am thus basing this on having read a few articles and imaging what this integration does). Critics (or cynics) may argue that integrating MS Outlook calendar and email functionality with a CRM system is not innovative, but I would argue that the impact of this integration on a daily user of both applications is significant. But what the hell do I know? I work at a traditional software company and I don't even Twitter!

Sage recently re-announced this integration at CeBIT in Germany this week, but I also found this article in English from last year.

[Sage][Outlook][ACT!]

SAP announces Business Suite 7

2009-02-05T16:50:00.002-05:00

There was a press conference here in the SAP New York office yesterday. Seems I was the only one who didn't wear a suit. Oops. (to be fair, I'm not on the Marketing email DL so I can plead ignorance). Anyway, SAP announced the release of the latest version of its flagship Business Suite solution, Business Suite 7. Here's a video of the event. Co-CEO Leo Apotheker speaks near the beginning, followed by SAP Board Member Jim Hagemann Snabe who lead the development of BS 7. Finally, there is a customer panel.

Here are a couple of press write ups:

Information Week - SAP Business Suite 7.0 Kills Usual Software Upgrade Process
Reuters - SAP launches biggest software upgrade in 3 years

Also, a few of the Enterprise Irregulars were here and/or blogged about it:
Larry Dignan - Is SAP really done with ’scary upgrades’ and ’sleepless night’ projects?

Dennis Howlet - SAP BusinessSuite 7: Twittery clouds?

Dennis also did some cool stuff with CoveritLive here

Vinnie Merchandani - It's a bird. It's a plane. It is BS7.

Also, in response to a question from Vinnie during the Q&A there were some interesting comments from Fortune 500 execs on the iPhone in the enterprise.

[SAP] [Business Suite] [BS7]

Remember where you were 23 years ago?

2009-01-28T10:36:00.002-05:00

I distinctly remember where I was 23 years ago today when I learned the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded on lift-off. Growing up in the town closet to the Kennedy Space Center, almost everyone had some sort of connection to NASA. Usually, we would have a "fire-drill" around launches so that all students could go outside and watch. However, by the time January 1986 rolled around, Space Shuttle launches were so common that we weren't released for the Challenger launch. I'll never forget the principal making the announcement over the PA.

President Reagan spoke later that day:

“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and ’slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”

New blog from New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn

2009-01-13T14:25:00.003-05:00

These are banner days for the New York City government when it comes to blogging. Yesterday, I posted about the city granting press credentials to bloggers (granted after they had filed a lawsuit) and today comes this from the NY Times:

...Ms. Gotbaum [Betsy Gotbaum, New York City’s public advocate] posted an item taking note of a new blog, the Red Room Blog, by the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn. The blog takes its name from the ceremonial ground-floor room in the east wing of City Hall, where Ms. Quinn makes official announcements, often before the Council meets in its ornate chamber upstairs.

Read Ms. Gotbaum's views on blogging and government officials. Hopefully, it will come to pass.

[New York City][blogging]

New York City issues bloggers press badges

2009-01-12T14:16:00.003-05:00

SAP has long been a leader in engaging the blogging community (Jeff Nolan got things rolling and Mike Prosceno has been running with ball for the last several years). It's good to see that my fair city of New York has gotten into the act finally.

"Three bloggers who had sued New York City after the Police Department denied them press credentials because they work for online or nontraditional news outlets were issued credentials on Friday after the police relented..."

(I was originally going to title this post "NYPD catches up with SAP," but thought that perhaps that that might be misinterpreted).

[New York City]

SAP panel and Charlie Rose interview with Leo Apotheker & Andrew McAfee

2009-01-07T13:50:00.003-05:00

SAP did an event for the press here in the West Village (New York) office in November. Here's a synopsis, plus the link to the webcast replay:

On Friday, November 21, 2008, leading IT, business, and government experts joined SAP co-CEO Léo Apotheker in a panel discussion in New York, sharing research and insights into IT strategies and investments for lean economic times.

Moderated by AMR Chief Research Officer Bruce Richardson, the panel also included Harvard Business School professor Andrew McAfee and IT consumers, including the secretary of administration for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the CIO of Joerns Healthcare.

Webcast replay

Afterwards, Leo and Andrew appeared on Charlie Rose. A couple of bullet points of random items that I pulled out of the talk in somewhat chronological order:

Charlie asks Leo to explain what business software is
Andrew speaks to the benefit of integrated software across an enterprise
Leo talks to why a competitor can't beat SAP just by hiring away all its developers
Andres gives a basic definition/explanation of Cloud Computing (we couldn't leave this out, now could we?)
Leo on how business will change over the next 5 years
Charlie: "is everything going to be Open Source software?" Andrew: "No, but we don't exactly know where that boundary is."
Leo discusses SAP and Open Source software
Andrew talks about the coming ideas that he thinks will be important in IT
Charlie asks Leo what business SAP could be in in 10 years that they are not in now. Leo: "Maybe, we could even be in hardware, it depends.... probably not making them [computers] but shipping complete appliances..."

Charlie Rose replay

[SAP] [Charlie Rose]

Recent news articles on SAP

2009-01-05T10:07:00.003-05:00

First off, Happy New Year to my readers (both of you).

I've noticed that SAP has been in the news quite a bit lately. To save you exhausting Google searches, I've compiled a few here. No need to thank me, but click on my Google ads; I'm trying to beat the $5.53 I made in '08. I don't think 7 bucks is out of the question for '09.

The other transition

At the end of the month, Léo Apotheker will take over as SAP AG CEO. He's been co-CEO for the better part of 2008 along with Henning Kagermann, but now will become the sole CEO although Henning is staying on until the middle of this year. This article was particularly interesting to me because it gives a bit of personal biographical information on Leo. Everybody always talks about the fluency in 5 languages, but I was unaware of some of the rest of the details.

"Die Welt hat viel zu sehr auf Pump gelebt"

This is from an interview with SAP co-founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hasso Plattner and roughly translates as "The world lived too much on credit."

This is a great opportunity to practice your German.

SAP and FSC speed SMB apps
SAP and Fujitsu Siemens Computers next year will start to sell pre-packaged servers, designed as a fast-start application set pre-tested and pre-configured for midsize companies in the manufacturing, wholesale and services industries. The integrated bundle will include SAP’s All-in-One ERP system hosted on a Primergy RX300 S4 rack, along with a version of SAP MaxDB database running on the SUSE Enterprise Linux operating system from Novell.

BI Software integrates data from multiple sources (press release)
Business Objects announced the next version of BusinessObjects BI OnDemand software. BI OnDemand is a complete suite of BI capabilities, including a data warehouse, delivered on-demand. Two key innovations in BI OnDemand help customers create and manage data warehouses in the cloud more quickly and flexibly, making sure business users receive the most current reporting and analytics information. First, the new content creation and development capabilities help customers to ensure that data from both on-demand and "on-premise" applications is quickly available to business users. Second, the BI OnDemand accelerator for Salesforce CRM enables customers to build a data warehouse with massive amounts of Salesforce data and prepare it for reporting and analytics - reducing the implementation time from weeks to days.

[SAP] [Business Objects] [Fujitsu Siemens]

Florida, the Next Hotbed of Venture Capital?

2008-12-29T09:27:00.004-05:00

My mom is way ahead of the New York Times. For years, she has been sending me any piece (however small) of news about venture capital and Central Florida. Her motives are beyond purely making sure I'm up-to-date on the latest technology investment news; she's on a mission to get me to move back to my home state (for those of you interested I'm a native of Titusville. What you haven't heard of it???) Problem is, I'm a high tech guy (mostly software) and Florida is a hard sell career-wise. There is certainly some activity as well as groups/companies doing interesting things. I had the chance a few years ago to meet with the nice folks from the UCF Technology Incubator. Also, I met with a few folks from an Orlando VC firm when they were in New York.

Mom had actually sent me notice of the launch of the Florida Opportunity Fund a couple of weeks ago. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on venture capital and entrepreneurship in Florida. For selfish reasons, I hope the money helps to further develop local software companies. That way I could someday come home (and stop paying New York income taxes!)

The state of Florida wants to tap into the billions of venture capital dollars invested in young companies each year. It is seeking venture capital funds in which to invest money from the $29.5 million Florida Opportunity Fund, established by the state to funnel more venture capital to Florida start-ups.

The fund will look for regional and national venture capital funds that have done business in Florida and plan to invest in young Florida companies, particularly those developed at Florida universities and research institutions. Then, the fund will invest portions of its $29.5 million in those funds, with the goal of creating and growing Florida businesses.

By the way: how did I miss that BI vendor Pentaho was Orlando based? I spent the last year working in SAP's Business Objects unit so I should have known this. (I could get to their office in 45 minutes from my folks' house).

[Florida][Venture Capital][Florida Opportunity Fund][Pentaho]

Cloture this!

2008-12-18T14:37:00.003-05:00

Ok, so some may think that we Americans had a spirited debate about free trade during our recent election, but we ain't got nuthin' on the S. Koreans. Holy Cow, look at these pics (from the New York Times) of the opposition party guys crawling up the wall, literally. And I thought the House of Commons backbenchers on CSPAN were roudy.

The parliamentary battle over a contentious free trade deal in South Korea led to a confrontation on Thursday in which opposition lawmakers used a sledgehammer to knock down the doors of a blockaded room in which a committee was discussing the agreement.

Enlarge This Image

Kim Ju-seong/Yonhap, via Reuters

Members of the opposition party were sprayed with fire extinguishers from inside as they tried to enter a parliamentary committee room.

Television footage showed fire extinguishers being sprayed at the opposition lawmakers trying to get into the room . At least one person was shown bleeding from the face

Time to join a startup? - An academic exercise

2008-12-16T14:09:00.004-05:00

I know a few folks who have left large(r) firms to join (existing) startups recently. I posed the question of if this is really a good time to join a startup to my fellow Enterprise Irregulars because of the amount of both startup and large company experience in that group (Note: please don't read anything into this question, it's an academic question only on my part. I should repeat this in German just so there's no misunderstanding at HQ: Ich bin mit meinem Job sehr zufrieden, danke).

Folks have come down on both sides of the question. Bob Warfield, who has considerable startup experience, comes down on the "pro" side:

This is a great time to join or found a startup. Why? Because a bad recession is like a treadmill EKG for companies, and especially for small companies. It puts everything under so much stress that when you see a consistent source of good news, you know that company is strong. In good times, the rising tide lifts all ships. How do you know whether that sock puppet selling dog food on the Internet is really a good idea, or just the product of the Bubble? There are no sock puppet opportunities that do well in a bad economy.

Charlie Wood, who runs his own company AND is now a college student again, takes another view:

I would say that doing that [working for an existing start up] would be the worst of both worlds: you still have only one customer for your services, so your livelihood hangs by a thread. And since they're a startup, presumably they have less wherewithal to withstand the financial storm than does an established company. Worse yet, they may have VC's on their board telling them to "do the right thing for the company" and lay people off as a knee-jerk response to any bad news. And the news these days is mostly bad.

The follow-on points made by the group about what to look for in a start-up (if one were to ignore Charlie's advice) were the salient points that I had neglected to raise. The idea that came through loudest to me, and not surprising, is the question of funding. Now more than ever it's important to have funding to last you (probably a year or more) as well as to consider the source of that funding. The quality of the team came across to me as the next highest consideration (the funding then team order strikes me as perhaps reversed from more "normal" times). Other considerations raised were if the startup is, or is close, to being cashflow positive and how pasionate you are about the product/idea.

I have to admit that current times probably make me a bit more risk adverse then normal (maybe that's because I had a "going down in flames" startup experience during the Internet bubble). However, I'd be curious to hear from you if you have, or are considering joining a startup and understand what the thought process is. It's often interesting to see how different folks react to disruptive times differently.

Ingres Database Achieves Certified Integration With SAP NetWeaver Technology Platform

2008-12-10T16:53:00.002-05:00

By my count that means SAP NetWeaver supports the following databases:

Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, SAP MaxDB, and now Ingress DB.

Ingres Corporation ... today announced that Ingres Database 9.2, a leading open source database for business critical applications, is now certified for integration with the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform.

[SAP][Ingres][NetWeaver]

Baseshield

2008-12-04T14:54:00.004-05:00

Just heard about this company today. Must admit it's not a space I know well, but it does seem interesting. Here's how it gets described:

BaseShield, takes a new look at how to run applications on Windows by running them securely within a virtualization "sandbox". This "sandbox" means that BaseShield gives applications access to only the parts of the computer they need to operate. Text editors can only access text files. Image editors can only access images.

Again, not an area I know well, but it sounds a bit like what I do when I open a virtual machine with Citrix. Another analogy that comes to mind would be what Chrome does with a browser tab in that if one tab crashes the others don't. I may be way off.

Today Baseshield announced an app store of sorts (this was why I got the heads-up):

BaseShield's other main innovation is the creation of a true application marketplace that gives users one-stop access to all kinds of software, from word processors to games. Each app can be run with one click. While all of their apps are currently free, BaseShield will be releasing a payment system that will enable developers to charge for using their apps in exchange for a share of the revenue.

Seems similar to AppExchange in that 3rd parties can list their apps and folks can download (and hopefully buy) them. Some of the currently available apps are: Inkscape (open-source version of Adobe Illustrator),
AbiWord (word processor), Celestia ("like Google Earth for the universe"),
Frets On Fire (Guitar Hero clone), Mozilla Sunbird (calendar application), Audacity (audio editing software), PokerTH (poker game)

I wish Baseshield well with the app store; from the limited stories I've heard from those developing for AppExchange, the major benefit has been a marketing effect, not a ton of revenue.

[Baseshield]

SAP releases Sustainability report

2008-12-03T11:09:00.004-05:00

Steve Mann blogged about this first, so I'm really just copying him. As Steve mentioned, SAP is the No. 1 company in the software industry on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

If you want to tell SAP which issues of sustainability are of most importance to SAP's future success, you can complete a Sustainability Stakeholder Survey here.

Here's some more coverage from ZDnet and some related sustainability articles:

Green Marketing—First Steps and Footprints

IT Policy Can Spur Economic Growth, Industry Says

HP Unveils ‘Green IT Action Plan’

[SAP] [Sustainability]

Two signs Web 2.0 has gone mainstream

2008-05-16T17:14:00.002-04:00

I've meant to post about this for a while, but then again I've meant to just post at all for a while: In the last two weeks I've gotten notices about two fairly mainstream organizations that I am was affiliated with introducing their new Web 2.0 functionality.

I got this one about two weeks ago:

Introducing RSS and Social Bookmarking

New services make it easier to subscribe to and share Quarterly articles.

When you subscribe to our McKinsey Quarterly RSS feed, you receive personalized headlines with summaries and links to our articles on mckinseyquarterly.com. Once you create a feed, you will be provided with a custom URL to view your feed, as well as an easy way to add the feed to your own news reader, such as My Yahoo! or Google Reader.

Click here to create your personalized Quarterly feed.

Social Bookmarking is a way to share and discuss Quarterly articles with a larger community. The Share tool integrates Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, and Newsvine into our article and abstract pages.

Today, I got this from my b school:

Today, we are proud to launch the School’s new social networking application. It will bring our community closer together, changing the way we communicate and share ideas, information, and interests with each other. In addition to offering improved access to the School’s distinguished alumni network, the application will enable you to more fully explore and utilize the breadth and depth of knowledge, experience, and opportunities made available not only by your fellow alumni, but also by current faculty and students.

By integrating existing directory information with job postings, industry-standard technologies such as Picasa™, Flickr™, and YouTube™, Columbia Business School-specific articles and content, and other rich social networking features, your connection to the School and to the people who make it the extraordinary place that it is will be constantly enhanced.

We encourage you to stay connected. To get started, log into www.gsb.columbia.edu/alumni.

I see this as a sign that RSS, Social Networking and tagging is going mainstream. For some of you that read this blog (and I think there are 3 or 4 of you left) you're probably saying, "no sh&t Crofton," but I'd bet if you ask the majority of the folks on the street, and certainly the majority over 35, if they know what RSS, Social Networking, tagging etc are, they'd say no. Admittedly, Columbia and McKinsey are not great signs of what's happening on Main Street, but the fact that they're offering their alumni/readers these tools is a surely a sign of the mainstreaming of the these technologies.

I'm admittedly more intrigued about the CBS "social networking application" (really? that's the name? world class marketing dept and that's what we come up with?) then I am about tagging my favorite Quarterly articles. I'm wondering if folks will really upload their info to yet another social networking site. My sense is that given that's it's the business school and the focus is on the network, that this thing is going to be as exciting as LinkedIn. Not saying that LinkedIn isn't useful, but I don't really think of it as a social networking application as much as a good way of keeping track of were former colleagues and classmates now work. I'll likely upload my info at some point. right after I get writing my next post.

[McKinsey Quarterly][Columbia Business School][Social Networking][RSS][Columbia Social Networking]

New versions of SAP GRC solutions

2008-04-08T10:22:00.002-04:00

SAP announced new versions of several Governance, Risk & Compliance solutions at the recent GRC2008 conference. (the conference itself was very good by the way. I had the opportunity to co-present the Jumpstart day as well as an EPM/GRC presentation with our partner Protiviti). Hope that folks don't take this as blatant shilling, but these are the solutions that I spend my days (and nights/weekends) talking about. There's a link to the press release, but here are a couple of things that I personally think are cool:

SAP GRC Access Control 5.3

This is SAP's Segregation of Duties management solution. Originally part of the Virsa acquisition, SAP has released several versions and enhancements in the last couple of years. For those who think that SAP only focuses on SAP ERP customers, note that this version brings more provisioning functionality to Oracle, JDE and Peoplesoft customers.

SAP GRC Process Control 2.5

SAP's internal controls management solution, Process Control along with Access Control can be used to automate SOX compliance.
This solutions allows for testing and monitoring of both manual and automatic controls.

SAP GRC Risk Management

This solution is based on the tool that SAP uses internally in its own Enterprise Risk Management program.
This version has integration to SAP Strategy Management thus bringing together Enterprise Performance Management and GRC.

SAP GRC Global Trade Services 7.2

New integration between SAP GRC GTS and the SAP Environmental, Health, and Safety (EH&S)
Expanded certifications for country-specific processes

[SAP] [SAP GRC] [GRC] [Virsa] [Access Control] [Process Control]
[GTS] [Risk Management]

Please let me do business with you

2008-03-17T08:15:00.002-04:00

I'm writing this, my first post in exactly two months, from Amtrak's Acela Express train on route to Philadelphia (I'm actually heading to SAP's Newtown Square US HQ). I'm a big fan of the Acela and to a large degree of Amtrak. Fairly high level of service and especially so given its quasi-governmental status.

I'm not feeling so warm-and-fuzzy about Citibank given a recent experience. As background, I've been a Citibank customer for over 10 years and have two checking and one savings account with them. I've had personal loans and other accounts in the past. Admittedly, I have very modest sums deposited with them. However, recently I've been wanting to open a brokerage account. (I'd like to lose just enough money picking individual stocks to re-confirm my hypothesis that I should be just buying index funds).

But I digress. Point is, I call up Citibank to inquire about how to open a brokerage account, how much per trade, if there is an annual fee etc. Now I just didn't call because I like the sound of my own voice, but rather because I couldn't find this information on Citi's website. It seemed I had to have a "financial advisor" or somebody similar call me. Uh, it's a brokerage account to buy a few stocks, not a wealth management relationship. So I called. A nice gentlemen who sounded like he might actually be located in this country explained to me that the information I sought was not online. Furthermore, I couldn't open an account online or over the phone, but he'd be happy to send me the paperwork. When I asked if he could email it, he replied that the material was actually mailed, which I understand is some arcane form of communication that involves dead trees. He was nice enough, but unable to help me. At the same time, I had Fidelity's web page up. There was the information I needed online and a link to open an account. Oh, and there was no account fee and the commission was cheaper.

So, what's the deal? Does Citibank have inefficient processes? Are they not savvy enough to have the information on the website (weird as they have won awards for their online banking site)? Or, are they trying to get younger customers to self-select away from their brokerage accounts because they likely have less money under management? Whatever the answer, I know have a new brokerage account and it's not with Citi. However, this non-Citi account has just one long position. In a bit of irony, guess what the first "buy" I initiated today was? C

[Citibank]

Estonia's hi-tech "embassy"

2008-01-17T20:31:00.000-05:00

Worked from home today so I listened to NPR (does that make me a New York Liberal?) while answering emails. Two stories on Estonia and technology on today. The first one is about Estonia opening a technology Embassy in Silicon Valley. (more here).

The Enterprise Estonia Technology Embassy will open up new investment opportunities to the Silicon Valley/Bay Area region and bring in an infusion of new ideas and technology talent.

I have a good friend from Estonia and have visited there so this is of special interest to me. What is particularly interesting and found in the 2nd NPR story here is that Estonia doesn't suffer from a brain drain as do many other small countries. That was according to Skype manager Sten Tamkivi. Also, the country is incredibly wired and Internet savvy: 98 percent of banking transactions made electronically; 80 percent plus of income tax filings by individual citizens were filed electronically.

[Estonia]

Jeff Nolan's new role at NewsGator

2008-01-17T20:20:00.001-05:00

My old boss Jeff Nolan has an expanded role at NewsGator. He's going to be running their SaaS business.

NewsGator's SaaS business, which encompasses the company's syndication and data services offerings, today has more than 50 media and online publishing customers, including USA Today, Media General, Discovery Channel and CNN. Using NewsGator's Widget Framework, underlying content network and editorial tools, these customers are able to extend their content and brands while positively impacting important online metrics that enhance their economics.

His new employees are lucky as he's a great boss. "Low key" and "hands off" are the ways I would describe his management style. As long as you get your work done on time and it is of a high quality you've got no problems and nobody riding your back. Just watch out if you've got an MBA as you'll likely to be referred as an "MBA monkey." However, you'll probably learn more working for Jeff then you did during your MBA so it's a small price to pay.

[Jeff Nolan][NewsGator]