Category Archives: Technology

50 Years Ago Today Russia Took Us One Step Closer to Inter-Planetary Supply Management

But we still aren’t there yet!

I know I keep ranting and raving about this, but considering that 51 years ago General Dynamics told us that a mission to Mars could be launched in 1975, and yet, we still haven’t gone beyond the moon, it is more than a little disheartening. But then what can one expect when the budget allocated to NASA in 1971 was less than one half of the budget in 1966 and NASA’s funding dropped from 4.41% of the federal budget to 1.61% in a mere five years, and has been on the decline since. (By 1975 it was under 1% and only broke 1% three times since, reaching 1.05% in 1991, before dropping back down to 0.94% in 1994.) In comparison, the defense department consistently gets about 18% of federal spending, which is not only, relatively speaking, about 4 times the amount spent by most countries on defense but 18 times what NASA gets. (I’m not saying the US shouldn’t spend at least as much on defense as anyone else because it should even if your goal is peace as you never want to be caught with your pants down. I am saying that maybe some of that R&D research budget should be redirected to more useful pursuits. We’re running out of rare earth minerals and other raw materials here on earth. Maybe we can mine Mars and, someday, with enough advances in technology, build bio-domes that will allow us to live there as well.)

So what happened 50 years ago today? The Soviet Union launched the Voskhod 1. While the seventh manned Soviet space flight might not be a memorable one for most people, it was the first flight to carry more than one crewman into orbit, the first flight without the use of spacesuits, and the first flight to carry either an engineer or physician into outer space. It also set the manned spacecraft altitude record of 336 km (209 mi). It was another step towards GD’s goal of a manned mission to Mars … which never happened. Sigh.

Why Are There No World Class Procurement Organizations in Asia Pacific?

A recent brief by Bain on Winning With Procurement in Asia, released last December, in which they summarize the results of interviews conducted with 60 business heads and CPOs throughout Asia-Pacific, stated that while many of these business heads and CPOs report their Procurement capabilities as fair, or even good, none report their Procurement capabilities as great. Why?

According to the article, procurement teams in Asia-Pacific often
(1) lack organizational support and prominence,

(2) tend to focus on short-term activities,

(3) rely on inadequate demand management processes, and

(4) struggle with underdeveloped supply bases and insufficient core procurement processes such as category management.

In addition, they lack

(5) systematic supplier management processes,

(6) reliable data systems and

(7) strong procurement talent. Moreover, even though some companies make a point of investing in procurement talent, they fail to take the critical move of defining a clear career path for procurement professionals.

In other words, it’s the classic Triple-T Problem — a lack of talent, technology, and transition management. If we go through the list, we see that (7) is the talent problem, (6) is the technology problem, and (1) though (5) are an example of a lack of transition management.

The lack of systematic supplier management processes in (5) is a result of not transitioning to modern supplier management processes driven off of modern supplier management systems.

As a result of the lack of systematic supplier management processes, which is a direct result of poor, or nonexistent, transition management, these organizations are (4) struggling with underdeveloped supply bases and insufficient core procurement processes.

As they haven’t transitioned to newer Supply Management processes, these organizations are still suffering from (3) inadequate demand management processes.

Furthermore, as a result of not transitioning to newer Supply Management processes, with a longer term outlook, they (2) tend to focus on short term activities.

And, finally, as they have not helped the organization as a whole transition to better supply-management inspired business processes, they still have to deal with (1) a lack organizational support and prominence.

At home or abroad, good Procurement and Supply Management starts with the 3 T’s — talent, technology and transition (management). Without meeting this necessary condition, an organization will never be great.

What Idiot(s) Brought Back Infinite Scrolling Websites?

the doctor really wants to know because that (collective of) individuals should be tarred and feather!

What is the doctor ranting about now?

Back in the early days of the World Wide Web when HTML was in version 1.0, when Mosaic and Netscape ruled the web (before Microsoft released the horror called Internet Explorer upon the web), websites were relatively simple web pages that scrolled and scrolled and scrolled (as frames, which hadn’t yet been invented, were two years off and tabs further off still). CGI was still being invented (by the NCSA team) and it would be three more years before version 1.1 was formally defined (which would make dynamic web sites truly feasible and lay the framework for proper, real-time, pagination).

Then HTML, CGI, and browser technology matured and we got well structured, properly paginated, well-designed web-sites. And these got better and better over time. And for those who kept up to date, mouse-overs, drill-down menus, dynamic animations, and even time-delayed responses. And properly used, these were all good improvements (as long as you could stop the animation or sound if you didn’t want it) and made the web experience better.

But now, almost every fourth site is an infinite scrolling site, just like at the beginning of the web! And it’s driving me nuts. Once frames and pagination became common, only amateur sites were infinite scroll. Because who wants to scroll and scroll and scroll looking for the information they want? No one in their right mind!

And for those of you jumping to the defense of these sites because they’re not really infinite scroll as you can expand and collapse the page dynamically with arrows and gestures, they’re still websites on one page! And with all of the progress we’ve made over the last 20 years, it’s ridiculous. I know it’s the newest fad, but it’s pathetic. Why?

Because it represents an utter lack of imagination and innovation. And, in particular, on the part of the big web shops selling these sites.

You see, these shops stay in business not by selling new companies websites, as it doesn’t take that much time or effort to throw up a web-site for a start-up (who won’t pay much for it anyway) because it can be quickly put together with a bit of custom imagery and provided content using a plethora of free open source blog, wiki, CRM, and even social network platforms. They make money by selling existing clients maintenance services and, more importantly, regular web-site upgrades because, every year, new technology is developed and a website that isn’t continually updated to use that technology looks antiquated and possibly abandoned (which, if you are a technology company, could make you, by association, look antiquated and possibly on the decline).

So, every year or so, they have to come up with a must-need piece of technology that the web-sites of the majority of their clients must have so that they can sell upgrades and stay very profitable.

But we have reached the point where we are at an inflection point. For the last few years, there have been no revolutionary new developments in web technology, just evolutionary ones, and we have reached the point where most technology solution providers have very modern, extremely powerful, web-sites and don’t need complete overhauls, just minor, regular maintenance. This is not very profitable, so these web site development companies need to either develop a new innovation, or, like a traditional consulting company when their business and attention is on the decline, come up with a new gimmick to get more work and increase their profit margin. And in this case, this is undeniably 100% gimmick. And, by definition, a 100% rip-off to their clients who, for the most part, probably already had great sites that just needed a little graphic touch-up, a slightly-streamlined information flow, and a little bit more social media technology.

But even though I said otherwise, from a sales and marketing perspective, it is very imaginative — because it’s netting these web development companies not just one, but two — that’s right — two website upgrades. You see, just like in the early days of the web, it’s not going to take long before people realize that the infinite scrolling (web) site is the most annoying development to hit the web since … wait for it … the first infinite scrolling (web) site two decades ago! Once the web realizes en-masse that it was insanely stupid to bring back the infinite scrolling web-site, these web development companies will get an overload of web-site redesign requests for something … anything … better.

And for this as well, they deserve to be tarred and feathered. Technology is about evolution and revolution, not devolution. the doctor‘s gears have really been ground to the point where he wants to go on TV and complain like Peter Griffin.

… And 65 Years Ago Today …

George Orwell published 1984.  He was 30 years too soon in his prediction of when technology would reach the point where omnipresent government surveillance, public manipulation, and a perpetual war (on terror) would be possible, but he was dead on in his predictions of what would be possible … 

10 Mistakes You Make When You Try To Build a Private Cloud

VentureBeat recently ran a great article on 5 Mistakes You’re Making When You Try to Build a Private Cloud that did a great job of covering 5 mistakes you make, but why stop there? SI can easily come up with 10 mistakes, more if it gives the issue a second thought. So, since some of you still don’t believe that The Cloud is Filled with Hail, let’s review the VentureBeat 5 and throw 5 more into the mix to see if that’s enough to convince you that The Cloud is Not a Magic Mirror — especially when you take a do-it-yourself approach!

VentureBeat’s 5 Mistakes of a Private Cloud are:

1. You believe the cloud will solve all your problems.

With so many vendors touting it, you believe that a cloud must be the answer, so why not control your own? There are a host of reasons, including those that will be discussed in response to the other wrong assumptions, but the most important thing to remember is that not all applications are good candidates for the cloud. Applications that are intermittent, that run full tilt, or that spike unexpectedly are not always good cloud candidates — public or private.

2. You think everyone will automatically love the idea.

You keep hearing that clouds bring agility, adaptability, and actionable data — so you think that you can convince everyone else to fall in love with the cloud too because you believe that these are reasons to fall in love with the cloud. A cloud is as adaptable as the software that drives it, as actionable as the data you can get into it, and as agile as your organization — if it takes 3 months to get a product to market using the best processes you can come up with, it takes 3 months to get that product to market — cloud or no cloud.

3. You think it’s cool.

Clouds aren’t cool (although the rain they bring may cool you off). And unless you are in the business of selling “cool” technology (i.e. private clouds to suckers who buy private clouds), the last thing you should be basing a business decision on is the “cool” factor. You buy technology to solve your problems, not because it’s cool.

4. You think you will succeed in boiling the ocean.

A private cloud is a huge IT project similar to trying to replace 3 ERPs across your global organization that have been entrenched for 10 years across 3 continents in one fell swoop while trying to add 4 modules you never had before. It’s like trying to boil the ocean with a single giant magnifying glass — brave, maybe even visionary, but ultimately stupid.

5. You think your plan will fit the organization.

The typical private cloud relies on converged infrastructure (CI) stacks which break down the typical organization walls of application teams, server teams, network teams, and storage teams. How many Global 3000 organizations have one single version of the truth across the enterprise? Maybe the few dozen organizations that successfully achieved enterprise wide deployments of SAP and Oracle?

That’s just the beginning. Here are 5 more mistakes courtesy of SI:

6. You think a private cloud will be cheaper than a public cloud.

You might think that a cloud is a fluffy magic box that can be obtained with a handful of magic beans that you can get by trading a simple cow, but that’s about as far from reality as you can get. Clouds require hardware, software, dedicated network connectivity, and power. Lots of power. You will need backup generators in addition to a wall of UPS units (to keep the machines humming until the generators kick in), multiple fibre connections, racks of machines and storage area networks, and a lot of specialized software. And, instead of sharing the cost, you get to pay for it all — as well as the staff to build it and maintain it 100% — 24/7/365.

7. You think all modern technology was built for the cloud.

A lot of software is, but not all — and chances are that a lot of the software you are using, even if still under maintenance, was not built for the cloud. So, you’ll have to update your current software and migrate your current data stores while you are at it.

8. You think it is the best way to interact with your trading partners and the private clouds you wrongly assume they have.

The cloud is connective, but only if it is shared. Otherwise, it’s just one massive local area network that needs to talk with other massive local area networks used by your trading partners. Clouds don’t create connectivity – data interchange standards do, and you don’t need clouds for that!

9. You think you can secure it better than the experts.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho.
It’s off to work we go!
We block the ports and tune the firewall
In our ‘Net the whole day through
We block the ports and tune the firewall
It’s what we like to do
It ain’t no trick
To lock down quick
If ya block the port
With a sniffer on a ‘NIC
In the ‘Net …

And you can block every port, patch every firewall, and sniff every ‘NIC, but the reality is, your network is only as secure as the weakest link — which is probably the software you’re using and the ports you need to have open. Which you don’t know how to protect because your IT staff is struggling to patch your firewall, scan the ports, and upgrade SSL before the heartbleed bug bleeds you dry of your corporate secrets. When it comes to security, you need true security experts — and you’re not going to have them in house.

10. You think the cloud can actually be secured.

The only way to truly secure a network is to unplug it. So if you think you have a hope in Hades of securing your private cloud …