Local governments are now eagerly discussing how to utilize information and communications technology (ICT) investment to advance their economic development plans. Topic awareness has increased, and yet total  comprehension and plan execution is still a work in progress. Regardless, we’ve seen notable progress.

Back in 1997 I managed the public sector account teams for US West in the state of Arizona. It was my responsibility to understand and support the ICT needs and wants of our local government, education and public safety customers.

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Tags: 2011, broadband, economic development, execution, market research, planning

A few weeks ago, I was asked to give a short speech on social media. “You have 8 minutes”, they told me. I scratched my head. I have so much to say! How am I going to do this in 8 minutes? I don’t know any more if it was Top Chef or Cake Boss that suddenly triggered a thought in my head. Social media is just like cooking or baking. Your dish tastes best when you pick the right ingredients, add the right quantities, mix them together at the right time and see the process through. “That’s it”, I shouted with excitement, “I’m going to talk about the “must have” ingredients of social media”. Here are some of the takeaways from the 8-minute version I came up with (condensed version):

Educate and enable your employees. Education and enablement are on-going activities that need to be constantly reassessed to reflect and cater towards participants’ level(s) of social maturity.    Read More »

Tags: engagement, investment, people, planning, social media, strategy

Very often, technology decisions occur because something broke, or perhaps because something has become so outdated or so difficult to manage that replacement of the offending product is the only way to avoid employee insurrection. But if your company’s technology decisions are solely made during such a state of emergency, then you’ve been missing the boat when it comes to getting the most out of your IT investment.

This is tantamount to driving your car and making left or right turns based solely on traffic conditions and then seeing where you end up at the end of the day. Not necessarily a bad thing if you’re just exploring the area, but it’s not exactly a business class response focused on expense control and profitability in a competitive environment.

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Tags: channel, IT, planning, purchasing, reseller, VAR