Size Matters
Size matters. But not in the way you would expect.
Traditionally, big organizations would engage big organizations to be their suppliers. They could afford the extra premiums that the larger organizations charge as a burden of their size and overhead cost structures and it was a "safe" thing to do. Today there is nothing "safe" about business and even big organizations need to watch costs… just look at recent headlines.
If you are engaging with a vendor for something like software development, size matters… but bigger is not necessarily better.
Large suppliers have some pretty decent talent in their organizations. It would be […]
Pay It Forward
What if every single day, everyone did something extra (outside of your normal roles) to make someone else's world a better place?
What if every single day, your business did something extra to make the world a little better?
Yes, we are all in business to make money. Yes, everyone is busy enough in their own lives.
But ultimately how we live our lives is just as important as how far up the ladder we get. And you never know, someday you may return to the bottom… and just maybe, someone will try to make your life a little better.
Risk Diversity – Eggs in One Basket
From the previous post I did on Investment Risk one might conclude that it’s best to invest all your efforts in one venture, one big potential payoff. But there is risk to having all your eggs in one basket… what happens if the basket drops?
A number of years back I read a good book on investing and in it they covered investment diversity. Basically the premise is that you should find and invest in good companies with solid management teams. Finding these companies requires time and effort. But after finding them, the work doesn’t end there. You need to […]
Investment Risk
What is a better investment:
- Investing $1 million to make $10 million, or
-
Investing $30,000 to make $50,000?
Certainly, $1 million is way bigger than $30,000. Let's say for the sake of argument that you have both sums of money to invest and your spouse will not kill you for doing so. Also assume that you are an entrepreneur and will have a significant influence in the outcome of both scenarios, i.e. similar chance of a positive outcome.
Worst case you could loose it all, $1 million or $30,000. Best case you would earn $9 million or $20,000.
I think it's pretty obvious that if you are going […]
Planning Tomorrow’s Workforce Today
Understanding demographic changes in your workforce is important these days. Every year your existing workforce gets a year older, a year closer to retirement. Competition for your talent is increasing every day and employee turnover is often increasing to match.
You can set-up and run a number of reports on your current demographic mix. Based on these reports you can easily do some rough predications on retirements and terminations over the short term. It will take some effort but it’s possible.
Adding in new entrants then complicates the predictions as they will impact both terminations and over the longer term, retirements. […]
Leadership under Pressure
A while back I wrote a short piece on Fortune Telling.
Well hindsight says the negative forecast was more correct. Stock markets are plunging due to the sub-prime meltdown and other factors, the price of oil is dropping, real estate prices are dropping, there is a federal election in Canada, and a presidential race in the US.
Uncertainty is the word of the day for businesses.
It’s at times like these that leadership is truly tested. It’s easy to be a leader during good times. Everything you do is likely to turn out ok… even going with the crowd works.
During uncertainty, stress […]
Workforce Solutions for Today
(or What's Been Keeping Me Busy!)
What if you could predict the future without error? What if there was a solution that could solve all your workforce issues?
In actual fact, there is no way to fully predict the future. Neither can any one solution solve all your workforce issues.
Let’s face it, if it were that easy Human Resources (HR) professionals would not be necessary to the strategic and operational success of an organization. They would be providing administrative and clerical functions only. Attracting, training, motivating and retaining employees are an age old issues that are actually getting more complex, not […]
Crazy Summer
Over the summer period I've been especially busy both at work and personally. Posts have slowed down a bit but I expect to get back into a more regular schedule moving forward.
I find that as I am thinking about new things and reflecting on old things, writing down some of the thoughts really clarifies and reinforces the lessons. This makes it even more important to me to continue the process.
P.S. Thanks for dropping by and having a read.
Persistence with NHibernate
A while back I wrote a review on persistence ignorance presented by James Kovacs and I thought I would give a quick update of what has happened since then.
Last week we held a Sunwapta Professional Development Day for our developers. The morning covered the theory and the afternoon we broke into two teams and built two aspects of a simple application to reinforce the learning.
Recently we implemented the technology in a real project, a .NET desktop application also using WPF.
Mission (learning and implementing NHibernate in a real project) accomplished and hats off to the team (on taking this first step).
Development […]
While America Aged
The three stories told in the book (“While America Aged” by Roger Lowenstein) reminds me of the classic tales of a man selling his soul to the devil in return for riches and power. When the devil returns after the contract period to collect his “new” soul, the man desperately tries to avoid the fate he agreed to.
The first story is about General Motors (GM). As the unions became more powerful and smart, they demanded “future” benefits instead of large immediate pay increases. These future benefits included pension plans, health plans and retiree health plans. GM was always desperate to […]