Incremax Technologies

URLyGRL.com is proud to bring to your attention that our esteemed and hardworking colleague in the software architecture and leadership domain has recently joined New York's business-focused technology consultancy, Incremax.

Incremax Technologies: "Incremax Taps Top Talent to Lead Microsoft Information Productivity Practice Management
Industry Veteran Expands Incremax Expertise With Microsoft SharePoint Leadership - 5/2007

New York, USA – May 15, 2007 – Incremax, a trusted and business-savvy technology consultancy of Microsoft product solutions announces the appointment of Jean-Pierre Seibel as Practice Director, Information Productivity & Collaboration. In addition, Jean-Pierre becomes a member of the Incremax management team and instrumental to the development of cross-segment and industry specific technology solution offerings that span Advanced Infrastructure, Information Productivity and Business Intelligence."

Having known Mr. Seibel from the infancy of his technology career, I can offer that you are in safe hands. Jean-Pierre Seibel is a technologist you can trust, both personally and with your business.

All the best, Mr. Seibel in your new career with Incremax!

Becoming a Manager ? Managing Technical Documentation

I came across this tasty blog this morning and checked out an excerpt of the authors pending book, Becoming a Manager. He manages documentation and teaches others about managing documentation, but you may infer, it's about a lot more than that. I see a reflection of people, process, and technology, so I thought I would pass it along! (Thanks Mr. Hamilton for publishing your blog!.) --Kate

Becoming a Manager ? Managing Technical Documentation: "My biases are reasonably conventional. I believe in light-weight processes, but thorough planning. I believe in treating writers like adult human beings, who in nearly every case know how to do their jobs better than I do. I believe in hiring the smartest and hardest working people I can find. I believe the most important function of a manager is to set up an environment where writers can be productive; an environment where writers are respected, given the tools they need, shielded from interference from the corporation and its managers (including me), and left alone to do their jobs."

Business Process Management (BPM) - Selecting the Best Method for Process Baselining

Business Process Improvement (BPI)

Baselining the business process may be done with subject matter experts, business analyst 1-on-1 interviews, by group collaboration, or a combination. Below, the Business Process Management institute highlights the collaborative effort. By following the link tot he article, an additional table of pros and cons is provided.

Business Process Management (BPM) - Selecting the Best Method for Process Baselining: "Group Collaboration

Group collaboration involves bringing a group of 8-15 subject matter experts together with a skilled facilitator to build the process baseline. The facilitator may be the Project Manager, Quality Lead or an external resource. The key is that they are proficient in leading a group to build the necessary process models. An experienced facilitator will also be able to serve as a neutral process guide, manage group dynamics, surface discrepancies and bring them to resolution, and track outstanding issues."

Pros of group collaboration are clear - immediate discussion and agreement may be reached, brainstorming is enhanced, and joint ownership of what's happening and what's missed.

Cons, in addition to potential lack of detail or issue, include high simultaneous resource involvement, additional planning and advance scheduling, as well as limited processes that can be handled at one session:

High resource involvement. 8 to 15 people will be focused on this, and only this, effort for 1 to 3 days.

Additional planning required. Holding a collaborative group working session requires a clear understanding of the scope of the processes involved so that the necessary players can be identified. Early scheduling must occur so that all parties are available to participate and rooms are reserved.

Limited to no more that 5 processes. Attempting to baseline more than 5 processes over 3 days isn’t feasible. There are ways to mitigate this limit – breakout groups or blending methods – but regardless there will be a limit for how much the brain can handle.

Techniques

Watch for disagreement. Pay attention to any side comments, facial expressions and actions. People may disagree with what’s being said but not want to speak up. Draw them out by asking what their experience has been for a particular task. By focusing on their experience or how they would handle a situation, creating a right, wrong or confrontational atmosphere can be avoided. People may be concerned with giving the ‘wrong answer’ and getting in trouble especially if they are concerned that their job will be eliminated. Be aware of the group dynamics and adjust your approach accordingly. If you sense information is being withheld or manipulated, set up another meeting with the individual.

Send questions out ahead of time. This will prevent people from feeling put on the spot and allow them to think through their answers to provide more accurate and detailed information. Ask them to bring samples of forms and other documents used.

Be respectful of people’s time. Control the flow of the meeting by having well-prepared questions, ensuring you have the right participants, and keeping people on target but allowing them to fully answer the question. Follow the rules for an effective meeting.

Use real scenarios. Make some of your questions in the form of scenarios and document how it would be handled. This may include demonstrating the tools used to complete the process. Ask for copies of training material or user manuals.

Process improvement: A Case Study in Revenue Generation Process Improvement

By: Sherri Adame, Senior Business Systems Analyst, Baxter Healthcare
Monday November 7, 2005

The case study identified a five-step plan was created:

• Identify the difficult business process
• Determine process improvements
• Identify and assign process owners
• Implement quick hits to improve processes
• Develop a plan for continuing process review

Business Process Analysis Versus Business Process Management, from Technology Evaluation Centers - Business White Papers, Webcasts and Case Studies -

Business process engineers should assist the masses in clarifying between Business Process Management, Business Process Analysis, and related concepts.

Business Process Analysis Versus Business Process Management, from Technology Evaluation Centers - Business White Papers, Webcasts and Case Studies - BNET.com: "Overview: Talking to end users reveals that there is confusion in the market regarding Business Process Analysis (BPA) and Business Process Management (BPM) suites. Vendors use the term BPM in a very broad way, but what are really the differences between BPA and BPM, and where does BPM come from?"

On Business Process Discovery, from BPM.com:

Business Process Management (BPM) is rapidly growing and becoming the technology for modeling, optimizing and automating business processes. A number of research reports and customer case studies have shown that BPM yields impressive bottom-line and top-line benefits to organizations trying to compete in a global economy. More.

Last August, BPM.com author Johnny Long wrote a two part series on a sometimes related topic, modernizing legacy applications.. discussions of business rules, automating conversion processes, and key components to legacy conversions:

Substantial automation of the process makes legacy transformation an economically attractive and low risk proposition compared to other modernization options such as rewriting or replacing the legacy application. Additionally some of the legacy code should not be converted because it may be obsolete or irrelevant to the modernized solution. An automated extraction process enables the organization to better understand unknown or poorly documented processes, as well as simplify complex logic constructs that have likely been developed over several years and by several developers.

One of the biggest challenges in a renewal exercise is to translate potentially meaningless code into well understood business terms. A key success actor to a legacy renewal project is to reorganize and rename the legacy components into meaningful business terms very early in the process. The translation of the legacy components can be conducted around a better understood component and data structure, thus significantly speeding the process.

Automation of the code extraction process significantly reduces the time and cost of identifying and documenting valuable business rules locked inside legacy code, enabling organizations to reuse their own intellectual property. Automating the conversion process reduces the risks of legacy code conversion by minimizing errors and reducing the resources needed for the modernization effort.

Another common phrase: BPI, or Business Process Improvement. You've done it many times, now see it organized in a book:

Business Process Improvement Workbook
H. James Harrington, K.C. Esseling, H. Van Nimwegen
Synopsis: This hands-on implementation guide is a companion and update to Harrington's "Business Process Improvement". It focuses on upgrading information distribution paths to optimize the many processes with which they come into contact. Featuring lists, charts and appendices, this workbook explains how to document a company's processes, analyze current effectiveness, design new processes and use system enablers.

CertMag.com Certification Road Maps: Managing Your Career Path

Aim High

Career Path Development

CertMag.com Certification Road Maps: Managing Your Career Path: "Career Transition 3: Enterprise-Wide Perspectives
The path to CIO or CTO is a culmination of hard work, integrity, passion for the profession, confidence and discipline. Those who choose to aim for these positions are generally well rewarded. In a recent survey in Baseline Magazine, 23 CIOs made $1 million or more last year. This demonstrates just how critical they are in today’s organizations. For these IT leaders, what’s needed is strong business acumen, excellent understanding of the company’s business and an ability to build strong relationships with the other CXO-level executives."

In 2004 I took the broad view and assessed business process across one division's IT oganization and facilitated the chosen business management controls and reporting functions as required by Sarbanes Oxley compliance initiatives.

In 2005, I delved deep into business requirements for producing significant time in the business process by upgrading key technology. Later I took a hands on look at wide area networks and detailed them under a microsocope.

This led me in 2006 to setting up the business process for gathering key information architecture assessing how business data traverses the enterprise. This was a key initiative blending infrastructure detail with business process engineering and project management. Initial milestones were reach successfully.

2007 leverages the last few years. I will tell you more when the time comes.

Best regards for advancement and victory in the year to come. May everyone recognize that the best success comes when every one succeeds together.

--Kate

CertMag.com Certification Road Maps: Managing Your Career Path

Career Path Development

Aim High

CertMag.com Certification Road Maps: Managing Your Career Path: "Career Transition 3: Enterprise-Wide Perspectives
The path to CIO or CTO is a culmination of hard work, integrity, passion for the profession, confidence and discipline. Those who choose to aim for these positions are generally well rewarded. In a recent survey in Baseline Magazine, 23 CIOs made $1 million or more last year. This demonstrates just how critical they are in today’s organizations. For these IT leaders, what’s needed is strong business acumen, excellent understanding of the company’s business and an ability to build strong relationships with the other CXO-level executives."

In 2004 I took the broad view and assessed business process across one division's IT oganization and facilitated the chosen business management controls and reporting functions as required by Sarbanes Oxley compliance initiatives.

In 2005, I delved deep into business requirements for producing significant time in the business process by upgrading key technology. Later I took a hands on look at wide area networks and detailed them under a microsocope.

This led me in 2006 to setting up the business process for gathering key information architecture assessing how business data traverses the enterprise. This was a key initiative blending infrastructure detail with business process engineering and project management. Initial milestones were reach successfully.

2007 leverages the last few years. I will tell you more when the time comes.

Best regards for advancement and victory in the year to come. May everyone recognize that the best success comes when every one succeeds together.

--Kate

10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack ? HRA - Jill Whalen

Author and mentor Jill Whalen of HighRankings.com has provided a list of Top 10 signs that your SEO is a Quack. As a person who's been around the web since iVillage was in it's infancy, search engine sites came from data mining programs, and ICQ had only 6 digits in their Messenger ids, I would have thought I'd know a lot about search engine optimization (seo) even though I haven't been on the SEM bandwagon doing anything of the sort professionally in the past couple of years.

However, I am pleased to see that I agree with all of Jill's points and I do not believe I am making any huge faux pas (other than mis-spelling French-american words ;-)

I would like to highlight Ms. Whalen's Top 10 Signs:

1. SEO and SEM is a combination of many good practices


2. Use unique title tags on each page of a site


3. Use meta tags to aid searching, but do not fret.


4. Do update content and pages on a site on a regular basis, but be patient on search engine appearance.


5. Consider your site architecture carefully as well as file naming schemas. What do your news and article archives look like? Might a bot find and identify them readily?


6. Link about. But don't buy something you don't need. If you aren't sure what you need, or not sure of what your vendor is telling you, consider how much research backed the opinion and get a second, informed opinion if possible.


7. Keep yourself and your team in the know. State of the art culture, trends, technologies, and best practices are easy to monitor. If your team has specialties, consider publishing each researcher's blog on the corporate intranet. Sharig the wealth means getting buy in from business sponsors. Your experts are still the experts.

10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack ? HRA - Jill Whalen: "7. Your SEO company never mentions that they may very well need to redo your site architecture so that your important pages are prominently featured within your site navigation. In this case it’s very possible you’re dealing with an inexperienced, quack SEO. This is usually something that is not a quick fix, so most quacks are reluctant to discuss it with you (if they even know it’s important). But if your site architecture is not search-engine-ready, everything else you do will have much less impact."

I would add that it's not nexessary to be gimicky or throw too many blinking, animated, or flash advertisements on a website. Be discreet. Find the happy balance between giving out "eyes" to your sponsors and keeping your customers. Read about.com lately? I for one am mildly annoyed that my eye has to follow a crotchety path around large advertisements! (Speaking of About.com, remember that data mining site I mentioned? there it is!)

Have a great day!
Kate
60 degrees in CT

CareerJournal | When You Work to Live And Your Boss Lives to Work

Managing Work-Related Stress

CareerJournal | When You Work to Live And Your Boss Lives to Work: "'Stress is most often created by events that are uncontrollable and unpredictable,' says Dr. Worchel. 'The stress is coming from the fact that she doesn't know when these special meetings will happen or when she'll have to stay later for work. There's a lot of unpredictability there. She doesn't know how to control it.'

To your boss, say something like, 'I'm uncomfortable with the way things are. I'm missing meetings and I have a great deal of conflict whether to leave at the appointed time or stay for an hour. Can we talk about it?'

During this conversation, your feelings about him not having a life outside work are not relevant. Nor is the time you need to pick up your daughter. You should not pit your personal problems against someone else's unless you are a guest on 'Divorce Court.' The troubles created by flexible time are the real issue. Why you have that schedule is immaterial."

Business Process Management; Marketing & eBusiness

Kate A: "Summary

Project Lead with over 18 years Information Systems,

specializing in Business Process Analysis and Design;

Cross-divisional coordination and collaborative approach to solutions"

Directions to MIT Sloan School of Management

The Center for Women and Enterprise and CSAIL, the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, for the 2006 Access to Capital Forum.

Directions to MIT Sloan School of Management: "From the West (I-90) (Mass Turnpike)
Follow I-90 east to the Cambridge/Brighton exit (exit 18). Following the signs to Cambridge, cross the River Street Bridge, and continue straight about 1 mile to Central Square. Turn right onto Massachusetts Avenue and follow Massachusetts Avenue for about a half mile. Take a left onto Vassar Street (before the main entrance to MIT). Follow it into Kendall Square, which is adjacent to the MIT Sloan campus."

IT Consultants See Drop-Off in Rates - Tech & IT Job Resources from Monster.com

Good morning!

If you'll notice, these consultants are still making a decent dollar.

IT Consultants See Drop-Off in Rates - Tech & IT Job Resources from Monster.com: "# Among consultants reporting their rates for the survey, the median rate dropped 14 percent from $78 per hour in 2002 to $67 an hour in 2003.

# Rates were flat when comparing consultants' current contracts with their previous contracts. Exceptions were manufacturing (a 7 percent decrease) and government (a 4 percent increase).

# While 22 percent of consultants reporting in 2002 earned more than $100 per hour, only 14 percent now report such rates, and most of those rates, Ruhl says, 'tend to be mostly closer to $100 than the $150 typical a year before.'"

5 Steps to Choosing the Right BPM Suite - FindTech Insights

5 Steps to Choosing the Right BPM Suite - FindTech Insights: "The more mature BPM products no longer offer just simple workflow enhancements, but also graphical process design, process automation, and process monitoring and reporting capabilities. This author offers a five-step process for selecting BPM software. The most helpful step, by far, is number two, which includes a detailed list of features she deems 'essential' and a number of advanced capabilities."

Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0

Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0: "Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0
Basic Guidelines
W3C Working Draft 18 May 2006"

Instead of worrying too much about browser wars (I trust the browser developers are doing their parts to come together finally)I would say it is much more important now to think about porting pages to multiple devices.

In part based on a great chat with the owner of Invisible Gold yesterday, and in part after surfing past articles such as A La's Browser section

Code Does your content travel well? Can your design and functionality survive from one platform to another, one browser to another, one configuration to another? Web standards and testing methods are included in this topic.

I realized it's not which browser that matters, but that which browser doesn't matter. Which application doesn't matter.

If you aren't sure what I mean, take this story from my 20s. I had a generally very well meaning roommate who once erred by suggesting to my mother that since she had a difinitive opnion, and I didn't, then her opinion should rule.

I can't believe how accurately that little tale prevails here! *chuckle*

Personally, I want to make my own sites available via web TV and PDAs. I never used either myself much, but those I plan with and want to share things with do. A friend of the family tries to use MySpace.com to send and receive messages, and most of the time the sites double over on themselves, rendered useless. Personally I think MySpace is a GREAT way for musicians to introduce themselves to the masses, but even on a standard 17" monitor at a decent resolution, myspace sometimes has adds that overpower user navigation. (Not that I'd want to pay for myspace, so I value the adds, but it should ALWAYS be obvious how to check a message. It shouldn't take 10 minutes to figure out what to click. So, I sya, imagine the auntie on WebTv trying to contact her college neice!

(Thanks Tom of MySpace for whatever you can do. If you want help setting up a call for requriements, call me. I'll call my7 cohorts, and we'll do dinner.)

So back to CSS. One of the beauties of CSS is that you can create a single print file that defines headers, footers, font size, and for-print font faces, and use it for all of your websites, regardless of purpose.

Now it's time to make pages portable to PDAs and email. How would YOU do that?

Kate

enherent Corp. Attends Sapphire(R) '06 Conference @ SYS-CON Media

News from Windsor

enherent Corp. Attends Sapphire(R) '06 Conference @ SYS-CON Media: "NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 06/02/06 -- enherent Corp. (OTCBB: ENHT), www.enherent.com (the 'Company') recently attended Sapphire? '06 where SAP and IBM announced a global agreement to offer midsize enterprises more seamless integration between solutions. http://www.crm2day.com/news/crm/118696.php.

The new agreement will allow IBM and its Business Partners to focus on the wholesale distribution, life sciences, industrial machinery and construction, and food and beverage distribution industries, delivering comprehensive, end-to-end solutions that address these customers' specific business problems."

WITI - Boston - Meeting

WITI - Boston - Meeting

WITI Boston
Regional Network Event
Monday, June 5, 2006
5:30-8:30 PM

Space is limited; we encourage pre-registration to guarantee admission.

Creating Inclusive Opportunities: Winning Business at Large Corporations

Learn how to build relationships. Get the big picture and meet executives from IBM, Raytheon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and State Street Bank. Connect with some of the most up-and-coming entrepreneurial business owners from our region. "

URLyGrl.com

URLyGrl.com: "Blurbs

Listen to your heart.
The work will take care of itself."

--Kate