Archive for June, 2008

URGENT: Now Is The Time To Move Jobs If You Think You Are S**t Hot!

We’re in recession - it’s a golden opportunity! If you are master in your craft industry then don’t wait for the recession to end, now is the time to move. This advice might seem counter-intuitive because in hard times it’s natural to want to feel secure in your organization, and certainly take advantage of any severance [...]

How IT Leaders Can Get The Most Out Of Developers

I am not going to take credit for all of this post… I was inspired by Esther Schindler ’s article on CIO.COM titled ‘Managing and Motivating Developers: Tips for Management Cluefulness .’ The subject is close to my heart as over the last 8 years I’ve been doing exactly that. I’d also say that Esther’s [...]

Are you a Technical Professional? How to find out

For a bit of fun I posted some behaviors exhibited by people who classify themselves as geeks, and invited you to see how you compared. So this time it’s a list of behaviors exhibited by Technical Professionals - techies who take themselves a bit more seriously.
If you say Yes to more than 3 of these [...]

Technical Professionals acting on Social Responsibility

Example: With a worldwide energy crisis in full effect, IT is coming under pressure to be more socially responsible: what is your response ?
The $64,000 question is how responsible you feel towards the social implications of energy consumption? Do you care if data centers are burning more energy in a day than a town does? [...]

10 More Tips for Aspiring Execs…

If you’re an aspiring CIO or CTO then you have to keep on your game CONSTANTLY . But it isn’t always about being clever. It’s about doing a number of simple things well, and continuously.
I post a number of articles about career progression from the shop floor to the board room table, and below is [...]

Are you a Geek? How to find out

Are you a Geek? If you do three or more of the following, then the answer is Yes!

You spend more time automating something than you ever would performing the task manually
You buy t-shirts for their comedy value
You store binaries on your iPod
You have more categories on your iPod than you do tracks
You hack your iPod
You [...]

Don’t try and be Clever, Stupid: Using language for the layman

Do you sometimes get blank stares when discussing IT matters with the business? Or maybe you get push-back on changes you want made, but the push-back is non-specific or seems irrational? Well maybe the reason is because you’ve lost your audience in your use of language. I come across situations very frequently where this is the [...]

‘Secrets’ of Top-Notch Business Analysts

The title references a post on the CIO.COM website back in May this year. The article in question is called ‘Six Secrets of Top-Notch Business Analysts’ written by Thomas Wailgum. I’m looking at this specifically to basically challenge why the six behaviors described in the article are referred to as ’secrets’. To me, they look [...]

15 Blunders to Avoid when Implementing BPM

I’m on a bit of a roll with BPM (Business Process Management) at the moment and here is a list of 15 blunders you really should avoid when on a BPM initiative. BPM initiatives seem to be initiated in many of the organizations I talk to - it’s a hot topic. Vendors and consultants will [...]

Newsflash! New Look to SimonStapleton.com!

Let’s face it, my site looked crap until yesterday. Dull, boring, and grey!
Well after some great feedback from Paul Piotrowski’s blog InspiredMoneyMaker.com (you can see the review of my blog here ) I made the changes I’d been thinking about for ages and JFDI’d them.
So I’ve now got a new theme and a new look! [...]