IndyMac Bank

A few years ago I was hired by IndyMac Bank as a Senior Business Analyst Consultant to find potential “breaks” throughout its computing system.

The priority recommendation from the internal team and I was to realign their data storage by moving two thousand data computers off an earthquake fault zone along with other efficiency recommendations.

The executive manager rejected these recommendations saying all she wanted was to cut time for borrowers to fill out mortgage applications, bypassing safeguards for rapid approval. I left the bank.

Recently I read that 100% of their mortgage loans were sub-prime and the bank was taken over by the FDIC.

I recall seeing on CSPAN in 2000 a financial bill sponsored by Senator Phil Graham which established an “Enron loophole” in the banking lending practices, deregulating safeguards for market stability and creating the bundling of sub-prime and prime loans for sale to other financial institutions.

President Clinton signed that bill setting the stage for the financial mortgage meltdown we have now. Senator McCain has stated that Phil Graham would have a prominent place in his cabinet. Phil Graham has a lot of experience. Can we survive the consequences of the experience he has demonstrated?


Lyle K'ang

CHARLES SCHWAB

ASPEN UNIVERSITY

Charles Schwab

Author: Lyle K'ang (c) 2008, March

A paper written on February 17th 2004, include the following (3) three courses and essay's.

In 2008 - what has changed besides the year - the procedures still work and the subjects more relevant than yesteryear.

Emerging Technologies; Business Ethics; eBusiness

ESSAY #1; EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Emerging technologies that have helped Schwab run its emerging.platform of storefronts and Internet presence and other potential technologies are numerous.

In order, to improve upon decision making, in the Executive ranks for corporate vision, mission, and efficiency capabilities, including outward and internal cooperation and big picture views (corporation and global), Schwab has to implement an updated customer relationship. Amongst the in-house brokers, customer service representatives, including investment, and plan (401K) managers, infrastructure technology budgets require that their perspective budgets increase to enable infrastructure to meet its customer base expectations because of competition activity from outside through other competing Internet and storefront brokerage firms.

Infrastructure costs, and its financial design, and the technology architectural revamping, including main-frame assessments,and the methodology of processing transactions need infrastructure refinement and in some cases, total change to be competitive. In order to be competitive, further streamlining of infrastructures from a total over-view requires teaming with cross-functional groups and executive buy-in. Project management, processes internal to Schwab, surely would require innovative assessment in emerging technologies, but more importantly- the ability to foster the team evolvement throughout the fact-finding process and revamping of internal processes as a portal for emerging technologies.

Once an assessment has been made with that preliminary function; the process includes
accounting and managerial finance, quantitative analysis and eBusiness structures, the
group meetings are next on the agenda for refinement and collaboration towards e-
Processes which is the e-Schwab's end-deliverable product.

Though the existing customer has at his or her disposable the separate media; phone, and web, there remains the emerging global-vision that the firm must concentrate on. The device infrastructure that will surely be an issue are already finding ways into day time trading with the young, upward-mobile generation, and these technologies have to be integrated as well as assimilated by in-house customers and employees.

Without the KM (knowledge management) of in-house processes, how is e-Schwab to know what emerging technology they are failing to capitalize on? Further more; customer metrics requiring the firm to restructure its technology infrastructure sis paramount for ease of maintenance and customer transactions. The highest value presently ingrained in the firm is the increasing cost of transactional value for the customer.It is still not refined and easy for the customer to access their account via the Web and their abilities to perform change management on their own accounts.

The diverse nature of transactions is becoming more prevalent in customer transaction
activities with the Palms, Mobile phones (M-Commerce), and other upcoming technologies. These Internet, intranet, and Extranet capable technologies are possible
because of application innovation, especially the XML applications which allow the
devices, many hand held, to download forms and view the Web browser on screen
resolutions and sizing no bigger than a match box.

Email is especially popular and must meet the need for customer retention. The present email application that the firm is using should be further interfaced as priority class so that in-house customer representatives acknowledge these emailed customer requests in a timelier manner.

There does appear to be fragmentation in e-customer support because of the applications being presently used. Applications servers, web process farms, email servers have as technological parents, the main frames and the highly non-cost effective, middleware for translation. In other words, all customer transactions in one form or another comes through the mainframe for further processing requiring vast amounts of internal or outsourced technical support. This is a costly endeavor to maintain and will not help to promote the firm as a complete e-Commerce viable company.

Furthermore, the executive cadre' technical formulations owe a lot of innovative insight capabilities to its co-CEO. His vision and technology corporate structure, as I understand it, has emerged and allowed the firm to be somewhat proactive when dealing with the Internet and its capabilities and how its external customers view this technology. Because of his past performances, his ability to ask for increased budgetary expenses will have a better chance of being allocated. The strengths will come now as this request to formulate e-Commerce teams, including project management,and IT Emerging technology teams to finally come together and express their methods of running their respective business entities for compliance to a corporate wide sponsored technology plan. The cross functional leaders and team members can now build their vision from the outside in.

Meaning the customer's methodology and way of handling transactions, inward through
the processes to the end result that these transactions now flow. It is not the end; though emerging applications, hardware and the infrastructure is in place. The requirement for a team to continue in formulation for existing on upcoming
infrastructure is as important as the new budget and its applications. With change it is certain that change it self will change.

The core transaction infrastructure and ERP (enterprise) application is that core that will make or break the firm. The CRM(customer relationship management) application has a task to perform and it's vital that these modules (AI) be designed to exacting performance metrics. These performance metrics must be met before values and certain applications go out to bid in RFP and RFQ fashion.

The most important application beside application technology and mechanical and device
infrastructure is in executive buy-in and his or her champion stamp over the entire project from beginning to sustainment- Yes! there is never an end. Moore's Law and Metcalf's explosion concerning technologies and its abilities to replicate exponentially in as little as 12to 24 months (Moore's), requires firms that do business as c1ick-n-brick,(Schwab's store-fronts) as e-Schwab, presently requires vigilance and a forever eye for future changes, innovations, and processes internal to meet the ever-changing habits of a Web enabled customer.

ESSAY #2 BUSINESS ETHICS
Schwab's hiring practices need examination in that for it to fully realize a global ethic and corporate ethos that is comparable to the best-of-breed company's, it needs to examine its HR policies concerning global business practices.

For instance, globally interfaced to its growing customer base through the Web is not a fashion but a necessity. Also, is the fact, that if the firm, through its various metrics proves that store-fronts (click-n-brick) are need to viably represent its interests in the overseas market then it cannot just hire its financial services, outsourcers, and internal employees from the San Francisco Bay area.

To foster a global company with all its internal corporate political policies and functional processes we must start from the senior management ranks and into the boardroom. These persons are there to represent the firm in their perspective roles but their other and just as important role is the abilities and understanding they themselves bring to a corporation that prefers to compete in a business structure and global environment.

The logos and core of business now has to consider the firms soul. Not as a buzz-word
that gets tossed around in everyday collaboration and interfacing, but real introspection on the part of the individual. In discovering the meaning of 'what it means' to be soul oriented, and 'who is' supposed to have this time to expose a heart and mind to examination for corporate policy, and 'when' do we practice these new found meanings that reside deep in our ethos or heart, is not up to only the firm and its policies, but the teams, groups, executives, and to an extent, the SCM (selling chain).

Wonderment via introspection and discovery on the way to becoming more global has its
rewards. From a company value, it hires the best in countries where Schwab expects to
increase its corporate branding, and financial expectations.Publishing that fact, that
ethics is demanded in the company and its subsidiaries,vendors, and suppliers, is just the preliminary activity of coming-into-the-light of practicing global ethics. Large companies in fact, have ethics companies in place, which Schwab will do to help train and monitor employee interactions with customers and downside SCM processes.

The encouragement and vitality of a continued plan is not an after-thought for Schwab
but must be a daily activity so that the companies (divisions) as a whole can bear up to public scrutiny when asked to do so. Being in a regulated environment; (ex. SEC, Wall Street) the plan to emerge from a past history into an ethical corporation is very difficult but in-deed a task that needs to be finalized and quickly put into play.

The ethical imperative to promote harmony and world-peace may not be in the firm's
upfront desires but the method and thought that it can sponsor programs that promote
these types of global activities would be in their best interests. Management and the
cadre' of the line of management must be the educators.The educators will prove its
worth by examples in doing and revamping processes that do not comply with global ethic programs. After mandatory training programs, if management refuses to comply
then they need to be terminated immediately.We are building a very fragile process and
in this case, Schwab is dealing with a new process that can deliver its corporate strategy into the 21st century of business ethics.

The problem when following programs that are supposed to be ethics minded is that the
methodologies and formulations have outdated processes and material. In fact, it is up to these global entities, forums, and structures to continue in practice but more so, a calling to its constituents for change. What comes to mind are the intentions and programs wroth with higher-values and are now in need of refinement to progress further.

The WTO and NAFTA are these organizations that were formulated with the good intentions but now need their organizational roles and membership to come forth for
change. Change to match the present values and practices of MNCs as they continue to
practice the old policies of NAFTA and WTO.

The present global corporation or off-shore corporation that migrate from Mexico, the
United States, and other world points to China, India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, and elsewhere all need to visit the WTO and NAFTA policies again. Membership in these groups should be mandated by a higher authority more in line with the IMF. Perhaps labeled as the IMP. The international management partnership organization will have as a mandatory membership, every government,and corporation that does trade on a global and in a routine manner. Formulation of policy that enables capital to flow from the IMF without the present heavy percentage penalties that go on unchecked that are then passed as loans to participating banks in country.The loans that are now supposed to help the farmers of industry are taxed with burdens so huge that there is only bankruptcy and no other corrective alternative.

I am not abolishing the WTO or NAFTA, because other corporations and Schwab
especially need to introduce their wares and obtain life-long memberships to promote
global fair practice in hiring, employee health, and individual sustainability. The practices of the World Trade Organization, and NAFTA now need change, a revampment on
policies that affect the global workers and corporations that take flight because of capital and their race and extreme competition to the bottom for cheap labor.

The Global Organization that has the authority to monitor, fine and terminate
corporations from its membership is a serious description and need of policy for today's corporations if they are to continue in an ethical way by promoting world balance in trade and managerial economics. The ability is not left to a corporation to perform, the ability is left to that IMP or other authority to promote and realize within five years-that drastic change is a necessity and a must if product is to continue to flow across an ethics oriented border for economics and ethics that require continued future trading.



ESSAY #3 eBUSINESS
The functional abilities of an e-Business and e-Commerce firm are its technology. Infrastructure and its ease to acquire and enable this technology for the benefit of its customers and internal corporate processes are inherited not only on visionary senior management but the ability to convince and team across political lines.

The modules that bring awareness to a firm that it is in deed e-Commerce are its
Network, applications, middleware included, and transactional cost metrics. The know how to incorporate a rapid and far-reaching vision for company survival is made possible by the CTOs, CFOs, CIOs, and CEO, as they formulate strategic value.

The formulation and e-Blueprint Planning exercises are mandatory and without these
plans risk increases to that point of no return where it would be foolish to implement a road map for success. More value, less assets, more efficiencies, and cost effective
practices are some of the core values that will need restructuring in Schwab's business case. Its present value chain and its disaggregation and re-aggregation are entrepreneurial endeavors that deliver efficiency through value chain re-aggregation.

The mobile network for customer efficiencies need the PAN, WAN, WLAN, and MAN
infrastructures in place, and likewise, telephony and VoIP, IP, data, voice, and media
need access from the outside. The total infrastructure convergence by decentralizing
management and centralizing design leads to best-in-practice for e-Schwab. Make use of
its extranets for suppliers and vendors and some preferred customer transactions.

Intranets for corporate training, benefits updates, and individual updates on financial and medical benefit packages are just some of the many uses for an e-corporation to compete. We can mention at a lower level, the components and modules that make up these networked infrastructure interfaces by name. There are the applications that allow computing to evolve into sustainment, deliverance, and lowering transactional activities.

The EDP software such as SAP R3, Baan, PeopleSoft, and Oracle are largely at the top
and fierce contenders especially in the Pacific Northwest of Washington state where I am a resident. The increased interaction and business dynamic towards excellence is
operations, innovation, and continuous-innovative missions are now possible because of these applications. When changing the cultural thrust to e-economics and commerce the ability for business functions to cannibalize their supply chain is a must and it is imperative, that this practice be on-going.

Production capability and its models of BTO and JIT shipping, although today it is a gold or killer app, especially when implementing within manufacturing and product distribution paths, these practices will need refinement.

The CRM module of applications perhaps is the largest imitative that e-Schwab will
undertake. The needs for process tie-ins improving customer up-selling by building
stronger relationships is in its best interest. Integrating portals for internals structures as well as customer value can go a long way in keeping its growing customer base. The opportunity to migrate its customer base away from its more traditional, brick-n-mortar establishments to the e-way of doing business is also in its best interest. CRM relationships encompass integration paths that will include billing, marketing, selling, customer services, support, shipping, accounts, and finance.

Creating an DE or opportunity evaluation for front-end process with back-end tie-in to
applications, configurations, lead generation, salespersons, partner inventories,
pricing/promotions, simply spell avenues to realize the least amount of cost and
complexity. To integrate CRM a vision of applications, service support, marketing, and
decision support for internal as well as executives need addressing. Teams that comprise of cross-functional groups enable ideas, innovations,and the end product. From functional integration to integrated sales and service innovation, a closed loop integrated marketing system will drive the data model analysis and a road map to success for e-Schwab.

Developing a business case is imperative to formulate strategy and more importantly,
buy-in from every senior management entity. By being currently ready for aggressive
competition the extracted and needed processes will come to light.

Project Management and implementation assures success when dealing with core
processes towards integration success. ERP and SCM cannot be of value without the above structure in place. It is this sharing of information, marketed data between customer and supplier that virtual fulfillment is possible when dealing with current customer, near term and emerging bases.

Granularity has its purpose in C2P, A2P, P2P and all are methods worth considering for a fully implemented ATP and ERP system when e-Business is at stake.

(c) 2004, 2008 Lyle K'ang All rights reserved.

The above written collection of essay's and pictures are copyrighted, and in the possession of said author. Permission to reprint must be had from said author in writing.

Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance

Just something you should see...

Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance

Author: Larry Downes, Chunka Mui, Nicholas Negroponte List Price: $16.95 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 1578512611 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (March, 2000) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 16,124 Average Customer Rating: 4.2 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

Rating: 5 out of 5
Unleashing Technologies
The major principles of this module deal with ideas and methods to increase one's ability to focus on higher levels of information that began as low level mechanization concerned with bits and bytes and how they transform applications into working models. The whole scope of what and how these electronic machinated applications interface with a larger picture is understood as a disruption at best to harmonious interactions within the whole IT and corporate application structure. (Downes, Mui, 2003).

Between the middleware applications and the physical interfaces that bring us computing connectivity, there are numerous processing's, intermingled and costly, which brings us to today's computing networking.

It is the affordability equation, enhanced through Moore's implications and understanding of outcomes such as higher quality, less costly interfaces, and devices that help design interfaces, simply. The ease to operate, at blazing speeds, brought about by higher computing power, and its ideas of mass proliferation have its beginnings with Metcalfe's Law. The economics of sheer computing power, its application infrastructure, is in fact, a Coasean theory of that economics.

Because of the profundity of Moore's Law, and its ability to affect not only the realm of computing, but also industrial, automotive, and aerospace as well, that law, is the 'killer app'.

Killer apps are not just related to new application coded language transformed into cyberware, but ideas, equations, formulas, and entirely new directional thought patterns that lead to unfilled frontier process exploration. The round wheel opened the imagination and innovation of a pre-industrialized world. Watches, clocks, automobiles, gears, rollers, and most things round come from nature, our first architect, but the formula and prescience of the 'wheel', became the 'killer app' within the science of generations to come. The 'wheels' ability to survive as an innovation proves the point, that 'killer apps' must have profound and lasting disruptive affects of visionary quality to an industry or industries. (c)Lyle K'ang, 2003).

Long Haul - A Case in Point!

The Long Haul

What a whirl-wind trip...keeping centered...keeping alert...being calm.

Just got back from Los Angeles County; Hollywood, Marina Del Ray, Burbank, Pasadena, Thousand Oaks, Encino, Universal City, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Venice meeting with the finest and smartest bunch of people in the business. More on that later...what made me so happy was the meetings I had with people so much wiser, more mature and balanced in issues - both politically, in business and in the entertainment field than all my years wading, swimming, staying a float in this sea of mystery.

You see some are moguls in the industry - The GREAT ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY!
Yes, sir!


Now back to the intelligent discussion - no not intelligent design but intelligent formulating - strategies, methodologies and outcomes. Does it take big dollars - why of course!

However, before we commit the obvious self-exaggeration followed by diminishing self-worth, let's understand one thing clearly. This is happening in a time in America when the music scene is in desperate measures. Business is struggling - something new is on the horizon of visionary movements such as music and theater. Broad enough for you techno geeks but not enough to keep the tech savvy from saving themselves. You see, everybody here is demanding more attention. YOU want more information...true, we all have a voice.

Generally speaking - when one is dealing with a patent - we are very hush-hush. We are dealing with big marketing this time and results are very promising because when advertising for this product, we found it was not hype, crap or lies - it is pure, unadulterated spiritual connections which fueled these master pieces which in turn transformed itself into an album and business.

Can't deny that...so what? Okay - let's ask a small portion of the real people about the product - ready?!

"This song (To Know You) is a major hit!" Max Anderson - Seattle, WA.

_________
"The mix is terrific - sounds are incredible - new sound for the industry." David Lasley - Hollywood, CA.

_________

"... LOVE your music - your site." Becky Morrow - Yakima, WA.

_________

"It is really terriific..." Jessica Marciel - Las Vegas, NV.

_________

".... I love your site. You get your mandate across beautifully. Your use of color is so.... you,man. Makes the eye feel rested and the mind feel clean and interested in taking in more information. Looove the picture of you and Kenny O... Nobody does innocence like you.." Michael Danso - Ontario, Canada


Ready for tactical directions - as we descend lower, just high enough for you to click the proper buttons. You have two choices; MP3 or a real CD. So, there!

Lylemyway

I've been thinking - wouldn't it be great to have Cher or Jewel sing a duet or be a trio with me on my song, 'Til The End". It could happen - Oh! it could happen...right David.

Please add your comments - .
..And like all spiritual sources which bring to us music, art, and political pureness, remember there are changes which we undergo while listening to this CD. Changes and information happen rapidly at first but even after listening over twenty-five hundred times, the spirit does not tire but actively takes hidden lessons, deep in one's psyche and uses it to your learning advantage...many times over and over.


Get ready for Lylemyway

EFFICIENCY - BREAKS IN PROCESS: CASE IN POINT

These are simple system fixes - really! Let's begin!

The Grand vision has been already established; processes which are set in place and working.

The work flow passes through the system. However, the flow is not so smooth, this is the point which will be examined thoroughly here. We start by examining the process a buyer or customer goes through with any technology today. Not different than yesteryear, only in terms of complexity, nevertheless still reminiscent of past blunders and corporate mistakes which for years have tried to consume the consumer.

We are fast approaching a moment of technological reconciliation so let me add a recent technological working which is so historically linked to past truisms and similar systems - a truth. This is a letter to my friend from her daughter. The mother is having a long time issue with many technologies.

My assessment is that it is not her fault she is having these problems - it is technologies over-reaching and under-supported movement.

The FIX:
____________________
Let me explain: Thanks goes out to anonymous for her contributions today - Customer service (the art of finesse) with real technical help can make a company not only look good in a customer's eyes, they can solve a problem. The issue at hand today is no more complex than 20 or 40 years ago...it is the patience and willingness to those who would venture into the technical fix world to immerse and focus - and the ability to assess a customer's patient level, and take command. If you do not take command through exercising patience and professionalism - the customer hates you, dislikes you and if you sense animosity, you yourself might tend towards defensiveness - though this is temporary, many technicians never learn the fine art of being the best bullshitter with a real fix. This is the secret. Aloha!
___________________

PRECISE REMEDY:

been there done that - people in the biz know what this is all about...Early adopters to any of the electronic/mechanical technologies that have surfaced in the last 20 years know very little of future technologies, there impact on the global community except in terms of the "NO" help desk - somehow the thinking perpetually locked into a specific time-frame containing certain technologies cannot step out of the proverbial box.

To grow within these technologies require these early adopters to continually advance their 'old' found knowledge, continually refreshing educational goals - forever consumed in a technology just to be adept. Continually consumed - how about that - when can we all realize technology for technologies sake?

This is backwards in my opinion. Technology that installs, fixes and updates automatically requires no end-user intervention. Programmable lines of codes, smaller chips, memory and cache storage which require today's applications to function need to work in the background without any front-end intervention.

More so, as technologies mature these early adopters rein superior but because of history within the computing technologies - their demise is evident. They to will see their day of agitation spring on them like it does today for the mother. Technologies gobble up each other and after maturity replacement costs, trouble-tickets, adversity and technology failure becomes evident for these early adopters. Just because some of us get in at the early stage of an unveiling of some new product with introductory technologies destined to be the next DOS, Novel or Microsoft's many left behind OS's, should not discourage the 'old' adopters as well as the younger technocrats. We all strive for simplicity to untangle our complicated life's.

Technology is ever changing but because of poor foresight - scope and process, we will always have mediocre output from products with more hype built in than realistic delivery performance.

So - it will fail - the system is meant to fail until we have a system which is more like Apple, more like a Linux or Linspire, even more like a Subaru, Toyota, Honda, Kia and the like. Even the Volvo's, VW's, and BMW's have their historical bouts with electrical failures. I ask you again - for technologies sake - when can we realize the bliss and profoundness of technological maturity no matter how much it must change? Some say never...I say poppy-cock. The tire is round and spinning - we have resurfaced roads and reinvented this technological wonder over and over again to perfection...Bar none!

Innovation which delivers premium process DELIVERABLES can be manufactured and is being done by competition - America has fallen behind - emerging technologies arise from the giants who have awoken. Why? Well, that's a factual endeavor worth gleaning but not at this moment - maybe if there's movement we can open these few points again.

Let's call these bullets known as ----

** "a constant method to record human intellectual input into a process and product" which contains a break-fix solution, satisfaction and pride.

History has proved that it was not historically nor factually correct to blame the end-user for technologies glitches and hiccups. Systems administrators, technical repair personnel learned that a long time ago. It puzzles me to still see the beast of past mistakes surfacing again in a highly technological world of 45% delivery and 55% marketing hype. Products which win such as the IPod deliver 100% - Charcoal briquet's - 100% - Organic Apples - 100% - no hype just real energy...

Recycle The Dollar, Fool! A Case in Point.

They are off and running!

What inspires you to make a profit? Other than staying alive could it be to promote quality in your total organization or a risk managed - task oriented entity? Let me know, I want to know!

Here we are - another Chapter in what really works and what others call continued hype amidst the hundreds of thousands spent on marketing.

Came closer today to core practices and real live processes which turn a dollar over and over again before the system spits it out as used. During the procedure, we learn that if we watch a dollar enter the system, follow its paths throughout the many angles and turns our systems promote, we come to a conclusion that is wanting me to celebrate.

Steersmen - were common throughout the 60's and early 70's and surfacing again. Steer the dollar!! Steer it in and out like a sexual machine - watch it go - pull it out and transfer into a new vessel. Continue the operation until you have a process of elimination of what works and what doesn't. Finding that you can line the walls of many processes until you use the dollar to its maximum value is my focus.

We continue to use this as our mantra - reuse, reuse and recycle. Try it!
No satisfaction - let me know, I can help you for free!!! Just bring your best brain forward - we'll go on that assumption that the systems are fired up and waste is noticed. Anxiety surfaces without answers. We have been there and emerged out of the morass of complexity - give it a go! Recycle the dollar!

You Have What It Takes: a Case In Point

IDEAS - The fuel of spin-offs; corporate formation, profits and for non-profits, revenue. To get there takes many turns, spins and for some out of control steering.
Let me share with you what I mean. Revenue is always not enough for non-profits, hence the interaction and common consensus to manage projects using a Project Manager and a Project Tool. Eye-opening? Yes! Especially for the many that have operated without using tools which business for profit have been using successfully for some time now.

I'm in both; one as a Consultant to Executive Leadership, where we form strategies for successful corporate business ventures and a Project Manager for the other. I see in both commonality, whereas being in only one of the two can blind you to facts which can be helpful, no matter which entity one decides to form.

Profits for business - is easily translated into a non-profit as revenue to send where and when on the projects which matter the most. Here we'll call revenue sources as donated and/or grant funding sources. You need to realize that to hold on to this revenue is the utmost of priorities. Spending it depletes your savings so to speak. Save for what? You may ask...Why, because these monies can be easily placed into a program which has potential of generating added revenues to the pot.

Thousands and thousands of non-profit money can be saved by you because all it takes is a new mind-set about those limited dollars which are not never-ending.

...And what about for profits? What should be done with cash? Many places to place cash - you need to concentrate on the cash flow(s) of each project because out of the many equals a larger liability and corporate risk. You focus on risk everyday you are open for business because playing catch-up or ignoring risks, including cash flow, employee treatment and ethical corporate behavior, can out-smart you when the attorney's finally find you behind the large corporate veil or several fronts you managed to strategically initialize when first forming your large organization.

That process of formulation is fine, but only one out of many steps taken for corporate anonymity - it has existed for fifteen years or more. We speak more of changing dynamics, like real-time data handling and processes to obtain your goals - not only do we offer the mechanizes explained above, we internalize you energy, your visionary expertise, changing strategies and ventures - we take it from there; whether it is infrastructure or building more avenues and processes; it will always be the ability to make a buck from here to there!

Practicing internal honesty, throughout corporate structures; up, down, left and right includes global ethics - even if none exist, can and will make YOU MY 'Shining Star!'

COURSE 101 & COURSE 711 VISIONS

The 101 COURSE and THE ADVANCED 711 VERSION OF BUSINESS VISIONS MADE EASY FOR YOU!!

It is that time of year for you entrepreneurs, to scout out the opportunities whether they are present in the Cities and Towns of America or in the High Hills of the High Stakes Vegas landscape, because if you don't, you may lose a wonderful opportunity.

Yes, the opportunities are there waiting just for you; the right visionary to pluck the prize from the other ungracious or over-competitive hands to deliver the nicely wrapped deliverance package to your doorsteps from several land tactical carriers at hand; they may be UPS, FedEx, or the USPS. Ungracious are those who do not see, feel, taste the whole spectrum of goodness. Let's call them - less educated or out of touch, not only with humanity but ethics. Over-competitiveness - win at all costs - damn the torpedoes; take no prisoners.

Whoa, there Cowboy - where are you going with this? Not far, from present reality lies my soul, my business soul. And my business partners' and I may have just been hit by the proverbial lightning strike - still alive and telling the tale.

Speeding through the Internet, Cities, Towns, and Information Technologies Storage Mechanics; by creating a more formative vision in which to lay-down the tactical, almost too real of a work formula - we hit the unexpected! Why? Well, it is not simplistic nor convoluted; it is basic 101. We need to step back.

Create the Business Plan.
Create the Financial Structure.
Formulate with a neutral CPA; DO NOT pick a friend and hope his or her existence into the creation which is the Universe, will help you! Better to have some professional that's out to win your business on a daily, weekly and monthly schedule. Of course, for you - this is generic, depending on your own situation.

And then, we'll sit and discuss, high and mighty - lofty and attainable 711's.

A case in Point: What is the purpose of sucking out your mind; formulating dream visions without first using the proper mechanisms which decrease greatly the opportunities for failure? Risk factor Course 711; remember it is a legal entity so we need to discuss legal terminology, financial accounting gobligoop, and business structure. Once done, we are free to carry-on with magnificent stories for success. Yes, it's the familiar round-table approach. We came prepared, so to speak!

Many do these steps - I've done them - it's called a brain-storming idea, remember? It's not wrong at all, in fact a very necessary formula to find the end, beginning and the who, what, where and when's.

God speed my friend, any friend, God speed!

Electronic Data Processing: A Case In Point

This is definitely a business topic which understands that end-users of this technology would rather not or simply cannot develop a rational thought pattern about computers in general; only to slowly, almost as if gently falling like a leaf to the ground, an acceptance that either computing is wholesome for the whole family and there is nothing terrible about computing activities or the far-side; reality pokes you in the face and says directly - you maybe suffering from group-think, blinders being on too tight, and refusing to acknowledge the underlying fact of covert data corruption, retrieval, data-mining and the notorious memory stick; the act of finding specifics.

Whether you are a casual or heavy user of a personal computer (PC-Windows or Linux) or a Mac, anyone who uses a computing device (PDA, Blackberry, tablets) are exposing themselves (private information) to the world. The applications and products available are astounding but once in a while, someone finds a way inside.

Anyone who has a history of laboratory research, spent time in a military community, or a related technical focus knows that the ground is always alive with activities that the above-ground dwellers do not or refuse to understand and accept as fact.

We live in a society where tele/cell phone tapping, Internet-web pass-through to data-mining, the passing of viral infected code to your own electronic database and email has been proficient and successful in snatching your own identity.

My government protects me - that is a surface and above-ground dwellers attitude - that's the play you went to and the play you'll leave with; fixed in your head. Is it true? Of course it's true - what about 'Liberty for All' and the Bill of Rights' - truths for the above-ground dwellers.

During the same time frame, the under-dwellers or below-ground activities never stop. They have never stopped and actually picked up steam during 1945, before and after that year. The Internet developed by the U.S. Government to pass information, is a factual, theoretical, and operational success during the Vietnam exercise and others, too plentiful to mention. The practice has grown and what you see today is a global menace for many governments - the Internet.

Back to the main topic of safe computing and the fears of electronic data processing. These topics scare me and if we as users of this technology are not mindful of their destructive power, and only left to a few.

Electronic Data Processing is 'BIG BUSINESS', alive and doing extremely well today, throughout the World. Business data is yours and I assume protected w/ redundancy appliances, circuits with different vendors, backup disaster power supplies, off-site storage and malicious code-breakers and malware.

Anyone today, can pay $25 USD and receive a frightening amount of personal data (electronic data mining - processing) on anyone in the World.
Business needs:
1. Look for Spies Within You Organization...Skeptical of resumes is a good start. Background checks are only the tip of the iceberg and meant to deceive.

2. Trust No One: Especially your executives. Most are their for fattening; their style and future dreams - not yours.

3. When someone is Found To Be Worthy: Good - but beware; moles can appear as brilliant rays of sunshine. Years of loyalty really is not the gauge. What is?

The best gauge which works is plain talk; all subjects NOT off limits, the moderate, the left of center, the center, the left of right and NOT the far-right ranting...We just don't have the time nor the collective inclination to witness another group of people, swallowing hook-line and sinker as meritorious. Can they be saved or do they want to be saved and saved from what? They can help to keep people fully aware that we are being watched through many different electronic processing devices which run the gamut of cell phones, radio frequency interception (WWII), digital scanning, eye biometrics, Internet surfing and where you go, blogs you subscribe too and a whole lot more.

The HAIR play has a line about 'electronic data processing', and it is from this enterprise concept which provides a larger view of what can and has gone wrong (EDP) that I provide this rebuttal. EDP started w/ the larger computing main frames and research will show those inclined to venture closer to the truth, startling appointments and criminal tasks upon our American Civil Liberties were committed using electronics. With today's EDB (electronic data bases), a thousand million trillion of databytes on so many subjects from moon rocks to turtles will overwhelm the uninitiated.

And so it is, a foundation and bedrock of a technology that we as business men and women must be properly engaged and educated to uncover and pin-point not only the above-ground benefits of an emerging technology but bring forth from the shadows the below-ground activities in which we so blithely misinterpret.

To drive this even further into another reality ; Remember the Pringles can of potato chips scenario? An antenna made out of an empty potato chips can which successfully received business transmissions from wireless devices in an airplane manufacturing plant. The signals went over the strong metal fences of an Everett Boeing Plant, were captured and decrypted using an off the shelf product any savvy techno geek can operate. That was sadly, for Boeing a reality and it really happened.

Entertain and be watchful for the other watchful eye in gaining a perspective, perhaps an unfolding for a better business life lays just below your horizon.

MDI vs. Process Management

During 1999 - 2000 the County of Yakima developed a process management model that was developed elsewhere which included metrics of a tested and working model with the Department of Transportation. Nevertheless, during 2006, a six or seven year period has elapsed after its initial introduction and execution in which most 'bugs' if they ever existed, should have worked themselves out of the process through constant refinement procedures. You'd think!

During the latter part of 2006, the system and process was again exercised, executed and delivered extremely poor response times, and other issues which are not really in the Mutual Design process. Other problems have arisen and not been addressed for I believe several years now.

This present situation is more like a model which develops forms of micro-management instead of building group and individual innovation and 'think out of the box' theories with working scenarios for the delivery mechanisms which include the technicians and all forms of communication including their own individual check lists which should satisfy their own command post.

During 2000 the Associative Model of Management was introduced to the same group. A contractor was paid a lucrative figure somewhere in the $250K range to deliver a model which promised system fixes, process refinement, elimination of non business redundancy and the immediate need to increase (streamline) IT production and delivery times.

About the same period, the system was not only introduced to another group somewhere in a different part of the State, but implemented with my help in a heavily predominant Microsoft supported region and district entity. This process model worked for the whole of the IT staff and became their new process model to follow, train and refine.

However, the consultant that was paid was told not to implement that design back at the County because the MDI model was a far superior system and his service was no longer needed. Sadly, many of the Associative Model for Business and Information System components that were revolutionary in terms of eliminating the practices of silo management which greatly decrease sharing of communications and information was never implemented.

As end-users to technology can reaffirm, when the support mechanism of technology is not efficient in terms of user-friendliness or plain helpful, who loses? In this case, because it is a governmental structure, the end-user loses. Loses work momentum, gains financial deficits instead of decreased costs per individual worker throughout the system. It will not take a financial management genius to figure out the metrics on this one - instead of decreased worker costs; the MDI system and its flawed process and deficient program management structure, interferes with the whole of the enterprise management model. It would never pass muster in a corporate structure focused on daily operational cost reductions.



Executives every where should be aware of these systems in their midst if a proactive vision to reduce costs, increased fixes and endless buying are out of whack! One of the tricks which work is to implement the help of astute Information Management people who understand performance management. You might also entertain applications like SAP for your enterprise functions. Rely on proven results instead of the school of marketing dollars and its endless plethora of hype.

Homeless Network

Did I ever realize that working for local government would give me so much pleasure as a human being and professional? Not on your life, but here I am enjoying my new found seat.

My main responsibilities as Webmaster is challenging and thought provoking. My other yet equally challenging position(s) within the same responsibility, is to make sure the groups within the collective brain-storming and formulation of new projects, tasks, activities and plans carry through. As their Project Manager, most larger companies such as Boeing would pay me up above $75,000 per year. Verizon would match that and some with $90,000.00 and Nike would come even closer with a benefit package well above the $115,000.00 per annum mark.

So, let's see what we're talking about - Webmaster, HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) training professional, Project Manager, Technology Liaison Coordinator, projecting a business angle focus on all projects makes me not only responsible but valuable.

Here's the catch folks - where I am employed - most people I work with are the best of professionals, skilled in what they do and willing to mentor the group.

I work for the Homeless Network of Yakima County. http://www.yakimahomeless.org

So long, corporate world - please $$ donate $$ on our Website.

Are These Actions Good Business? Case in Point!

Are These Actions Good Business?

As business finds itself, the cellar door in which we enter can sometimes get slammed shut - finding another way out is impractical so, what remains for business which intentionally hide really bad research from people, those that are human-beings, in most circles, (HR) Human Resources and the Legal departments will have a costly fight to bring about peace - peace that will cost a corporation millions and millions of dollars which may be needed elsewhere - like cash flow(s).

So read on - tell me; are these the actions of sane men and women - especially in Light of the reports from their own research? You tell me! The facts are here!

Are These Actions Good for Business?


Dear ALL,

Military Use of Depleted Uranium, its consequences (intended and unintended) is troubling for a number of reasons: Research and study prior to its use was comprehensive and danger signals were there but the DOD went ahead anyway.
The United States and NATO have worked diligently to avoid extensive investigation of sites contaminated in the Gulf War, Bosnia, and Yugoslavia by independent investigators.

The VA and the Military have given false and misleading information to congressional investigators.

True to type as evidenced in the Agent Orange boondoggle...the VA and the Military are stonewalling and delaying testing and treatment for Gulf War Syndrome...preferring to assign the disorders of the returning solders to “stress”.
According to our own local papers here in the Pacific Northwest the U.S. Navy is currently conducting tests in the fishing grounds off the pacific coast using depleted uranium clad munitions. When questioned by a reporter regarding the possible hazards for this to human and marine life...the navy spokesman say, “Gee I hope not. I haven’t started to glow yet.”

The URLs and the excerpt I have listed here are from credible sources and would give credence to the concerns of many throughout the world. Use of these kinds of sources would eliminate the knee jerk reaction of the hawks and or the extremists who would attack other kinds of sources as the “typical left wing liberal bubble headed thinking of, unpatriotic Peaceniks”...thus effective derailing dialogue and open debate. (A successful talk show strategy),

More as I find them.
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm
http://www.who.int/environmental_information/radiation/depleted_uranium.htm
THIS IS REMOVED http://www.aepi.army.mil/Library/AEPI%20Publications/DU/
________________________________________________________________________
THE FOLLOWING URL IS THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND EASILY UNDERSTOOD.
The site supports its arguments with facts and with documents, some of which are internal memos and studies from such gov’t agencies as Los Alamos. Worth downloading and reading.

If perhaps you might think that the DOD wasn’t aware of the possible side effects and hazards to soldiers take a look at the U.S. Army study below...published 6 months PRIOR to the gulf war.

IV. BACK TO THE BEGINNING
We shall not ease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will to be arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T.S. ELLIOT “Little Gidding” July 1990.

Just six months before the Gulf War, the U.S. Army released the Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, a comprehensive report comparing the use of tungsten alloy and depleted uranium in armor-piercing ammunition. This report predicted that the large amounts of DU oxides created during combat could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians. Soldiers in ground combat units were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems. The report further warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban the use of DU in munitions. Looking back on the ten years since the release of this report, it is remarkable how many of the Army’s predictions have come true.
Appendix D of the 1990 Army report, titled Kinetic Energy Penetrator Environmental and Health Considerations, states:

“[A]erosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects. These health impacts may be impossible to reliably quantify even with additional detailed studies. It is not our intention to overstate this issue given other combat risks, nor to imply that the health of soldiers will definitely be compromised. We are simply highlighting the potential for levels of exposure to military personnel during combat that would be unacceptable during peacetime conditions. (AMCCOM, 1990: D(1), 4-5).

The Army assessed the dangers to its soldiers and determined that “under combat conditions, the MEI’s [most exposed individuals] are probably the ground troops that reenter a battlefield following the exchange of armor-piercing munitions, either on foot or on motorized transports.” (Ibid.: D(2), 3-4).

While the immediate risks of combat were noted to be of greater concern than the delayed effects of exposure to depleted uranium, the Army acknowledged that depleted uranium is a “low level alpha radiation emitter which is linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage.” (AMCCOM, 1990:
D(1), 2-2).” The Army’s prescience did little to affect the behavior of Gulf War commanders.

The Department of Defense now admits that field commanders did not train or warn servicemen and women about the hazards of depleted uranium on the battlefield.
(CBS, Don’t Look, Don’t Find 49 1999). Not one soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine with a known or suspected exposure to depleted uranium was medically tested following the war.

The 1990 report also noted that “assuming U.S. regulatory standards and health physics practices are followed, it is likely that some form of remedial action will be required in a DU post-combat environment. Remedial actions may consist of retrieval of penetrator fragments and decontamination of impact sites such as tanks, rocks, trees, buildings, etc.” (AMCCOM, 1990: D(1), 4-6).

The American equipment contaminated by depleted uranium was cleaned up; some contaminated vehicles were buried in Saudi Arabia and the remainder were shipped to South Carolina for decontamination and disposal. In Kuwait, contaminated equipment was either transported to the Boneyard or left in the Udairi Training Range. Apparently, the government of Iraq has not conducted any battlefield remediation of contaminated equipment. Similarly, clean up of depleted uranium in Kosovo and Serbia has apparently been hampered by NATO delays in the release of the locations and amounts of depleted uranium contamination.

In its darkest but most insightful vision, the report predicted that “following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic energy penetrators for military applications.” (AMCCOM, 1990: D(2), 3-4).

Prior to the Gulf War, there was no effort to ban the use of depleted uranium munitions. Nine years later, many individuals, community groups, non-profit organizations and political parties in the United States, England, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and other nations are working to end the use of depleted uranium in munitions and commercial products.

The more we learn about the use of depleted uranium in the Gulf War, the more accurate the 1990 predictions become. All our exploration has merely brought us back to where we started, but the story is not over. The Institute of Medicine is empowered to write the next chapter about the possible health effects on Gulf War veterans, but the controversy over the use of depleted uranium in munitions is likely to escalate in the years to come.

Additional research and investigation will help decision makers to formulate sound training, force protection, health care and clean up policies, but this may be too little, too late for Gulf War veterans, who have been left twisting in the wind by the Pentagon.
Don’t Look, Don’t Find



RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The Institute of Medicine should investigate the effects that exposures to combinations of chemical, biological, and radiological agents may have on Gulf War veterans’ current and future health. Specifically, the Institute of Medicine should examine veterans’ susceptibility to cancers, immune system damage, neurological effects, reproductive problems, respiratory disease, kidney damage and other health problems resulting from exposure to combinations of depleted uranium, oil well fire smoke, low levels of chemical warfare agents, experimental drugs and vaccines, pesticides and other toxins known to be present in the gulf. Keeping in mind the devastating effects that cancer can have on veterans and their families, the Institute of Medicine should evaluate the likelihood of future increases in cancers without waiting for veterans to develop cancers in statistically significant numbers.

2. The Department of Veterans Affairs should conduct an epidemiological study of Gulf War veterans and civilian contractors who had known or suspected exposures to depleted uranium. The Depleted Uranium Program at the Baltimore, MD VA Medical Center appears best suited to undertake such an endeavor. Areas of inquiry should include:
• The possibility that Gulf War veterans suffered clinical and/or sub-clinical kidney damage due to inhalation or ingestion of depleted uranium, and the significance of these injuries on the long-term health of veterans;
• The reproductive health of both female and male veterans and the implications of these findings on developmental effects in veterans’ children;
• The similarities or differences in health effects from exposure to embedded fragments and exposure via inhalation, ingestion, or wound contamination;
• The applicability of animal study findings on DU’s carcinogenicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and reproductive effects to female and male veterans; and
• The development of latent health effects including cancer.

3. In accordance with historical precedent and resolving the many doubts about the scope and severity of depleted uranium exposures in favor of the veterans, the United States Congress should pass legislation granting a presumption of exposure to sufficient amounts of depleted uranium to cause adverse health problems for all veterans who served in or traveled to contaminated areas. The presumption of exposure should be extended to all veterans who:
• Served in or traveled to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Kuwait during the Gulf War conflict (August 2, 1990 to July 31, 1991);
• Served at the U.S. Army base at Doha, Kuwait during the July 11-12, 1991 munitions fire, and/or participated in clean up efforts; or
• Served in the Udairi Training Range in Kuwait from 1991 until a date when the
area is certified to be free of depleted uranium hazards.
Don’t Look, Don’t Find

4. Future depleted uranium research should investigate health effects resulting from all possible routes of exposure. Research to date has failed to examine health effects from inhalation, ingestion, and wound contamination. Reliable dose estimates should be developed for exposure through inhalation, ingestion, and wound contamination in a range of realistic exposure scenarios.

5. Future depleted uranium research should investigate the health effects of protracted internal exposure to varying levels of depleted uranium. The shortand long-term effects of low, medium, and high exposures to depleted uranium should be determined.

6. Congress should request a report from the Secretary of Defense on the status of depleted uranium training in the armed forces. Since the Army and Marine Corps do not know if troops deployed to Kosho have received any training or warnings about the hazards of DU, it is likely that troops deployed to Kuwait, South Korea, and other hot spots also have not been trained or properly equipped.

7. Following future conflicts in which veterans are exposed to depleted uranium and/or other chemical or biologic agents, Congress should appoint an independent organization to review evidence of exposures and to make recommendations for research and treatment. If we have learned anything from the last nine years of the Gulf War illness debate, it is that the Pentagon can not be trusted to objectively investigate toxic exposures or to accurately report about the efficacy of experimental drugs and vaccines.

8. An international organization, such as the World Health Organization, should investigate the potential connection between depleted uranium exposure and reports of increased rates of cancers and birth defects in Iraq. There is undoubtedly a large pool of Iraqi war veterans who inhaled depleted uranium oxides or were wounded by depleted uranium fragments that could be studied. In addition, Iraqi children with known or suspected exposures to depleted uranium (e.g., from playing on destroyed vehicles, collecting DU penetrators) should be studied to determine the possible role of depleted uranium in the etiology of increased diseases.
This research could shed further light on the relationship between depleted uranium exposure and American veterans’ illnesses.

9. The United States of America should accept responsibility for identifying, delimiting, and cleaning up all domestic and foreign lands where depleted uranium has been released. The Department of Defense should further issue immediate warnings to civilian populations, relief agencies, and the United
Nations when American armed forces use depleted uranium in training or combat operations on foreign soil.

10. The United States Congress should task the General Accounting Office to determine the life-cycle cost for depleted uranium. The expenses of creating depleted uranium through mining, enriching, and processing uranium should be added to the costs of manufacturing, testing, purchasing and using DU ammunition. The aggregate cost should also include the expenses of safety training and protective clothing for soldiers, medical monitoring of soldiers and civilians for exposure, health care for exposed veterans and civilians, restricted use of contaminated lands, clean up of contaminated soil and water, disposal of DU contamination, and military public relations efforts to deny depleted uranium’s effects. In this way, taxpayers can decide if the bang is worth the bucks.

11. In a demonstration of true leadership and vision, the United States of America should lead an international effort to prevent the manufacturing, development, sale, and use of depleted uranium munitions.
Don’t Look, Don’t Find

APPENDIX A – DU USE IN KOSOVO AND SERBIA
During the 1999 war between NATO air forces and Yugoslav ground troops, American A-10 aircraft fired 37,550 rounds of all typed 30mm ammunition. (USAF, 2000). Assuming each A-10 carried a standard combat mix of 5 DU rounds with 1 high explosive incendiary (HEI) round, approximately 31,300 depleted uranium rounds were shot. Each 30mm round contains a depleted uranium penetrator weighing 0.302 kg or 0.66 lb. (Fahey, 1998: 198). Therefore, US forces released approximately 9,453 kg (9.5 metric tons) or 20,658 lb. (10.3 tons) of depleted uranium during the war. Following the end of NATO’s bombing campaign, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) (UNCHS) formed the Balkans Task Force (BTF) to assess the impacts of the war. (UNEP/UNCHS, 1999). Within the Balkans Task Force, an inter-agency ‘Desk Assessment Group’ was assembled to investigate the use of depleted uranium munitions.
The Desk Assessment Group’s investigation was hindered by NATO’s refusal to confirm the quantities and locations of depleted uranium expenditure. (UNEP/UNCHS, 1999:
61). Consequently, the group was reduced to conducting a review of published literature and making assessments based on hypothetical exposure scenarios. The Desk Assessment Group noted that people in the immediate vicinity of a DU attack could be heavily exposed to DU by inhalation. This is confirmed by US Air Force testing showing that “findings of past air sampling efforts revealed contamination was localized to within 300 to 400 feet (90 to 120 m) of the [A-10] target area.” (Nellis, 1998: 3-9).

Claims that the release of depleted uranium in Kosovo resulted in vastly increased rates of radioactivity in the air in Bulgaria or Greece are highly improbable. Following the release of the Balkans Task Force report in October 1999, Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan wrote to NATO requesting details about the use of depleted uranium during Operation Allied Force. Five months later, NATO responded that A-10’s shot depleted uranium during approximately 100 missions. “At this moment it is impossible to state accurately every location where DU ammunition was used,” states Lord George Robertson, NATO Secretary General, in the letter to Kofi Annan. (NATO, 2000).

A NATO map released with the letter to Kofi Annan identifies 28 locations in Kosovo where A-10’s are believed to have released depleted uranium (see page 54).
(NATO,2000). However, it is likely that A-10’s also shot depleted uranium at Yugoslav forces in Serbia, though no locations outside the borders of Kosovo are identified on the NATO map. The Balkans Task Force apparently did not make much of an effort to look for or find depleted uranium, but Christian Science Monitor journalist Scott Peterson found depleted uranium in Djakovica, Kosovo and reported its discovery in Vranje and Bujanovac, Serbia. (Peterson, 1999).
http://www.miltoxproj.org/DU/Report.pdf

FORD merger with GM: Another Case In Point

A merger between U.S. giants promises to whip up financial disparities and meld balance sheets. Cash flow should be an intangible as long as at pertains to the 'mergers' future. Sales and Services; existing accounts have definite possibilities as tangible resources but future transactional promises are intangibles; promised only by sales presentations and slick marketing know-how to either-side; GM or Ford.
GM's sales, mostly to corporate buyers does not address quality, fuel efficiency and core engine technology. Check out this link:http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/gm_red_tag.html
Viewing the link below, one can see compromises and non-visionary tactics hopeful of painting a truthful future for Ford: "Analysts remain cautious about the F-150 given the competition from General Motors Corp.'s new Chevrolet Silverado pickup that will hit showrooms later this year, and Toyota Motor Corp.'s all-new Tundra pickup expected in early 2007."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060918.IBFORD18/TPStory/Business
What does a merger bring forward; the continued existance of one or the other's technologies, processes and governance structure. Since these groups are still competitors, their foundation or base business platform are different and dissimilar in all things factory, Information management and Information technology wise.

Yes, a production line (moving line) may have simmilarities but the processes are not mergable. Difference in technology; dissimilar database stores and platforms, customer services, supply-chain management and inventory, let alone financial accounting systems with major differences in accounting methods should be capable of merging separate processes and therefore, increase or keep the same, performance technology and methodology. History of mergers show just the opposite and disparate Information Management Systems do not help each other.

Two giants themselves, Microsoft and SAP would agree that there exists major platform challenges ahead. Both software companies will say that their systems are able and ready but in a manufacturing environment SAP has shown world-wide that its mySAP BI with Netweaver and BW are ways to the future. Microsoft speaks of it SQL 2005 database and XP Pro as a viable contender and preferred operational system. So, who makes the choices and are these choices based on truth, politics or a mixture of both.

Surely, for a successful merger that focuses on profits for all divisions and factories, the Unions would compromise and choose only a political solution for its technology infrastructure or will its once mighty hand settle for a pure technological solution?

I doubt that it will - History proves that technology after the industrial revolution is not their friend but a friend to the company executives. So, merging personalities, yada, yada, yada.

Merger's are a sales job and hungry for a survivor; together they may survive but the excrutiating pain comes after when the trucks, cars, production technology and comunications infrastructure deliver the best technologically designed platform that is capable to compete globally on terms of pollution quality and environmental design. Not far behind are components and materials manufactured and supplied. Are these lines of communication open to drastic changes which merger's hasten?

"Although Ford executives have said since January they plan to sell a subcompact car in the U.S. market, the company made clear last week that will not happen until 2009."
The finished product will conjure the best debates and money for continued research and may drive exceptional quality, but for how long and who cares?

Have you seen these cars during the '70's? Pieces of shit - no doubt!

My bets are on foreign exports as they ratchet up technology as they have for the last 3 decades; for outstanding flex fuel use, exceptional microprocessor steering and shifting controls, along with best-practices security and anti-collision avoidance systems, all in the name of pronounced customer satisfaction and truly environmentally friendly machines - bar none or should I say, the bar is raised and opened for service.

Boeing's Allan Mullaly: A Case In Point

Boeing's Allan Mullaly surely turned Boeing's Commercial Airplanes around. For two and a half years; I was there and saw first hand how it was done and why I know Mr. Mullaly will do good for Ford Motors. Despite Ford's reluctance and arrogance to not deliver globally competitive products to a base Ford thinks it knows best was the primary reason for losing cash flow.



Let's first look at Information Management
and then its technology in one brush stroke.

Do you have any idea how large the Network Infrastructure is within the BCA (Boeing Commercial Airpalnes) division of Boeing? It use to be 58,000 nodes. I saw somewhere that it is now 128K.
http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2005/april/i_ids3.html
Now, this is just one out of several divisions that Boeing owns. Then there are the global partners. As my job as Infrastructure Manager for BCA, my groups included scientists, SA's, dBA's, technical SME's, Financial and Business Managers, Analysts and Chief and Fellow Architects, which represented the Network Infrastructure Services which I facilitated for all of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes division.
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2004/prod_071304.html?CMP=ILC-001
We handled global data distribution and had sufficient band-width because of innovative and proactive NOC personnel. Scoop up all the dark fiber and only light it when needed and off again when traffic subsides.

I wanted to go after them to do some business analyzing but I was thwarted by my good friend, the fellow architect, Craig Dupler. He was sure that the Network Operations Center, Large Lab, and Distributed Centers World-Wide was proactive. Because we were looking into these areas daily, I had no reason to dismiss his research. In fact, I later found that the NOC was indeed - way ahead of industry because of forethought and proactive processes.
http://www.northwestern.edu/observer/issues/2005/10/20/ford.html
Cost cutting was on the front burner; impose an Enterprise topology of WiFi, and look at SATCom as a potential backup service if needed. We has spinning globes up there to use, right? The offices and campus needed WiFi, but notably the greatest value for return on investment was within the factory walls. Compress this new technology and change out the way planes are manufactured by utilizing a 'moving line' using wireless tools. Savings? Big Time - Wireless' ROI 165% - Cost cutting of $2.2MM per yr. at an expenditure of just over $750K for implementation (hardware, security layered 128 bit over WAP / WEP). The moving line's ROI was into the several millions per plane and several more annually.

Then data stores; too much free space (white space) on servers hard drives. Take away the white space and use it for data. Cut down on the numerical number of servers; change out to more efficient hardware - less power consumptiom, etc.

Go to Microsoft to develop changes in their upcoming Long-Horn and have this consistency transfer to newer OS beta's that would benefit Boeing's way of doing business.

Other enterprise infrastructure demanded that all of Boeing's divisions deliver VOIP for telephony and video; inorder to adapt, Commercial Airplanes formed its own group to look into this Emerging technology; which I headed. My partner was a long-time Boeing employee and frankly, was a dead beat - Charles Green never offered to help me or steer me clear of unforeseen roadblocks or reefs that he surely knew were there. I took this virtual group of 50 active members on a fantastic ride - most of the technology that this group uncovered was implemented in one way or another. I was successful because of them. We produced tremendous effort and ROI for each technology implemented through project management and our ability to talk with each other as professionals.

Restructure not reengineer; A dismal failure was to re-engineer in the '80's and late 90's. But through examination, the internal and external processes the worker's used to service customer's, supply chain and partners were aligned for further cuts because of waste and needed mechnisms in place for delivering process improvements on a large scale. Process management and project management worked hand in hand; not withstanding ISO 20,000 for ITIL Library Framework or other series of ISO 90002 and Sigma Six (Black Belts) which were all designed for process improvments; ITIL Library Framework was a logical next step because existing processes were dumped into the framework and was used to streamline everything in IT. From portals to better servers, from our partners and supply chain - to inacting RFID for inventory; every thing was fair game to process manage.

Then partnerships were established in other countries for manufacturing airplane components like tails, and other parts - cutting off the supply which came from U.S. plants were now processes that went to global partners such as Russian Engineers and the plants their government set up to manufacture Boeing's parts. It was a vision that Mullaly and the Russian government had; without it - Russia would not purchase Boeing Airplanes. Many other countries had the same setup.

Finally, the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was the massive layoff's of over 55K to 65K skilled worker's. Wireless (WiFi) now campus wide, and in the factories was a large contributor to the worker's demise. So, the Machinist's Union worst fear materialized. There were several avenues to avert this catastrophy but that's another story.

Now, let me address briefly Ford Motor's tangled web of failure as an American citizen. In many parts of the country trucks are needed to do heavy tasks but that's not all. The majority of drivers thoughts and practices were never addressed by Ford. Ford took for granted the 'old' and mistakenly fragile adage, that if we build it, they will buy. Guess what - they were dead wrong.

Without substantial innovation like automatic steering control or traction control or for that matter better gas and diesel mileage with less emmisions, from their trucks and cars - global competition with these innovative ideas in place sucked the wind right out from under Ford.

Yes, the people base that Ford relied on as the 'dumb fucks', who will do anything we ask them too, did not respond to the new models, evident by the poor showing of financial profits, really gets to the heart of it all. Don't misjudge your clientel by treating them like they are dumb - even though, they maybe... treat them with respect and believe what they say and want and deliver it with creativity and innovative cost cutting ways.

Another point - the Union and Ford are so way outa touch - look at entry line level wages - $27.00 / hour. That's a joke - folks. Entry level - who do you think you are?

Ford! Is the business healthy? NO! So, do something about entry level wages. I'm not talking about skilled tool and die makers here, just the newbe, entry wage earner.

What Is Business Strategy?

Here he is today: a very happy and humbled man. The opportunities manifested; four fold.

What are the odds of having four (4) separate job interviews happening in the same week? That's what's happening baby.

The first one on Tuesday of this week (Sept. 5th) for an International Business Consulting firm. The second one on Wednesday (Sept. 6th) for the EPA. The third one on Thursday (Sept. 7th - Full Moon) and the fourth one on Friday (Sept. 8th), both the 7th and 8th as well as the 6th are for government entities.

The wonderful and yet perplexing point I wish to make is that during these times; the first as well as the second interviews were done and in each case I was the only person considered for the final interviews. I have been offered positions in each of the four different companies. How strange!

Now, which one am I going to choose? They all have different salary requirements; some lower and some higher than the others but one of the jobs is so cool; dealing with humanity. One deals with humanity but more educating and policing. The other one is managing 10-15 personnel which is all IT and strickly customer service. The one job that is high-visibility, has buuko bucks to pay me, yet 100% travel.

Here are my immediate goals: pay-off my bills, purchase a motor home, quit my job, write two books, at least, and tour America and Canada again, for three or four years then I'll be ready for retirement.


How very strange - as the increase of the moon (ascending) these jobs started to fall in place, then on the full moon day, the last interview was done. The remaining 2nd interviews were done on the decrease of the moon, (building root structures in the Hawaiian Calendar of Agriculture). We all use our own magic, trinkets and prayers; don't we?!

But the unfolding of events...isn't that magnificient.

Business is brighter again...but which one? Which one will I enjoy; truly enjoy performing?

Why Try?! Because It Builds F__king Character...A Case in Point!

I have smiled, I have discussed and I have lent my expertise and found one truth amongst many untruths.

As most of you active consultants know; the act of forgiving and mentioning real 'fixes' to infrastructure comes as a hidden danger for most.

Why should we ourselves be concerned? When expression flows forth from ego, one should be fore-warned that perhaps sitting opposite you is an information 'sponge', ready, willing and able to suck out your best knowledge and performance; waiting to applying this new found wealth of Business Intelligence to a foreign infrastructure. Most consultants get paid...I didn't.

A large aerospace manufacturer and senior executive called me in and asked for my input to a problem he was having. Still manually inputting invoices and change orders is unheard of but there it was, starring me in the face.

I was as usual enthusiastic, and lent my expertise, happy to do so, hoping to get the contract - you know how that goes. After following the designs on the board; asking for clarifications, I came up with several solutions. But remember, never dive into the fixes at first - we might forget the details - right? Data Servers, Programmer, Project Management Manager, PMBOK, Sigma Six and SAP Netweaver were mentioned by me.

OK! So here exists an opportunity waiting. I give him the high-level, changed the diagram a bit - never mentioning the details - but expressing these infrastructure changes in marketing terminology.

Call back - as I am told to do so. He says, my solution is too expensive and decides to go with something else. Oh??!!

Sure, I said to myself - he's applying the band-aid, just to fix his own problem and the hell with the other managers and the enterprise infrastructure. Pretty soon - the other's are going to scquak like chickens. He's just built a mess, a costly inefficient mess.

Gee gosh - by golly, I feel better all ready!!!
Till then...

Equal Opportunity Employers; A Case In Point.

WARNING!!!!

Be careful when you pass or approach your mark. Be careful when you're having fun but you know deep inside, you've past your mark.

Look at your senior executives with a jaundice eye when you hit or are close to that mark-they'll look a little differently at you.

I saw a very good man get very angry once after having a meeting with a senior exec. My manager and I were having another meeting together when he told me that what was happening in the Sr. Exec. Office was very unethical. What was happening? Well, had they gone over the mark, the 40 year old mark. Now this is how the other managers were slowly being phased out and pushed out? This is where layers of managers are now being placed over you to slowly force you out; where you once had the ear of the CEO; no more - until? Well, you get the picture!

But what was happening to that person was that they were way over that mark. The person was 57 not 40 years old. So, what was the unethical thing for the largest aerospace manufacturer to do? Yes, lay them off with the whole bunch; that way you can't prove it. But guess what, aerospace has that history of discrimination towards older workers and my old manager was pissed and can prove it.

But, you say, why did the person get hired in the first place? Because, the manager couldn't find a 'person' or a person 'like that person'. He searched for 'that person'; then told HR, that this was the exact match that he wanted. He said, he just could not find the quality of person he was looking for from the inside. Inside was lithargic. They needed that person from the outside. End of story.

You young guys might think it's all about skills, abilities and qualifications...well, ya! This person has it, but don't go there; it's not.
That person has had all that and much, much more; ever bask momentarily as a Senior Chief Executive Officer; that person has and it's got alot of fantastic highs, headaches and heart-attacks; seriously though, that person was there and did that too.

Or, you might think it's all about not being able to get along or smooze; don't go there; it's not.

Or, perhaps the old guy, is too tired and doesn't know how to express his interpersonal skills; don't go there; it's not.

In fact, that [person] has a 'stage presence which is remarkable. Having been trained on Broadway stages; Las Vegas stages; Hollywood stages; American Tours throughout cities and good 'ol New Orleans; it just does not make sense; so don't go there either; it's not that.

Well, after March 15, 2003 that person's life has turned upside down. 40 months later; now 61 years old, soon to be 62 in January '07, human resource supervisors actually go through the effort of not placing this person in final interviews. A recruiter from Seattle in confidence told that person that their profile intimidates people. Perhaps, it does; but if you're looking for the cream; how then does the person disquise the 'cream'?

I know somebody out there probably has another theory just waiting to blast this story apart, but here goes. OK?! There are Federal guidelines which today are all paper and show; which do not mean a damn thing anymore. You know those government jobs or school districts especially, they ask for your profile, whether you served in the Armed Forces - Yes. Vietnam Era 1962 to 1968. Well, guess what - that's supposed to give this person 5 more extra points and when you know for a surety that you meet 99% of ALL the requirements asked and don't get that interview; something smells fishy.

So, later down the road; in another story, as it goes - there is proof that a human resource supervisor in a certain school district is a liar. Don't worry pal, my wife, who by the way is 'Who's Who in American Business Executives', knows that if it's an inhouse person that's fine, but they shouldn't have the cutoff date at the same time. It's supposed to be - if we don't find somebody inhouse then we go outside. That's the way it has always been. But now, to cheat - what bastards - unethical, bastards. Not good news for that person to actually find out the truth.

Now that we're coming to a close here, I hope the picture is crystal clear. It is better for them (school district) not to even have that person in the final interview - no worries on their part pertaining to any back lash issues - it's the cheating that gets to me (author of article). For you guys that still think maybe this person didn't have the skills for the job - forget it, they have it and more - school districts are notoriously unscrupulous when it comes to the inhouse thing - here's what you can do; prove this article wrong.

Oh, one final bit that I know most of my readers have not experienced, 'non-placement' because of your last name. Of course, this is another but compelling story. Have you had that happen to you? My friend has while serving his country in the U.S. Army National Guard. The EOO (equal opportunity officer) told that person that the reason that person was not getting the so and so 'was because of that person's last name.'

As the story moves along, that person asked him why he didn't do something about it? He just replied. "Are you crazy, I'd loose my job, then." Previously, that person had an excellent recommendation from the President of The Board (he was 'white'); that was interviewing (hiring) for an officer appointment. But could it have been the Commander of the 82nd that made those very unethical statements, or someone in his office who hammered down the gavel once and for all? Don't worry! The person whom I refer to was born half German (Caucasian) and half Filipino (Asian) and feels and know's of the limits of each race that they are. Although, as that person continues to tell the story; they believe that the 'white side' has alot of growing to do, especially in terms of humility and compassion. The 'white side' lacks this, unless your predicament is different; most 'white' parents taught their children to be and act superior to people of color.

Hope you are different, man! Especially, in Business when honoring the EOE. So, for 'that person' and more; remember there are a thousand stories that are true and never reach the light of day. I understand perhaps a little of what they go through because of emphathy - I will say - compassion is another great virtue to cherish.

Get It? This is Business and we must deal with those issues as Executives, Managers, and Human Resource Specialists.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

This is my take on this Article...You Tell Me if This Is The Only Way To Do Business?

What Price Is Too Much Before Business Declares Itself Out of Bounds and Off Limits To Itself?

This is exactly why Harvard University is finally teaching a course in their MBA program called Ethics. Ethics is taught in other upstanding universities, along time before - so why has Harvard taken so long? And what, pray tell are the previous students of Harvard Business doing about their own lack of education from Harvard?

Or do we still blame the student (CEO) for everything under the sun?
When does a human being align his might with the subtle powers of his/her own soul - it' calling - talking - but if the body isn't listening - who should die, the person or the heart?

Go Tell It on the Mountain
A Film by Rebecca MacNeice

Larry Gibson's family roots on West Virginia's Kayford Mountain go back to the 1700s. In 1906, after being swindled by a land company representing coal mine owners (as happened to countless other mountaineers), his family found itself with only 50 acres of its original 500. Now, Gibson hangs onto his mountain and observes family traditions, despite the disappearance of landscape all around him - the result of total environmental destruction caused by mountaintop removal mining. Keeping to family and Appalachian traditions of annually visiting the family graveyard, Gibson this year took other locals, environmental activists and journalists along with him.
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

Business is Business; Case In Point.

The Business of The Military - Big difference from corporations, multinationals and all.

One thing in common - product produced must be cheaper, faster, stronger - and a winner in the consumers eyes!!!!
You tell me.


[1] Is this a lean corporation?
[2] Why are the workers (employees) disgruntled to the point of AWOL?


AWOL: GI War Resistance in Canada
A Report by Geoffrey Millard and Sari Gelzer

The Department of Defense has recently reported that 8,000 members of the US
military are listed as AWOL.
Currently 24 war resisters are known to be in Canada trying to establish citizenship, with an estimated several hundred more living there underground. Truthout's Sari Gelzer and Geoffrey Millard report from Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario, to bring you coverage of Peace Has No Borders, an event that brought US attention to political refugees in Canada. Geoffrey Millard interviews war resisters about their decision to refuse deployment to Iraq and seek asylum in Canada.
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

Personal Music or Business Forum

Can your personal music wishes and endeavors painstakingly transform from anxiety and/or pleasure to a business thrust? If it becomes all business when is the music part of it enjoyed?

You know those people trying to get on 'American Idol' and other show-cases; is their effort an endeavor of fun and pleasure, or shear torment and business?

Oh! When will the contestants finally combine any of the above and call it pleasure?

You tell me...

Before There Was A Business, There Was A Dream!

My dreams are protected by U.S. Law and my dream catcher.

Before the horse came the cart was there or was it before the cart came the horse was there? It is the ultimate feeling to be surrounded and engulfed in thought which floats around until it becomes an epiphany. Such are the dealings and intimate structures of an idea about a business which is about to blossom that enters your thought processes.

Ideas, feelings, sure-things, gut feelings are no more than adrenalin filled bags of want. Ideas that come on naturally, are different though. Let's examine how one really wins at this.

You have to win - there are no other options unless you want to explore the alternative. If that is the case, it is a dismal path, I can assure you. Let's wander together, ultimately finding our place in a situation that provokes careful scrutiny. Careful is the buzz word here.

Long ago I was in a place that I watched grow in population. Many years later, I returned only to pass through the town but was aware that the population had now risen from 10,000 people to over 150,000.

Other truisms can be found in many places where I have been. We, my wife and I, have known for a long time that where we reside now, will soon be a retirement haven and probably equal or surpass Arizona. It is the timing, the smut or smog of Arizona that creeps in. Equally as tragic is the shortage of water in Las Vegas, Nevada that will literally empower the population to 'sell' now and move to other brighter new beginnings.

Don't kid yourself...One more example after moving from 'God's Country', through no fault of our own, but if not to guarantee the education of our children, we knew shortly, that tourists would arrive bringing with them climbing property values, taxes, congestion and an eagerness to dominant the natural habitat. Yes, all of this has happened to me and my wife and together, it continues to unfold; our predictions, inventions, ideas, all come about and materialize.

And if it were a fact, that money was the only currency that held back successful businesses, we would have seen many flourish in our paths, together and separately. The latest source of energy and unfolding happens to be in a remote desert area where we reside now. I have long felt my idea of having large corporate giants set up shop in this desert, not only a good thing but one of our more fabulous ideas. Could it be the powers of strategic visionary patterns that have unfolded?

You see, in Information Technology, mid to large corporations need vast amounts of data. This data is best serviced, if and when it is made available locally or as close to the recipient as possible-this program is called distributed computing, and archival repositories which involves data storage servers, infrastructure for communication and of course, utilities and housing for its workers.

We live in an area where a considerable amount of large portions of acreage is not subject to earth quake damage; no fault zones. So, we have the county building their datastorage infrastructure here. About 50 or so miles away, Microsoft and Yahoo are setting up huge datastorage areas buying land for a million which is presently unavailable in Seattle and if it were, at what price? Easily, 1000 times more and risk quadrupled because of the active fault-zone.

Aside from the computer businesses, there are areas here that will host the best of class, resorts and retreats money can offer because we said so! Actually, Europeans at the turn of the century made many of these areas famous by coming to America to partake of its lakes with healing waters.

Presently, there exists a fantastic buy-if only I had the spare change, I would follow all my hunches and dreams. I've only been unsuccessful when I, my self was not fully engaged. You know, when your energy is displaced and your full focus is segmented-you've been there, you know what I mean.

If you have ever believed in bio-fuels, you should setup real soon. Agriculture waste is just waiting for the right person to turn it into E85 fuel. All happening in an area yet to be discovered by applying rigorous amounts of sweat equity, entrepreneurial discovery and angel or venture capital. The technical experiments have been done by a team I once worked with, but because we saw different paths we no longer collaborate, but nevertheless, the technology has been proven and is not difficult to implement at all. A windfall awaits the right person(s).

Now, you can realize your dream and I know for many the dream has not yet surfaced, however, the best dreams happen here. In my mind and in your mind.


Now, perhaps I have finally fine-tuned my god-given talent and blessing by partaking and building an ever expansive vault and why not? I have had to hone this best practice of dreaming for more than six decades now. There are many Indigenous tribes that practice the art of dreaming and you didn't believe it... How rude!

Start 'em Young

Yesterday, was actually long ago.

In business, I first spread my wings selling candles and plaster figurines that my step-dad made. I went house to house in our community in Lanikai, Hawaii. This is tough-selling and is the only way to build a foundation of resolute commitment which creates a sense of detachment. In one way, you are engaged in a transaction, in another, it is not all consuming because you the seller can go forward to the next predicament of another selling experience. I was 11 or 12 years old.

I next ordered a case of religious cards with soap samples shaped into angels and the like from a company. When I knocked on doors and showed them why I came, I'd hear, oohs and ahhs about my cards and soap sculptures. I kinda liked this stage until my brother Ronnie cut up all the soap. My mother was furious but she salvaged the soap and used the many pieces in the wash, cleaning, and where ever soap was needed. I moved on...What made my brother do that? Boredom? I was 13 years old, my brother 11.

I sold newspapers for the Honolulu Advertiser. Troubling as it was I got up at 4 a.m. every morning or so I wanted to believe. Some mornings, especially Sunday's, I found myself sleeping in. Until the singing morning birds woke me-it was panic. People waiting for their papers-standing in their driveways. Wow! That was what you can call a rush.

One area that I covered was so steep, I had to push my bicycle up this hill. Some Sunday's were so incredible I carried two bags full of papers because in one bag I'd only fit the exact amount for the 'hill' and leave the other very full bag by the stop sign before trudging uphill.

Then there is the lower area where I'd put my feet up on the handlebars as I raced past the running barking dogs that wanted to eat my legs off. Many mornings however, I did not get up on time. One trick I tried was placing my alarm clock on an upside down galvanized wash tub. Well, the sound would send anybody through the roof when the alarm went off at 4. Who did it wakeup? Not me-I slept through the ringing. The contraption gonged so loudly my step-dad was the one who would wake me up with screaming. I was then 13 or 14 years old.


Next phase of my career started when I was fifteen, just starting puberty. I became a grocery bag boy in a local store called Foodland Super Market. After school it was off to work. Work...work. Is it really all that it's trumped-up to be? Would it not be better if I were so rich that I did not have to work-I think so. Somebody's been feeding us these crazy belief structures you know. Oh, I digress.

All in all, I think for what it's worth, work tends to focus a person's being, if not for survival. Aside from the obvious, work should not be overly confusing nor out of balance. We really should be balancing focus to unfocusing structures or else we miss the whole point of being in business.

There is enjoyment in life and more and more people are looking for more of the enjoyment part of business. At least, I am. Long gone are the days of doing business for the rush. Freedom surely is a rush, but unfocusing is the absolute wonder of why we all try to obtain a bit of, or a piece of, that proverbial delicious pie. I am 60 plus today.

Education and Business-No Difference; Case In Point.

When trying to understand by articulating the differences between Business and Educational institutions in the United States; they 'know no difference'. They both share in terms of service for their customer and/or product. One deals with unethical behavior and another tries to keep ethics in-you decide who is playing who or playing fairly.

BEST PRACTICES:
Though education in America is slow to adopt the 'best practices' of business for its finance, business strategy, and IT architecture enhancements, which will deliver a cleaner enterprise, it is definitely not too late.

For once, education has a teacher, a mentor, in good business. The educational predecessor that will and can teach education to be more efficient, while growing innovation, by meeting the challenges of limited resources on a total enterprise of an existing school district.

GROW TENTACLES:
Many times, technical people for all their worth and glamour, can stifle growth in the very direction that they themselves are wanting to grow. Why? Plain truth-technical people need to grow tentacles with deep understanding of the business in which they find themselves supporting before they run-off and spend more money purchasing appliances; switches and servers. Those days are coming to a close.

Technical skills are a necessity for integration and trouble-shooting activities-nobody is saying that these skills are not needed, however, when inarticulateness (too much technical) plays into a strategic exercise, this is not the time to defend your turf by being more technical because the overall project will therefore suffer. We need to climb higher first-grab a glimpse of what we are trying to accomplish through visionary collaboration.

CORE VALUES:
In this case, education has developed a 'mission statement' that is a 'strategic vision' presented to the educational hierarchy. It contains the 'core competency' which many a business finds difficult or reluctant to pin-point at their own peril.

Though education calls it by a different name, it is still their 'core competency' statement. The core statement is then rigorously examined for 'core values'. These are three to four subordinate strategic bullets which lay a foundation for the 'core', building depth and breadth to lead a path to a precise focal point, delivered from the Board of Education.

BUILDING THE CHILD:
An unglamorous and important fact is that most school districts within the United States of America, miss-out when they cannot understand. They, the districts, fail to understand what those 'core values' in fact, mean. This is unfortunate for them, because the end-result and product of the 'core values' and 'mission statement' lends complete focus on building the child, period! The child is education, and education is the child. In other words, to 'feel wanted and respected...' sounds more like, what we all cherish and want ourselves.

SECRET WEAPON:
Are all these mission statements, core values, and priorities misplaced AND/OR ignored? I don't think so, at least I still believe that these 'statements' are the beginning of an end-result, which is a wonderful strategic statement at best. It is in part, my secret weapon when building the connection between IT, business divisions and departments. Understand this very point and your picture of how service is to be delivered, actually the tools, becomes much clearer.

ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS:
Whether or not any technician(s), or for that matter, any of the staff, including executives, managers and the office of the superintendent, understand the ethical implications and power of these statements to educate the families children is a lesson of global proportion. Although, in all situations there are those individuals that shine-these I admire!

A TO B = Z
I BELIEVE that when they were young and passionate for their work, they understood. Whether they continue to function within that same realm is an exercise of renewal, when A to B = Z. Nevertheless, I am about to 'see' first hand, if the Las Cruces Public Schools in New Mexico, in reality, is made-up of individuals who still stand-by their ethical principles-standards and higher 'core values' of that school district. I am betting that they do...


This next section is where I am reporting on my trip to the Las Cruces Public Schools. REPORT: They are embroiled in what is a tantamount battle for turf. Their superintendent's doings (threats and resignation) and the bickering have been all over the local newspapers for many a Sunday. The Chief of Technology-the position which I went down there to check-out, is gone also. If it existed before I went to visit, I have no idea. Two top positions gone.

PUBLIC TRUST
I worry about the public trust-what is the public doing? I mentioned to the hiring board if they have considered having electronic (smart devices) badges for their children-so you really know who's in school (criminals, child molesters, etc)...Does innovation sound familiar here?

At least, from what I could 'see'-perhaps data servers and their departments are not protected. Firewalls are not secure 100% anymore, hackers can go around firewalls today-hello! Wireless access points are not really secure, if not stacked with WAP, WEP and 128bit programs, yet they are still vulnerable. Two most vulnerable points for any device is the integration layer and the application layer. These are the areas where the intruder enters.

If this assumption on my part is correct, then this next assumption is equally important where Hackers can hack into the districts computers for children's sensitive records which could expose to the Internet (global) public at large, visibility to home addresses, telephone numbers, and all sensitive records pertaining to that student.

Students need better exposure to real technology so they can compete in a global market. Think Globally, here!

Costs can be cut everywhere! Because most districts at large run inefficiently. Yes, because when a group is used to running an operations without massive change; change management, the group is vulnerable to high critisism. The way you do business is based on the vision: to educate every child, because you're beholding to every dollar that is expensed, guess what? It's a new day-a new way of promoting the district. And the cost/benefits ratio can be equally applied to Operations and Students. To empower the schools supporting mechanisms pertaining to logistics, and services requires maximum exposure to decreasing cost structures of automation.

Technology in operations, in many areas need RFID (radio frequency Identification) tagging for inventory-bus parts, school supplies, food ordering; go ahead you use your own thinking and creative skills here. Automate everything. Start re-engineering the employees. Call for early retirements, re-educating some for other positions.

Order 50,000 pencils because your vendor says so, but not realizing that automating the supply line will and can inject savings directly into inventory by having vendors informed when stocks are low without the district purchasing 50-60-70,000 of anything. Savings (money) then goes to refining the internal processes.

Not really a secure enterprise (school communications) which I'm painting here.


Yes, challenges mount, understanding and discussion should be clarified, if and only if, we understand our own souls. The 'statements', the 'values', the 'strategic vision', all hold a common thread that guides initiatives to their proper end and beginning.

Without understanding-how can one be truly an enterprise architect for education? We are all enterprise architects' for our children. How then can a technician understand the correct integration and implementation of tools which IT will deliver without knowledge, and comprehension of that elusive point which we call business value. IT MUST BE TAUGHT...

He or she can not know unless, simply they are changed emotionally, which rearranges that concept of IT the technical for the betterment of the business whole. It now becomes broader, more deep, and far wider than first exposure. We have then only begun to align the backbone of information to our business existence. If it were not true...How then did wireless communication come about? Was it not for the promise of untethered basic communication and freedom?

Lyle K'ang, MBA/IM
Senior VP of Business IT Communications Consultant
LYVEOASIS

I Need This Person...Well, Just Ask...

Ask...

~PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS~

• Diverse twenty year technology background. As Chief Executive Officer for startup computer-electronics-network corporation, business clients included utilities, education, government, aerospace industry, and manufacturing. Other positions held-Chief technology officer including technology Lab, and fiber optics networks. Held technology specialist positions with increased responsibilities~
• Architected strategic overlay for client’s infrastructure enterprise
• Process Architect ~ eliminating silos ~ increased IT and business efficiency
• (BI), business intelligence efficiency design including SAP BW, & Cognos reporting tools. Ability to discover core business competency for customers. Chaired Boeing’s 62,000 node-VoIP, Data Center, WiFi, RF, RFID network infrastructure services~
• Expert in project management (PMBOK), & team building~
• Restructured personnel development & communications to build business value~

(c) 2006 Lyle K'ang-

~EDUCATION~

05/27/2002 – 03/23/2005. Aspen University, Denver, CO
MBA: Business Administration specialization in Information Management
GPA: 4.0 Commendation. Delta Epsilon Tau International Honor Society

The ROI-Death (War) Politics or Security; Case In Point.

I am responding not only to this article from a recent post by CIO, but introducing my credible information as a person on the ground whose team worked these RFID issues in the Boeing manufacturing sector from 2001 to 2003. I was the Network Infrastructure Services Chair and Business Manager for this RFID team. This team was one of six or seven different projects that were on-going in which I was 'full-on' and involved, as far as I know. Through no fault of my own, except perhaps my age, I was layed-off with 40-50K people. Additionally, this in turn is another article on port safety.

METRICS:
"One of the challenges that comes along with securing the supply chain is measuring success. How do you know you've prevented something that hasn't happened?" I mentioned in my last post, [Lyle K'ang; No American Management for Our Ports?] about efficiencies. By using traditional business metrics: "Improvements in safety, insurance liability, efficiency.These are outgrowths of a good security program." [Reference 1: Security Compliance, Customs Rattles the Supply Chain.

Well yes, and by the numbers or metrics that are produced that specify 'no hits' or disabling features (dirty bombs exploding) which customs are tracking and looking for. At first glance, it is an easy-no-brainer-approach, of course, this is the obvious way, and a 'best practices' method!

What is a good system is the 'old dash board' system of BI (business intelligence)used in Boeing's manufacturing plants. No problems-the light stay's green and the line keeps on churnin' away. Used in other companies as well, I assume this process will allow freight to move through at lightning speed with the new ATDI. If your cargo is 'trusted' you can go right through via the 'green lane' and not be inspected. This is a great system-you know, getting products there fast. However, are there any foreseeablee features not architected that can breach the 'express lane'? You tell me...

"The reduction in inspections promised by C-TPAT (a government sponsored Web application) are another potential source of ROI. Toymaker Hasbro spent just under $200,000 on its up-front C-TPAT compliance and spends an additional $112,500 a year maintaining it. Since it became C-TPAT-certified in November 2002, its inspections have dropped from 7.6 percent of containers coming into the U.S. in 2001 to 0.66 percent in 2003. Given that in 2003 the company imported about 8,000 containers, and that port authorities charge around $1,000 per inspection, Hasbro is saving about $550,000 a year in inspection costs alone, approximately a 5-to-1 return rate." CIO 2006

"Members of the trade community expect that ATDI participation will be a requirement for Green Lane status. The definition of Advance Trade Data Initiative (ATDI), "which requires importers to share with Customs every bit of information about a shipment, including the purchase order, which ports it passes through, proof of delivery and its final destination within the United States". And while no one has a firm timetable for the merging of ATDI and C-TPAT (Customs says that participating in the ATDI pilot qualifies companies for tier-three status), the funding is in place. In November, Sen. Murray introduced the Green Lane Maritime Cargo Security Act of 2005; expectations for its passage are high. In all likelihood, CIOs will have between 18 and 36 months to prepare for compliance, but a terror event looms as a wild card. If there's an attack, that timetable could telescope quickly." CIO 2006.

HUGE DATABASES?:
In large companies, databases become very costly and purging data requires a project team to define which, when, who, where, data gets purged. How long it's archived, and for what purpose. IT Architecture is advanced enough today to take in these scenarios. As conservative as we all are, especially in 'money producing the perfect design', it is a 'best-practice' to limit the data archiving processes as an intelligent design.

RFID [Radio Frequency Identification]:
"Smart containers could tell Customs officials (among other things) whether a container had been opened, and, if so, when and where." Reference 2: The Stories Containers Tell-Technology can make the cargo talk.

HIGH SEAS-SATCOM:
I assume the above statement is voicing its concerns about the high-seas and voyages. If it is, the tracking and reusable RFID components have apprecialbly decreased in costs from 3 to 6 years ago. In fact, by using this RFID technology after refinements, budget/costs studies and fairly balancing risks to shippers, ports, destinations, and visual affects of a port explosion in America to its population is imperative. But if not implemented, any company that does not integrate RFID or similar technology to secure our shipments on the ground and ocean, today is dumb. Again, without going into the technical nuances of using Satcom and close reader mechanisms which read RFID tags within buildings, we'll assume that you the reader, has an overview of the technical workings of what it can and can't do.

"Assuring that your suppliers are handling your cargo in a secure way will require greater visibility into what is actually happening in the supply chain". CIO 2006. This is being done today on the ground in battle, in many aspects to record through RFID, smart containers, vehicles and servicing logs and utilizing other promising emerging technologies that are tied into a basic concept of RFID mechanisms.

"For intercontinental shipments, an RFID tag can trigger automated alerts when a container enters a terminal equipped with an RFID network. (Without automated alerts, importers are at the mercy of terminal operators who sometimes don’t send their manual alerts until days after a container arrives in the United States.)"

BOEING:
The above scenario can be done today as witnessed again with Boeing's directives. To further lend credence to my team's research, is Stanford's Professor Hau Lee who found that "between reductions in inventory and pilfering, as well as other savings, companies that use technologies like RFID can avoid as much as $462 in costs per container. Reusable RFID tags range between $20 and $150, and networks can cost from $30,000 for a small site to over $1 million."

NOT A CORRECT STATEMENT:
[["But right now, many of these technologies are still too immature or expensive to work in the real world. Until then, companies will need to integrate systems with their overseas suppliers so that they can risk-manage the supply chain by spotting anomalous activity as it happens. Even secure processes "can be compromised," says Ken Konigsmark, Boeing's C-TPAT program manager. "[Overseas workers] get paid peanuts, and it would be very easy to bribe them."]]

PUT RISK BACK INTO THE MIX?:
The above statement is putting risk back into the mix instead of removing it. Using broad statements without any bases to backup such ridiculous truisms is incredible and meant to confuse the reader about real practices and opportunities that RFID delivers today. Ken inserts about three (expensive, immature, bribery) different topics in his one diatribe.

Let me explain. For instance, Boeing is now working on a technology called 'flight bag' which essentially downloads and uploads information by a system that automatically updates the avionic systems in the cabin, for incoming (docking) aircraft. (It's a get ready for the next trip, type of application). This same system can be extended and used for exports and incoming ships that approach ports since its main fuel is wireless AP's, and/or Satcom used as a backup or redundancy or as an alternative. Electronics or transducers which can be made to record weights of vessels or anything WE want to record, takes innovative thought.

POOR PEOPLE:
Saying 'poor' people (the enemy) can 'hack away' into secure systems designed by security scientists doesn't say much about educated Americans, or 'no nothing' well paid executives. VP's who have nothing to add but company politics should be replaced with bright, energetic, innovative men or women whom are humble and knowing, that make statements supported with ethics. If the systems are breached-they are breached by under-paid internal American security folks. How naive-replace him-he's 'poor' in thought.

Now perhaps, I have introduced a similar atmosphere in which the Coast Guard finds itself in today or probably more aligned to how Boeing can race-to-get its product to market. But 'big' ships are hard to turn in water, no matter who you are, Big C or Big B.

So, what do you say? The CIO article as it stands, is a fantastic, gigantic hoorah, for what we can do as 'a movin' team' when we're pushed to the wall. Don't feel pushed yet? Please don't wait for our 21+ ports to be managed by others besides our American companies and our U.S. Unions. Lazy or Innovative. Intelligent or Ignorant. Tired or Energetic. Or are the ports political? Never mind that-nevertheless, they are not secure! You tell me!!

No American Management for Our Ports? Case In Point.

The recent accusation that American business can not be found nor assumed to be viable, if found to run our countries 16 ports, is not a business statement, nor provides a climate for business discussion that want to manage these ports.

The statement is a political statement and not the focus of this web site, however, I will clearly, yet succinctly, try to produce ALL business issues from my vantage.

It appears from what we are learning from the outrage, is that there are Unionized ports or entities thereof, that are Union run. Nothing wrong with that, providing that the Unions, which include their rank and files KNOWLEDGE, are providing the benefits' to those workers' according to Union contracts and Federal Laws pertaining to rights to organize in the United States.

WORKING TOWARDS A COMMON GOAL:
Again, I have no problem with Unions when working for worker's rights alongside management are involved. I was a VP of the [ILWU]/AFL-CIO International Longshoremen Warehouse Workers Union in Honaka'a, HI. This was a time when Ghiradelli Chocolate treated the Filipino workers-mostly Hawai'ian Island born, like third-world imbeciles. This is not good for business. Hell, tourists could see right inside the factory that things were not correct. So, can you share in my point, when I express that there is nothing wrong with Unions, if and when they live up to their contracts. And, in this case, the ILWU did. When Unions carry the same vision and work in concert with the company execs. you have an enterprise, a team focused on winning (profits, cash, move products). When you don't have this cohesion you have both sides working against each other, and in the case of the Macadamia Nut company (Ghiradelli), it did not take long, in less than five years they claimed bankruptsy.

AMERICAN SECURITY:
To state that no American businesses exists that can handle the management of our ports, is a form of criminal utterance that begs to confuse and further cloud our collective goals as Americans that want and demand American security.

A loosely constructed statement undermines American security by saying to the World, that we (Americans) are not capable of performing management, in any form, let alone on our own [4]-[16]-21 ports. If all of them are deep water ports, these then are extremely valuable to Americans in times of moving commerce and National Security. Is this not in the best interest for the American citizen?

When you are inducted into any branch of the service as a GI (government issue), you are sworn in to uphold The Constitution of The United States of America, to protect America from domestic as well as foreign enemies. These are our 'fighting men and women' of uniform. We have capable National Guardsmen to perform these tasks. Without getting into the nuances here, we have trained border patrol, FBI, Homeland defense mechanisms in place to guard us from foreign invasion. We can do this and must, because as it stands, many systems are still broken and have never been inacted. Management here recieves an 'F' grade from a U.S. commission -

ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW:
If we have potential breaches in one or many of these architectures or components, management holds the responsibility to quickly correct, test and perform Quality Assurance on the corrected Process. This is architectural management which includes, process and sub-level forms of Program/Project management. These skill levels as well as processes are scrutinized and tested thoroughly for function to assure that its deliverables and tasks are met, within the allocated budget and time constraint periods. Many of the processes used in America come from the Project Management Institute and International ISO9000 Certification Societies where we hold appointed seats.

SYSTEMS:
Our own production and scientific research facilities have produced some of the finest equipment during WWII and presently, today's (public knowledge) war-grade RF Communications. If the plan is difficient and not ready for publication or production, it goes back to the drawing board, specifically, to correct that anomally. Simple as that.

Perhaps too simple. The present container management is broken-containers are coming in (supposedly inspected elsewhere) to our ports with manifests that are grossly in error. Some containers weights are far heavier than the manifests say. So heavy, the cranes have a hard time lifting them up. Does this scenario wave red flags for you? It does too me.

Without going into too much specifics, remember, if you want to venture further into our weapon/technology history, defense companies and others have manufactured systems that have grossly malfunctioned. We should look at the Program Managers and political focuses here and find fault with them, their CEO's and Senior Management for botched projects that kill and maime Federal personnel. They (management) must be held to a higher standard and be accountable. It is an honor to be called into management, therefore it must be treated as such. Not debased with filth , power, and greed.

MANAGEMENT:
American Companies' lack the expertise to manage our ports is an incorrect statement as far as ethical performance goes. It is clearly, a fraudulent statement made in haste by our American government where each member took an oath to protect The Constitution of the United States of America. Are they delivering on that promise to the American owned/multinational companies and specifically, the American citizen when statements are incorrectly put?

BUSINESS/GOVERNMENT FOCUS:
Is this another business error or management shortcoming? It's not as simple as that because our government was setup in such a way as to not emulate big business because it has a dissimilar functon or core competency than a regular corporation or multinational. Let me explain briefly, a business' core may have its focus on customer support or the customer satisfaction for its services or products.

The governments' focus is many-fold and not about profits. But when distilled, it boils down to one core competency and that we are that core; 'we the people' must always remember-that everything revolves around 'WE THE PEOPLE'. Security, National Security, Foreign Policy, Internal Infrastructure (highways, roads; dirt, gravel, concrete, blacktop. Utilities; electrical, water, sewers. Shipping lanes. Oil and gas distribution lines and ports), are all high terms that act as umbrellas to protect, provide for and guard the CORE of These United States of America, 'WE THE PEOPLE'.

TAXES:
Nevertheless, the person or person(s) making these statements and/or condoning that America can't manage its own ports, is undermining my protections granted to me as a citizen and our American Security...business, et al. Period. Businesses pay taxes for commerce infrastructure (trucks, air, ships, railway), and should-they expect their payload to travel from one point to their destination safely, and should. They depend on the U.S. Government, a.k.a. U.S. Coast Guard to protect them-once out in International waters, other protections take-over.

WE THE PEOPLE:
Furthermore, our national collective conscious and focus after 9/11 promised to strengthen our security of our ports...another exclamation from business and the citizenry. We assume that the United States knows of or has several American Companies that are capable and willing to provide port management, but because of other focuses, it has been verbally stated that none exists. Why? Isn't America the Greatest! Yes! Because of 'THE PEOPLE' and its diversification.

If none exists (American port management companies), then MY government for similar programs, in the past, has opened several venues to train and produce the 'best of class' programs that have addressed these other shortcomings, and can perhaps do the same for this issue in the United States. After going on four years, since 9/11, if we have not addressed these many shortcomings that (WE THE PEOPLE) are not aware of, I ask, what has management been doing? What does the board say?

GLOBAL ETHICS AND INDIVIDUAL POLICING:
Today, in executive business boards across the U.S. and overseas, address issues that are more directed to their governance boards' and policies. I like to think that they are driven from a foundation of ethics, which include global ethics. Some companies do this-AHEAD of and in concert with monetary gain, but you seldom here about them.

PROCESS MANAGEMENT:
No! American Business Management for Our Ports, is not a business statement but an agenda with a different name. Business issues are solved through collaboration and integration, utilizing processes which use metrics, a viable form used for producing analysis by reaching the bottom lines of financial goals.

POLICY-TECHNOLOGY:
Technology is a very helpful tool and will solve 85%-99.9% of the problems, but it is the 14.9% or .9% that I worry about. This less than 1% of the equation if systems are almost perfect, is the failure of the human component to excercise his or her's 'free will', to 'think out of the box', to act apart from the daily politics by following a set of guidelines and procedures. These can only be assertained - produced from a security panel that has the American peoples' interest as their goal.

Within these guidelines and procedures, a deliverable of this panel is to produce a working outcome that promotes efficiency through tehnology use. This has to come from that government panel who also draw their expertise from consultants whom have U.S. American security clearances. This means NO foriegn entities allowed. Why? Because inorder to draft a stable, viable and thorougly efficent system, those that plan the process will have to know U.S. process lines which maybe secret.

These 'secrets' can come in the form of where and how do escalated issues that may come from 'storage' or 'unloading' areas, as examples, receive immediate remedy? Once these are established, potential candidates have to declare that they meet the guidelines, have the monetary wherewithall to perform technically. Which means simply; SAFETY! And trucks, lifts, fuel containers, service crews, including IT such as computers, scanners, sensors, databases, secure wireless, redundant servers, firewalls, and backup apparatus have to be in place in secure locations, off site, tested and ready to go, at a failure rating of 99.99% to 100% within 6 months after starting.

SIGNUP:
Where can American businesses gain access to view the requirements needed, if they themselves deem that they pass the test with the required knowledge and financial stability, to perform on a competitive basis? But instead, we are told that (WE), don't exist?

EQUAL OPORTUNITY:
Can we have a match or contest of business competitive management vying for these slots? Should it include businesses which are driven by executive women managers', and what about American ethnic minorities? How will they compete? Equally burdened or is there room for favoritism? If there is room for unethical behavior, then there exists a considerable breach of policy and must be repaired immediately!

Somehow, I believe it will never happen, but strangely enough, if it does, there are past and present guidelines in place because, it's in the LAW!

Document Retention Strategy

To be ahead of the anxiety that litigation hold has on a corporate culture, IT and governance executives must meet before it happens. Many times this does not happen. Waiting till the courts inform you, is too late. Late, because money, time and scramble efforts does not help you.

WHAT IS NOT NEEDED, is complex. But by formulating a plan to save specific data, by training IT personnel in what is needed is most important. Nevertheless, testing via quality assurance with counsel, litigators and IT personnel is healthy.

Now there are several excellent companies that do this service to help you pre-plan.

I ask you that have experience here. What did you do?

Lyle K'ang, MBA/IM
Sr. Business Analyst
IndyMac Bank -Cognizant Technology Systems

Acceleration Optimization

Making money, making profits after expenses is good, right?

How can we drastically cut our expenses by 50%?

Well, at least by 34% and I'll show you how.


By using a combination of fixes:

1. Business Performance Management (Infrastructure).

2. Business Application Optimization and IT architecture enhancement.

1. Business Performance is critical, especially when looking at exacting issues that off the top, look like a nightmare for you. There's money in there being wasted-I'll get to that soon. Secure Web optimization is one of the processes that come to mind. The other is WAN Application Optimization and its benefits.

#1 can promise you a a reduced bandwidth utilization by greater than 75%. There's a bunch of acceleration optimization technologies out there. Be careful-many can hurt your bottom-line.

2. Business Apps., middleware (open source) and the optimization of its software and hardware engineering by using special products that go along way in defining this type of process. I know of several within that framework labeled as Application Traffic Management.

There's the reliable and secure access of corporate data, authenticating offloading and layering every layer for better network security for these applications is a must to prevent against application attacks. Of course, there will be application layer attacks that may go undetected but without the checking capabilities of blocking and logging application layer attacks, the absolutely critical stage of application firewalling has not been met.

With #2 in place we can actually see our costs going down by requiring fewer server resources and lower overall infrastructure costs. Dramatic improvements to application performance is noted.

I would venture and guess that some of you know of the practice to break the client/server connection dependency through TCP/IP multiplexing. There's another example of efficiency.

Now, if you want more information, for a reasonable fee ($110.00 for assessment-then negotiated contract fee to finish the project), we can go over your infrastructure and recommend the systems and performance approach mentioned in #1 & #2.

Reply to this blog and we'll carry-on a dialog to assess where your infrastructure is or is not. I'll get back too you so our conversation will be private, if you like.
1. Include the time-frame in which your project is to be completed and 2. What are your exact issues that you want to solve? If these are not known because of ambiguity, we'll find them for you to review before we start anything.

Just remember-when doing business, business costs you. Reducing WAN latency which is a significant cause of congestion on the Internet actually cuts the costs of doing business. This is another one of those hidden overheads which can be eliminated.

Yours Truly,
Lyle K'ang, MBA/IM
Sr. Business Analyst

Consultant for VITConsultancy.com
And Cognizant Technology Systems - IndyMac Bank

Business Impact-Enterprise_Architecture

"Enterprise Architecture is the practice of applying a comprehensive and rigorous method for describing a current or future structure for an organization's processes, information systems, personnel and organizational sub-units, so that they align with the organization's core goals and strategic direction.

Although often associated strictly with information technology, it relates more broadly to the practice of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture, performance management and process architecture as well. [reference: Wikipedia 5 Feb. 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_architecture]".

Enterprise Architecture

Let me speak with the CEO's and CIO's of enterprises and any of you that find these types of topics interesting.

When diving in to locate the chain and its weak-link of your enterprise that may be located on a design, we'll call the directional arrows that I refer to within the drawings, not as arrows but as chains. Thanks to my wife (very strategic in thought), I present a difficult concept.

We're now looking for the "weak-link". Get it! Not "points-of-failure" as someone I know called it. My God, that terminology scares the baddest of the bad, especially Sr. VP, VP and Systems Admin. people. Why? Because it's demeaning and introduces negative connotations from the get-go.

Understand?! Good-let's continue...

Most IT executives forget about this one most important fact. The plain fact that there are many layers of an architectural design that can be considered as strategic, but to whom. This initial discussion can be considered high level (strategic in design), and is the area where I wish to clarify.

If you can not articulate at what level of the design you want to digest, then let me suggest something to start you along.

The fact, that many of you Chief Information Officers are leaving, jumping ship and switching positions to wherever at an alarming rate, is irresponsible in my estimation. Stop and take hold of your resources.

CEO's can't fathom why you are jumping except that maybe that's the norm here. Well it isn't except for the one's that can't clearly paint that picture for those 8 a.m. meetings with your seniors.

Give me a break folks! Let's look, discuss and target what we are really after besides the $$$.

You really have much to offer, yes that's a fact. You really know your stuff-yes, that's another fact. And, how you wish others can just understand what you are saying, take-off from there and fly in the same airspace as you. That's a fact for many of us!

OK! That's not the point- the point here is that if you have not been schooled with and in technology, then that 'old school' thought that you can run the business or section well is absolutely untrue. Not today!

I now want to speak with the those of you who have a technical as well as business background-these in my humble gestimation are the champs. Here we can go high-level, mid-high-level, higher than high level or lower than the third high-level and still get it.

So, we are now ready to understand the business impact of technology and how it plays on the architecture.

I am adding some designs to give you an example of where we are going with the discussion.



This is a high-level on something called Enterprise Service Bus Architecture...cool.

Here's another one on the same subject, different high-level approach.




Now, at this point we can add all kinds of scary trash here like an architecture of a large bank that has Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS) for app./patches/upgrades/etc. deployment to 8,700 end users desktops. These SMS servers are, let's say about 1,300 in number (good round numbers).

We are in fact, painting the underpinnings or underbelly of this giant beast. Now, I hope you are getting the point so far. Just because you don't understand the underside of the beast, does not mean it's not important to YOUR discussion. It is. Let's go on.

This enterprise is a large one and NOT make believe. It in fact, lives. I saw it, smelled it, and worked on it.

We'll add another 1401 Servers (prod., Dev., Lab., and Test). Storage is around 103 TB. OK! This is getting boring, so I'm calling it - 7,560 TDM phones, 2,735 VoIP Telecommunications. 2,700 Wireless Blackberries and finally, 897 Offshore (India) clients.

We have painted (together) the belly of the best beast. Here we understand that the chain is strong and everything is working. The chain exists even with its weak-links. However, we also understand that intermittent problems can and do exist. Even though, we are working, there are underlying issues. What is the cost of intermittent downtime to YOU!

I am not going into the myriad of details about how one can build in Web Optimization, appliance redundancy, and integrating BIGIP systems throughout to solve a ton a problems. Or, the fact that the OC3 Vendors that give you light through your trunks (circuits) need to be diverse. Diversity meaning more than one vendor supplier. Anyway, the problems solved here on paper and the issues understood.

Now, at this point before we loose the "business executives" who should have a clue what we've just discussed, and probably don't, I'll say right here, right now, that your summation of the enterprise cannot possibly be articulated with any business intelligence, because "if you don't understand that a car needs oil in it's engine-guess what?"

We have fooled around too long - let's get to that diagram I promised early on.



This is what these executives understand. But again, let me reiterate, the weak-links of the system or under-belly of the beast have to be understood as "intermittent" and possible "weak-links".

You will never know when they go, so designing a high-level design just so "YOU" understand and having analysts build you a full offering with metrics and quantitative equations, is really an exercise that can show you a "dashboard" that really has no merit, whatsoever. It looks good-but it's off...It's primarily a circle jerk!

Why? Because the weak-link will fail, break, tear apart, stop working when you least expect it.

Again- these are the points that can have a large business impact and high intangible cost. They can be prioritized as medium or high-because we the technical cadre' understand about an engine running without oil.

CIO's, Sr. VP's and CEO's-now's the time to talk with each other, by formulating points of discussion, understanding by referencing why intangibles are more harmful to an enterprise than black and white, tangibles. High Impact-You Bet!

Understand the many levels of strategic design before simplifying a design that really does not or at best attempts to capture any intelligence whatsoever.

In closing, if I were to say to my CEO, that at this strategic level, our mission statement and IT infrastructure is aligned....I would not be ethically inclined to bet my life on that broad statement. You can go ahead and say what you want. It may never break. But when it does, pack your bags and run after the CIO's who went before you.

Lyle K'ang, MBA/IM
VP Business IT Analyst Consultant
-LyveOasis-
Consultant for VITConsultancy.com

8th Largest Mortgage Bank-Largest Financial Institution

CRM - CUSTOMER SERVICE AT ITS FINEST!

I walked to work this a.m. I noticed the morning air, heavy with a slight chill. Pasadena California is pretty.

While I passed several large vertical bank buildings, a man was walking towards a door, carrying three large pink boxes, I assumed ladened with donuts. He also had another package that was proving to be unmanageable as he was shifting the package from hand to hand.

I walked towards him with a smile and offered to assist with the door that he was about to enter. He turned to me, looked at me and said, "Oh, No! I can get it." As his hand slowly went to the door handle, he was aware that he had to keep the balance or the boxes would fall. I opened the door for him, and he thanked me.

I walked a little farther down the sidewalk towards IndyMac located on Lake Ave. In the distance, while still on Colorado Ave., a blind black man with a white long skinny cane was slowly sweeping it back and forth as he headed towards me. He gently touched an edge by a sidewalk planter almost walking into the planter when the proprietor of a restaurant came out, put his arm out for the man to grab on to and escorted his customer to safety through the doors of his eatery.

How about that! That is customer relationship management the way it was envisioned-not the buzz word that it is today, with its crappy interfaces, phony deliverables and a nightmare to the organization in terms of interface and costs.

What do you say?


Lyle K'ang, MBA/IM
Sr. Business Analyst
VITConsultancy and Cognizant Technology Systems for IndyMac Bank Disaster Recovery Infrastructure.

THE STATE OF THE CIO The Number-One Problem: The Project Backlog

BackLog-Creates Jobs
Posted: JAN 12, 2006 03:06:00 PM CIO
by Lyle K'ang
____________________________

Totally agree with "the application backlog isn’t a problem one solves, it’s a condition one lives with as technology matures and expands into new areas of the business, enabling growth and greater efficiency."

I also see a need to educate the executive cadre’ about this one, most important function in a pleasant working arena, "One needs effective governance." Without it we might as well go back to the early ’70’s and preach the ’blood-letting’ cry of re-engineering, over and over again.

It didn’t work--what works is intelligent human beings monitoring-managing, human possibilities which include the sub-technology (infrastructure) of our environment.

If you don’t get the human-possibilites/limitations in check, in my ’book’, you’re no better off than rampaging bulls down the street.


Lyle K'ang
Business Consultant
IncMy
________________________

A Damaging Metric

A Damaging Metric
Posted: DEC 31, 2005 07:28:55 PM - CIO Magazine

I can generously use most of all your arguments-all are in alignment when using IT not as a cost center but as a value to business. Who rallies behind the implementation must be a partner and driving force for change.

Metrics-integration with business goals is of course the way we want to go but for most smaller entities; this is new. They go the route of needing the XYZ because...

Metrics can be made to show good TCO, ROI, & ROA. But is it really the way to nirvana? ROA is better than ROI in some circles. All these formulas do not show business value-not really.

I can show you that wireless in a manufacturing plant such as Boeing, can bring you an impressive ROI, sometimes to the value of 135% but at what business cost?

You lose your base, your workers, your plants, lose your reputation in a global market and move-at what costs TO YOU?

So your driving ROI % and pushy Senior Exec’s is not new at all-maybe in a bubble, but we work in a community, international, national, and other borders. These metrics must show goodwill. These are intangibles as such, but tangibles are all you have with metrics. Grab the intangibles-up and done your supply and customer chain.

If your business is simply making money, like a slot machine (not all companies are strategically aligned to making money), then an infrastructure set up for transactional activity is a slam-dunk and IT and business goals win.

But if the goals are efficiency, process management, human resources; Quality expenditures - refining metrics, then it’s more about costs...and IT and costs just don’t get along. IT must deliver lower costs all around in all transactions-automatic, manual and especially with customer feelings...so you data mine-and at what costs? What are the deliverables?

Spending more on IT does not necessarily give you the winning-hand. I believe the information you glean from your business goals, including the tiring and endless details, are the most important for IT and the business, before anyone goes after metrics.

Lyle K'ang, MBA/Information Management
BUSINESS CONSULTANT

HUMANNESS

Last year, I devoted my posts to business and IT (information management minus the technology). The new year, will be on both of those topics and again, I will reiterate the rich subject of ethics.

Many of you may find that devoting a portion of your business thought to ethics, is hardly supportive to making money. On the contrary, it is all about money. Yet, one fact remains crystal clear for most. And that is the fact, that we can connect and communicate through our humanness.

When we do connect, it is possible for all involved to readily accept the true focus of making money for an organization. That is business.

Being a dimmed-wit, excluding those that 'think' from the process of making money is not neccessarily wise. Including those that help make a difference can be influential to your bottom line. However, excluding them by thinking that you can short-change even your own staff from fruitfull endeavors within your company is not only being dimwitted, it bears no fruit-no 'balls' in the long-term.

Another scenario for those that are still holding out on my plea, will go something like this:

A place where we all work and play can be an island. It will never change-it will always be an island. Parties that we attend are populated by those that may be your neighbors, workers, or other acquantices. You tell your crappy ethnic jokes, and each of you make fun of the other culture...that's the way it is on an island. No matter how much joke telling or for that matter, how much you drink or toke, we all 'see' each other again and again. Remember, it's an island.

That's my point...on the world stage, in your offices, locally or somewhere on this planet, we are converging through persistence and communication because we all yearn to be on that island. Think otherwise, and we have starvation, ridicule, hatred, torture, danger, even death. Something that most assuredly happens in a time of war.

On an island, because we all use the same tools afforded us, we 'see' each others' humanness because we are on an island and rather than communicate terminal or dead end objectives, we always speak one way but mean another. Why? Because we know we cannot run, we cannot hide, we cannot kill our own community that lives on an island.

Humanness is an island of compassion. This scenario, I have lived for almost sixty some-odd years, which started on the island of O'ahu, an island in the Hawai'ian archipelego of seven islands. It is a true island story and works.

Of course, in any truth, there are opposites than can tarnish or melt the truth into discoloration, distortion, and non-existence. No matter...the truth stands. Think of this-all of you that are thinking about business are on the same wave pattern. You know each others thoughts and the winner is often on a win-lose trek. Some think the win-win and that can be beneficial if it's ethical but how many of us really think in terms of 'an island population'?

An island, is an island. It can be easier, if you but try by creating your own 'islands of thought' by considering our humanness.

dOUBLE-DUCE or is it Double_COLD; Case In Point.

Let's talk about those clients that you gain through attrition, luck and being in the right place at the right time. I have experienced all of these but this one is for you.

This is a story about a place I once worked in. I respected most of all the excellent worker's but as you read, I cannot stand blind ignorance. I suppose you'll understand, at least, I hope you can follow along. It's mostly about bright intellectuals who have let their own lights extinguish because of very low self-esteem and the fact, that they just can't get over themselves, It's a too bad, too sad situation. Enjoy!

NEGOTIATIONS: GIVE AND TAKE.

Know it alls-those that think, that their s--t doesn't stink, and those that are so weighted-down with outdated interactive models that their contribution is more of the same...hinderance, stalls, which produce increased costs too me and the company.

I have worked temporarily with a small group that fills the above menu. Please don't get me wrong. I have compassion for this group, simply, because they need help.

Both guys are exceptional but----

This is painful, because these guys can only 'see' their noses on their faces and that's it. Their dreams, ambitions and spiritual guidance is dashed by their own doings. I have never seen people do this to themselves, until now. Oh! I've heard of this type of masochist's narcissim, but up until now, I've never been a party to its details.

These are the types: Tell them the earth is round because you've seen it and been around it-they'll call you a heretic and try to dismantle you-piece by limb, until they can 'see' that you are just like them-they don't care about what you know or where you've been, there's the fault.

Failure to realize the bigger picture...It is not the demeanor or lack of professionalism, it is the shear ignorance by allowing unchecked ego to dominate these sessions.

Where there is a lack of understanding and overwhelming pessimism, there is fruition and maturity, presented as a lack of applying applied physics, using critical thought as a wand to discover for themselves, that the world is not flat. But that is not always the easy route.

Difficult times ensue, and I believe that hope is here when one of these friends understands, but in a day or two it simply, cannot be sustained. One or the other gives in and proclaims with all the arrogance and self-righteousness, that the world is indeed flat.

This is not unique though, most heads of private firms act like this until they themselves get hit so hard, that they wished their brain was interchangeable with a baboon's head-probably accepting the fact, that at this point, a baboon is smarter in many ways than they are. I agree.

Now, don't get caught up here in the technical...this is their downfall. Understanding too much of the technical and not enough of the big picture is their downright death-spiral into a place where technicians (whether programmers or technical applications) are a dime a dozen. You heard me right-too much of one thing without checking the scale for proper balance, makes Jack-A-Dull-Boy or for that matter, Jill-a Dunce!

Balance in the technical, the business, the infrastructure, and constantly selling the 'bigger picture' of a world that is indeed round, can win and influence friends.

Be forwarned; their is always a price to pay when sharing jokes, intimate secrets, desires, and despairs...THEY (the ones that believe with ALL their heart and soul) will always take another approach just to seem smarter than you. If your ethics are ever called in to recognize where in the hell is your brain, please take a short breath and acknowledge your inner spirit-it is probably correct, which you consciously prefer not to listen too, anyway.

That's fine-except when in business-if that mistake isn't in the R&D as a budget, then your ego tantrum, cost you and your company $1,000's. That's being a dumb-shit, you're just letting yourself become an ignorante' (stupid) person.

Hey, these guys just don't care-so go higher up the ladder, don't give up until you find the guys or gals that know that the planet is round because they've been burnt many times too, and will not placate the ignorant just for hell's sake.

Life is not only business but the edge seems like it. Life is all about the art of balance and refusal to be molded in a muck-pie, just to be 'friends,' by anyone.

Never give in-always ask for and demand the best representation-it's only your life.

BLINDED AND DEAD: A LAST DITCH EFFORT.

You can either do, any of your business, as unscrupulously as you want or do it using an effective bell-weather, SOME FOLKS call ethics.

You can be paid large fees for 'stuff' you don't deliver and call that 'just doing business', or you can have accountability. Which is it for you?

This is not meant to preach, 'I told you so', or spy as a predator on your own close dealings, but more so as my 'out going message' from my post to you, from experiences window.

I noticed a lot of these goings on lately in the U.S. Government. Not that any of this is new, but the fact is, most of these 'dealings' or underhanded shenanigans, are escalating out of control.

Now, I know this will depend on your honor, as to how you define your own immediate and personal ethical process. You can say-you're doing it because 'that's the way we do it'. Or, 'have always done it that way'. Or, you can parrot other 'rich' people by being as obnoxious as them and pretend, you are 'riding above the world' and none of this has anything to do with you at all. In fact, how dare someone like me, a lowly worm, write about you! Right!

Ok-let's compare your riches, your tokens and your threads that you have left behind. What???! THREADS-WHAT IN THE HELL, ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Ladies and gentlemen-this has got to be the number-one ass-hole of our time...Do you suppose?

You are cleared-checked-if you have purged in the last year. Most of you of course, have no idea where I'm going or what I'm creating here-as a matter of detail, it's the crushing, lethal non-objectivity that those that play with 'The Power' to deceive at every corner and gate, have everything to do with this exercise-in a most particular manner.

It is just before the hot phosphorous touches your eye-lids to render you once and for all-blind! Just like that horrible fairy-tale you had nightmares about as a kid or as a grownup as you miserably slip into another unconscious void, leaving behind, yet another round of your precious spirituality.

I am done with you. Having witnessed most of it, I am truly (as a human being says to another) sickened at what you are doing again, now, and in the future. You did it back when...You do it again, in the present, which my friend is the future and base for your future to come.

I refuse to acknowledge the horrors again, with regarded vivid memories of history past, though feel more relaxed, if I can offer YOU, just once more, my sincere wish.

That in your cloud of arrogance, lack of soul-disciplines, retarded caring, and diminished capabilities, nothing to do with gorging, greed, or whoring. Including leaving out everything that is real under the sun-total feelings for the natural, as air is to sky, as running water respects the stone, yet fears the warm skies, as it is being sucked upward to the bigger sky, in the form of evaporation.

YOU my friend are neither there, or approaching cross-roads familiar. How I wish you could sense the coming-a second coming? Just a coming. A harbinger of truths that have been sounding their klaxon-loud-gong more times than the few remaining hairs on your head.

We alone live the karmic road of existence and to that, we that understand lend-in without malice, greed, pity, or repayment. Earlier, I stated that I am a witness-yes, a witness. I can 'see' what YOU do, and what you don't do. I am not the 'I', I speak of. I am not 'ONE' with the Holy One, I am, ME.

But, it gets tiring and now YOU do what you do-but please don't enjoy it, if it requires hate and bullying. Because, if it's considered a farce, you will receive the flashback, soon. This I know, very soon. It is inevitable, on course, and piercing, even to your heart of hearts, your strings. Once again to finally 'see' your threads, whom you have lifted up, your compassionate-wonder.

Most, may lose everything, including shame. Dignity left you, along while back. Girl friends, boy friends, wives, husbands, all disappear, as sorrow replaces their once space-holding virtues, and calls for the highest to intervene momentarily, if not, finally.

Karmic extravagance, one without guilt, one without misery, equals one without hope, one without clear thought, mostly death or dead can never smother the ethers of memory.

Hang tight -business men and ladies. Take stock of your first EQ. What's yours, what's your company doing? How far up the scale is that Ethical Quotient. If you do not have a quickened understanding of what I am saying, right now-then there is a good possibility, in more ways than I can share this moment, you lack the second EQ.

The second EQ is the only path to entertain your movement into enlightenment, not that I am enlightened, to that point, (it just sounds major-real good). Emotional Quotient; stability, caring, sensitivity, crying, real tears, are made for the strongest of men and ladies. Let me repeat myself. The strongest!

The weak, the ugly, the uncompromising, the phony, the mischievious ones, shun from its brilliance-they demean and foil the natural perfection. They do not care about my ground, which I share and walk on every day.

Peace,
Only you can prevent risk!
Enterprise Risk is here,
for you-everyday.What's your hand...?
How far are you willing to gamble?....
When is enough, enough...?
Never too Late To Change...change?

I again as witness, ask you as a fellow human that has had to be taught to be cruel, to kill another being, what is today?

For YOU?! Where are you?

Best To You-
My Business Friend!

Researcher - Burson-Marsteller

I've posted this because I find it to be VERY interesting; The research and findings from BM are stupendous and a warm - special thanks to Moon Kim for his introduction.

I can only reply with a hopeful thrust that myopic IT deficient visionaries are taught to dead-end.

Perhaps, we as IT pupils should understand that it is in our best interests by being more expansive, thinking globally, encouraging high-level strategic thinking in ALL business venues and individual corporate roles.

Only then will CEO's understand that there is a technical process thread that allows business to compete and succeed. Information Technology is that Golden Thread which allows Information, (truly priceless) to be managed for Corporate growth!

Thanks for Reading-
Lyle K'ang, MBA/IM
__
Hi Lyle,

I came across your blog on IT-related news. Your entry past March, title "Chicken and Egg" particularly peeked my interest. Given your subject terrain, I thought this might be of an interest to you.

I am a researcher at Burson-Marsteller, a global communications agency. We just finished working on a study regarding the IT Deficit in the world's largest companies. We found out that only 8% of Fortune Global 500 companies have a current/former CIO on their boards. We also compared the top 25 companies in Fortune Global 500 to the top 25 companies in India's Economic Times and found that the top Indian companies were 10 times more likely than the top Fortune companies to have CIOs on their boards.

Here is some more information, in case you might be interested.

http://www.burson-marsteller.com/pages/news/releases/2005/press-10-19-2005

Please do not hesitate to reach out if necessary.

All the best,

Moon Kim

--
Posted by Moon_Kim to Business Strategy - "Superior Technical Knowledge With A 'No Quit' Attitude!" at 10/19/2005 02:33:09 PM
--
HERE IS THE REPLY TO THAT CIO ARTICLE:
Monday, March 21, 2005

Chicken and Egg


Readers Viewpoint
Chicken and Egg
Posted: MAR 21, 2005 11:01:50 PM http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=3266

Enterprise Architecture must belong to an IT Emerging Technology group that has real interest from all the ’C’s.

The interesting inclusion of this practice is to have an ’IT Network Infrastructure Business Systems Manager’ belong and interface with these groups to teach business strategy and IT convergence together.

When technical groups meet cross-functional business groups, teaching begins. Architects’ step in and teach high-level thinking and process. Business Systems Managers teach process management to shore-up and encourage IT/IS specialists to think in broader terms-not only in granular functions.

Enterprise Architects’ then align their thinking to business processes and the CEO, albeit the Governance Board. CIO and CTOs belong to the Governance team. CIOs are asked more and more to think outward, concerning strategic and convergence alignments that equate well to CFOs and COOs responsibilties.

In a nut shell, these are the individuals that need direction in understanding what business they are in-core competencies, and ever-expansive excercises which the CIO/CTO bring to a Business/Governance Board.

It starts-by understanding the business units requests, the business of the enterprise and the ability to educate, soft skills included, everyone up and down, and through lateral points, while significantly calling for process alignment to eliminate and weaken, silo management (stove pipe) practices.

Lyle K’ang, MBA/IM
IT Business/CTO Consultant
____________________________________________________

- ## Most Aligned Corporation in The Big Bad World - ##

For sometime now, I have pondered and considered the hierarchal personality and its ability to learn on its own; the inherent value which is produced by such a structure, hence the name silo or smoke-stack management. Not a pretty sight and a bad structure to be under. We've all tasted a bit of this tragedy which continues unfortunately, today.

My technologist abilities and eagerness to architect 'best practice' methodologies is not always an easy fix for the customer. Why, the engineers, administrators and business partners add their intellectual solutions, which taken as a whole are more times than not scary.

When this puzzle is turned inside out-what appears on the surface is not always correct in terms of what is needed to make the infrastructure complete, when planning somekind of convergence activity. Thoughts and directions can ebb and flow; emotions can lead or inflame outrageous behavior. This is my story:

Tonight, I was discussing make believe scenarios with a regional partner that has a big stake within a principal-world-class software reseller. I was totally impressed in his abilities to explain a complex matrix of interaction to me between sales engineers, corporate account managers, mid-account and strategic account managers, and how they revolved around a chief technologist. I was almost overloaded by the intensity and the amount of information that was coming my way. I really tried to contain and understand all of its complexities, nuances, and business value that he articulated like an artist finishing a masterpiece.

Perhaps, during the end, I got tired because of my own intellectual overload and feeling good about the discussion, I still felt that I was the one who had lost something in the translation. I had gotten the picture that he so masterfully painted for me and was awe struck. I was in the presence of a representative for one of the highest quality organizations on this planet. Really! That is excellent customer service spelled backwards.

What am I talking about? Well, to be more specific, it is our ability to recognize quality when the opportunity arises. Here I thought it was just another meeting with a man that has a title and I'd be able in a short time to pick out the flaws and discuss these with my wife when I arrived home. But not so fast-I could not find any flaws-each of my questions where answered with concise articulation.

I guess there is a time for reflection and my time is now. Hierarchy? It would be very rare indeed to find this type of value chain within the biggest of corporations, the way this one is organized. It is as though, except for their own great individual personalities, a cloning of the best values a company has to offer for its customers' and employees.

WHERE IS IT? This Business of Compassion...

Have you truly wondered or taken the time to adjust your schedules so as to provide needed energy to family; loved ones, brother's, sister's, mother's, father's - have you?

Take your energy for business-only to find that unexpectedly you die, have a heart-attack or an anxiety collapse.

Where are your values and priority placement now?

What do you do?



The Business of Compassion!!


PROCESS MANAGEMENT:

A. First Steps to Implementation

B. Second Steps to Formulation

C. Third Steps-Continue the interaction that you have started with your loved one's.

Remember-it's your life, so come down and take the time! NOW!!



FIRST STEPS:
1. Take it-take the time out-now! One week-try it!
2. Provide energy to your home-now; take it!
3. Unexpected surprises are great-like gifts for those who have provided love and support while you were buried in your business-remember; now is the time; take it!!

SECOND STEPS:
1. Check on your cash flow-not now! Later! After doing your FIRST STEPS.
2. Take the time; now's the time to cut cash expenditures and expenses-get rid of many fixed costs; try to convert them to variable!
3. Turn fixed assets into salvage-cash for the business in which to do other patching.
4. Look at the overall health of your business now! This should only take you a week!

THIRD STEPS:
1. Now go back to the family!
2. Explain you have budget problems and/or bankruptcy proceedings! Do IT! Take It!
3. Expalin to your family-you are solvent and that you will be taking a two week vacation with them in two to three days-Take it! NOW!

believe that you are now entitled to celebrate in the 'I'.


Enjoy!
Lyle K'ang

It Started Out Just Having Fun...

That's how my music career started out: The Black guy in the middle asked me to come sing with them for an Air Force competition on base. Frankly, I liked to dance back then and never really considered myself singing...I was seventeen then, 1962. This picture is taken at that competition on Mountain Home, AFB Idaho.

I don't remember the names, except one-the guy's name in the middle is A/2c Faulkner. It was really fun, which later changed my life for the better for the most part.

I add this picture here, because I am later asked to join a performing group in Boise, Idaho as a business. We do well and our sound catches on in Boise. It was a new R&B sound. That's me with the 1963 on my pant leg.

You start out with something you like doing and wham! It's a fun, engaging business.

Remember, take your vitamins, and really get enough sleep or you'll burn out and never get where you're supposed to go.

P.S. No band-no back up-just having fun harmonizing with our voices-I was asked to sing baritone then. I later was asked in HAIR to sing tenor.


Thanks,

Lyle K'ang

...when we were young

Filled with hope-we created and inspired. The road was long, winding and gave us what we came for!!

Left to right: Mark (lead guitar), Buddy Georgia (drummer), Brian Bodine (bass), & Lyle K'ang (vocals).

Lyle K'ang

China: Overtakes & Owns America

China is posed to overtake the American economy by being more American than America. Clearly, this is disguised as a friendly merger, but what lies at the heart is planning. The article I refer to, is the fact that China is buying American energy companies.

America plans out as far as 15 to 20 years. China plans 50 to 100 year strategic maneuvers. It is now exercising it's plan.

The article states that we Americans are worried about our supply of oil but it is not the American people that cry out, it is those monsters that need a growing supply chain to feed its appetite. Rightfully, we cry about the high stink'in prices. The Corporations are not American any more than China's gain is for its people (though reports show that human rights issues are changing for the positive).

Though these corporations have incorporated in the U.S., their interest lie with their lusting, greed-driven shareholders. Collectively, none of them give a damn about the America you and I care about. The drive to produce oil by drilling, mergers, providing services; including military-commandos-soldiers of fortunes to guard the oil interests while our own government spins a tale about how such-n-such is a bad dictator or some similar story, is getting very old. By now WE THE PEOPLE should have already seen the obvious.

All the pipelines that have already been built from up North-near the Russian border, through Afghanistan and more coming elsewhere, is a testament for greed.

So, why shouldn't China buy up any American MNC (doing global) business-this is the strategy, the vision, finally THE tactical move to control and own the World....Slow, methodical, & patient cultivation of American trust is planned by the China strategy.

We now have our own 'turn-coat' Senators saying Bush wants this and we should do it-blah, blah, blah. Guess what you ignorant political ideologs, you are now China's prisoners...and NOT a shot has been fired on either side----oh, I take that back; China downed our spy craft-gave it back to us in pieces.

Am I unpatriotic, a traitor; NO! Maybe more grounded or realistic, because people like me dare to proclaim the inevitable - that the Communist Nation might just be the winner?! Is business - any way you can get it or does it carry consequences about ethical imbalance?

You decide-How about that!


Lyle Kekahi K'ang, MBA/IM
http://silomanagement.com/

...What Is Really Obscene

This article is not placed here to show you the politicos, politics about the subject and title, but to show you, that as a business, there are obviously many major failed points to recall.

Senior Management has failed because they themselves are not in compliance, first, with Governance policy and their responsibilities to care about divisions which include its people and welfare.

Spending caps are obviously, 'over the top' and those perpetrators through audit, should be fined, sued, jailed, and fired. In this case, this business is totally out of compliance, operating against all governance policies, rules of engagement, monopoly/oligopoly creation, stealing, human trafficking, murder, and a thousand other international business violations.

If one were to step back for a moment...the business, vocally purports to be an organization led by a great CEO, and a higher guidance system. Upon closer examination, we find that this is not true because, those claims do not financially equate to a sound business base. It has a large global business ethics problem, and hence, the statement; "Surely no God could be obscene enough to create this." ...and now the business article.


What Is Really Obscene
Recently remarks by Sen. Durbin about torture at Guantanamo and by Rep. Conyers referring to the Downing Street Memos have both been called obscene. These subjects are minor in comparison to what is really obscene.

It is really obscene when the worldwide expenditures for armaments in 2004 exceeded $1 trillion. The United States spent almost half of that amount, or almost 3% of global GDP. This does not include over $200 billion the US spent to fight terrorism.

In Western Europe and South America military expenditures fell. They increased in South Asia, Northern Africa and North America.

In the pursuit of DWD's (Dream Weapons of Destruction) USA has a current commitment of over $1.5 trillion. The Pentagon opposes many of these programs. They are created or kept in place by the politicians and civilians in the DOD.

These are obscene in any realistic aspect of life. The Merchants of Death have gained control of the world. The largest supplier is the USA. We sell more destroying, killing material than the rest of the world combined. Our government supports this. It crosses the aisles to all political parties.
We elected them and keep them in office.

What Eisenhower warned about the rising power of the Military Industrial Establishment has become far greater than he ever envisioned. Constant warnings from concerned people all over the world have come to naught. When retiring as Chancellor of the Lincoln Academy, I sounded this tocsin. Afterwards Gen. Westmoreland was decorated.

What is obscene is when you consider the good such amounts could do for worldwide poverty, free trade, health, shelter, education, ecological solutions, population problems, infra structures-just to mention a few concerns. Not even thinking about the rest of the world we are constantly facing what a minority of politicians and lobbyists feel is needed in America. Surely there are better ways to spend out treasure.

I am not even mentioning the countless thousands killed or seriously wounded as a result of these expenditures.

Surely no God could be obscene enough to create this.

The above is taken from Michael's Butler blog site.

He is the author and his material is copyrighted.
Author: Michael Butler, Monday, June 20, 2005 (c) 2005, Michael Butler
Michael Butler's Blog

CRM

I choose this article as a good way to understand complexity:

Before Implementing CRM Software, Redesign Your Workflow--All of It!

Hey, remember the long-running "CRM theater" show that almost broke the all-time rerun record? The one where a company runs out and buys software, then decides to do CRM? What a tear-jerker.

Finally, we got sick of seeing it. So they rewrote the script. I'm sure you've seen the remake. Where the savvy company decides to "do CRM right," so executives reengineer their sales, marketing and customer service processes first, then buy the software? It was supposed to have a happy ending. But it fell flat. Ever wonder why they couldn't write a happy ending to that script?

Lots of companies were left wondering. But this second set of bad endings shouldn't have come as such a big surprise.

Here's the deal. CRM doesn't involve just marketing, sales and service. It involves the whole business. Yup. Manufacturing, procurement, logistics, warehousing, accounting, billing, even HR sometimes. CRM is an organization-wide belief that affects business process across all functions, not just in the front office. Heck, if all you change is front-office stuff, you become a poster company for Freud's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome. If the back office doesn't change, the customer experiences the same stuff, just with front office make-up applied. Trying to mask customer-insensitive operations by dressing up sales, marketing and customer service is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Hear the roar out there? Those are howls of protest from frustrated companies and consultants alike, who think CRM is already too complex, too expensive and too time consuming--without involving the back office. My CRM motto? "Go big or go home." If you're not going to do what CRM takes, why risk less time and money when you're likely to get nothing back?

Want an example of thinking big--and reaping big? Take Ed Phillips & Sons--a relatively small wine and spirits distributor in relatively rural Wisconsin. Several years ago, management took a step toward CRM software, then wisely retreated. Very forward-thinking for the time. Didn't see how adopting CRM software would provide any customer benefits. Hey, what's so great about recording in CRM software that this retailer or that ice-fishes? Everyone does up there. That's when I received a call.

Before long, we had validated strategies and were combing through business processes for the entire operation, back office and front office. Looking at front office and back office together revealed many ways to add value to customers--such as increasing order accuracy; having field sales know warehouse inventory levels; giving sales time to discuss and plan orders with retailers, instead of reserving every second available for writing up and submitting orders; clearing up billing problems on the spot; sharing information and visuals about upcoming deals and promotions; projecting needs based on historical shelf turns; and on and on.

Know what? Not one of these benefits could be delivered by reengineering front office business processes alone. Nor, for that matter, could they be delivered using front-office, CRM software alone.

What type of ending did this CRM episode have? A very, very happy one. Not only did the Phillips crew deliver more wine and spirits to retailers, but also it delivered more value.

Yes, the implementation was complex--and got a little messy. Thankfully, local consulting firm Wipfli did yeoman work in melding a new, Great Plains back office system that talks to a specially configured Siebel 6 system that's augmented by bar code scanners hooked to HP iPaqs, which run custom software that feeds orders to Siebel, which uploads orders to Great Plains at every store--with Great Plains updating Siebel clients overnight with accounting and shipping data. And there's no high-speed access in the field; 56K modems do the job just fine by day, while everyone high-speed syncs from home or office at night.

Simple, quick, easy and budget-priced? Hell no. Pretty complex, actually. But know what? Business is complex. And when you simplify business to keep CRM simple--and quick, easy and low-cost--you don't get the benefits. So why do it?
When you think about CRM, think, "Go big or go home."
___________________________________________
Author Dick Lee is founder and principal of High-Yield Methods, a Twin Cities-based consulting firm specializing in helping clients achieve customer-centricity through CRM and proper alignment of process and technology. Lee is the developer of the Visual Workflow approach to business process improvement. You may reach him at dlee@h-ym.com.

Divisive Divide Within The Company

…the continuance and inaction of higher management, not dealing with issues, volunteered up from experienced lower echelon managers, which are real issues, only creates a more divisive divide within the company, which actually strengthens a person or group needing reprimand.

It's POLITICS as usual...and in this case, there's more to it, than just politics.

Let us now turn disharmony, disgruntleness, feelings of 'what a junk company this is', from the other employees affected into real lost dollars, from employee dissatisfaction-production decreases, and a thousand other personal, and mental 'goings-on' in someone's head.

This doesn't take a genius, it equals=costs to the company.

This, when examined closer is a mathematical equation created by turning intangibles into a tangible figure-that again, management can 'chew their cud on', if and only if, they want to gain back the money they burn.

What are we trying to convey?

Willful neglect and reluctance to automate databases to processes, is an absurdity. There are many companies operating in the U.S. that feel that they don't have a problem with their local internet and how they process orders and deliver orders to customers and vendors.

These wonder-minds, will never know how they can actually save dollars. If only at least, they would go into this in stages. But, wishing and hoping, only frustrates.

...more foolishness

Scenario:

An individual (employee) time sheet.
20 minutes for a VP to look over time sheets?
20-25 minutes for the individual to make corrections...

COMPANY: COSTS TO DO BUSINESS-INCREASE
Why and how does a company get to this point?

Let's examine the process: No Where To Go-No Where To Hide.


Obvious Conclusions: What is it? A $1,000 dollar bill here plus other costs which mount up to the TOTAL dollar amount, wasted!
Just to throw it away because a lack of application software or knowledge, that it pays to use your IT Infrastructure to it's fullest?

Give me a hint, folks...why?
Why...Would companies run their businesses this way?

Drop me a line...or sign on and reply to this post.

P.S. By the way-this is a true story. In fact, every thing posted here on this blog, are from real case studies for your knowledge.

NEW WAYS-BEGETS DRAGGING FEET SYNDROME

It is absolutely true...

Astonishing as it sounds, there are those that continue to hold firm to old, dead processes: like burning money, while the other hand is trying to keep it.

You cannot show 'em, nor do they want to know. You cannot explain it, because they do not want to listen.

They are too busy trying to get more profits. Hell, what is fixed costs, anyway? Arn't they knowing enough to know that fixed costs can become variable costs, simply because we introduce a new and more efficient process. The secret, that it saves money through revamping, should be a no brainer, but unfortunately, it is a hard subject for others to wrap their brain around.

I am referring to low bidders and how they get jobs. Low bidders; nothing wrong with that-right?

The problem I see, from my point of view, is that, if you low bid, then profits are minimized and you (business owner), will have to rely on other avenues of accounts receivables to promote cash flows. Fine, if you got it-but remember, it is taking away from one process to fund another.

Would it not be better, to have both or all other processes efficient, thus, contributing to the whole?
If we can cut costs at every level, we not only improve our existance, but the business' cash flow, isn't that a theoretical dream we all want to share in, or is the practice common?

You tell me!

You tell me-what's wrong with that?!

...Angel Money

OK! some of us are running ragged looking for the right folks that perhaps take an interest in our projects and fund them, with hopefully, continued support through proftable dialog and genuine interest in the whole-unique-project.

I have four fellows who are unique growers, some own six-hundred to nine-hundred-ninety-five acres of organic fruit, and are looking for untraditional ways in agriculture, that will return to them the needed investment dollars, plus their percentage share, and most notably, a cut in the business. Sure, let's see, they are patient individuals but they too want a successful start-up and stable mezzanine or growth oriented-curve that has a robust future based on pre-assessments, including statistical, quantitative and other creative tactical analysis.

Sounds good, doesn't it?!

Let's look a little closer and examine the goings on before we commit, OK!

What should you be on the lookout for?

Marketing: Who owns what-do we all own it?

Technology: Again, who own's what-or is it better to manage this as a partnership, where we'll all have a say (a full circle-deal) but unlike a heirchical structure, with its up and down management.

Financial Management: By all means, use this tool until we're blue in the face, but let's not be blinded by figures only. There are intangibles that somehow, just don't get to be in some analysis. This is criminal. How can anyone make educated decisions based on equations that lack the "soft" issues of intangibles, vs. only having a myopic vision of using just "accounting" measures. The future is built on several hundred "risky" visions coming into play or not. How do you cope with those "soft" issues of the future?

Strategic and Tactical focus: How we deal with these issues, takes an unprecedented way of presentation. Bonus structures should be built upon a foundation of innovation and creativity, where no one is parroting anyone, but truly bringing to the table of negotiation, true facts and research for divisional, departmental, sections, and/or company wide profits. Truly, it is the beast of 'best practices' to understand that a true vision be built on 'cash flow(s)'.

What am I on the lookout for?

My real question: What's the win-win structure for this situation? Let me know!

Project Management and Processess

Project Management and Processess-most of us use it, understand it, but many of us do not do it any justice.

Case study: Project Managers assigned to Construction sites, (Doesn't really know what to do).
Communication: Many down-hill don't get the messages.
Promises made-promises broken.

Costs that eat away at profits are now mounting-but who cares-it is a tangible equation and monetararily damaging figure, if you want to know about it. If you don't, it gets swept under the rug. Question: Does your accounting system capture these tangible (yet intangible amounts?).

Lost To You: You are the executive in charge, and still don't have a clear picture of what's going down around you, as to this project and other similar projects.

History: Today, a programmer and a (controls engineer), went to a site, specifically to set-up controls. Contacts were previously made with electrical people to have a specific area, powered-up to accept our controls. Upon arriving to the site, no power!

Continued History: Early part of this week, two programmers go to the same site, to inspect, and communicate their needs for the controls set-up date. All involved say its a GO and everyone understands everybodies needs. What happened!

Insert Other History: Now we get detailed in our research and find that we and others have 'touched' this project, so our costs are rising, right up to the GM and VP.

Equation: Calculate wages, benefits, lost time, lost time from other projects, the list goes on. What I find to be catostrophic, is the amount of $$$, that went to the " just wasted" barrel. The most insane point, I wish to focus on, is that nobody knows, or worst yet, cares!!!

Has this HAPPENED TO YOU?! Let me know...

Penny Wise; Pound Foolish

...yes it's still around and is the standard way of doing business. In fact, the common belief to save money by not recognizing savings within technology is mind-boggling, frustrating and down-right full of risk.

Let me try to explain:

A firm does business with pen and pencil. Forms are printed, data is manually entered.
Well, you get the picture.

Why don't the owners get the total picture?
Why are they blind to technology when it can save them 10's of thousands of dollars?

Let me know, if you see a similar problem.

Too Involved In The Details, To Care About Companies Changing Focus...

It is a fact...There are those amongst us that will continue to focus on the comfortable details which has always been easy to understand.

What men and women who have started their companies, continue to think in details as though they were doing task work: when the focus has now changed to larger views, strategic visions, if you will, that fall short-real short of their goals.

Unfortunately, the mind needs to expand, this we agree, but how do we convince the President of a company that their detailed approach and focus and continued favoritism for one aspect of the business may cause difficulty now and in the future.

Has anyone ever experienced what I'm talking about? If so, how did you overcome these limitations?

Thanks...

Understand What You're Up Against...Part #2

Manufacturing; Big Boys, Small Boys and Somewhere in-Between

...where to begin-so much to tell.
Refrigeration and piping-build systems in the field and do prep-work back in the shop.

What happens when a company has long understood that its bread-n-butter has comed from building these exact systems and now finds itself, not aware though, that to survive the next 20 years it must think in larger circles to understand its whole and universe?

Many companies have dug into the details, thinking that answers lie in those crevasses but only to find that most details are tactical, at the mid-level management arena and not exactly what you should be considering. Build YOUR executive strategic building!

Sure enough, details are important-yes, very much so, but if you're already arguing the point-you've lost out on the most important point, labeled as "direction"...which is harder to argue. We surely don't want to be working on the wrong details, or plan or component, do we?

Direction is an ambiguous design, plan, picture or ornament.

Make it visible by concentrating on larger pictures and thoughts. Today, start a new habit by taking yourselves out of the details and consider larger components, organisms if you will, as whole parts of a much larger circle than you previously realized, even in your most expansive moments.

Start your processes so that huge circles (business as a whole) come into view. Grow your circles as larger influences begin to come to mind. As your business starts to materialize into other dimensions, here we discover-strategic influences such as "core competencies", leading you out of tactical alienation and stubborness into a new light of sustained and broader thinking.

The Chinese have long done their planning but unlike our planning, which are five to 15 year plans, if that, have founded the 50 year to 100 year plan. Insignificant you say! Not on your watch! Won't solve a thing is your answer...STOP and LISTEN for just this moment for some truth that you too can use for your strategic direction.

First, 100 year plans will align your thinking with real world changes and the direction your business needs to steer to. It would equate to a large ship manuvering in open waters, trying to turn to port (left) or star-board(right) during the next 50 to 30 years. It takes time yes, but if you are not steering right now, you will not get there in time. Time is not stopping for you or I.

The above scenario allows your business mind to think differently. Notice how you're now thinking about customers, who they are and where are they in their plans!

Are you thinking about scalable systems that are changed-out and updated with the least cost to you?

Profit margins are now more aligned to your methods and processes to deliver system value to your customer.

You become aligned with their thinking-how can you help them to grow, profitably?

No more are you thinking of each sale-you are more visionary now and equate business survival to services and what you are as the deliverer of this service to your customer.

Now, we are down to the home stretch. 30 to 10 years is a large span of time, but when calculated as a sale a day to deliver that quality of service out to the right, (graphing) for the next 50 years to even the 100 year mark, we find lines of correlation, which we can quantify with managerial finance equations. This vision originated not from a 5 year thought, but thinking farther out to the right in time, more than ever before.

High level thinking as you know is the savior of business. Encourage your own mind to pull itself up, and go beyond what YOU percieve as normal.

Dare your mind, (take the time-quiet place-walk by the lake) to wonder. Go past the tactical road blocks and into areas you have never explored, nor given your mind the chance to think about.

Discovery: Five year plans are detrimental-Financial equations can be changed- (watchout what you do), business life is not always the tactical speed boat-it may excite you to know that your steerage is massive and cultural at best-these take time to manuver and manuver you must.

China knows where it is going (world manufacturing dominance), do you know where you are going tomorrow?

Till We See You Again-Happy Trails...

Lyle K'ang, MBA
Specialization in Information Management

Manufacturing; Understand What You're Up Against...

Understand What You're Up Against...

Part #1
Manufacturing; Big Boys, Small Boys and Somewhere in-Between

If I told you that I feel like most manufacturing businesses in the United States was going backwards until it stops again, circa 1800's, would you understand?

Technological advances are required for the most part to manage the business' financial package; and in larger companies, it's customer relations management applications and processes which is supposed to reinvent the way many businesses do business. The fact that business must change, says a lot about what is happening elsewhere, here, and all around a business.

Without any fore-warning, we have no one to blame for slow expansion but ourselves. You remember the ridicule each of you met when you found out that you were the cause of perpetuating the continuing practice of 'stove-pipe' or 'silo management' within your businesses.

You did not know that you could be wiser, but the very fact that you hindered your own companies growth is momentus.

We in the business are up against changing methods that threaten traditional manufacturing relations and ways of doing business. For instance, I know that within each one of us, there is a comfort zone and we-at this point, are threatened and terrified, because of change.

Change in this case, is not good but worthy of your introspection, and full attention. Without your energy and understanding, we all risk the chance that change will close your business and all of our jobs.

Why am I so sure of this direction that change has been charging straight for your doorway?

First of all-if you don't or can't understand what you're up against, we'll have to continue this discussion, when you are past denial, willing to clear your head for a moment, to 'see' what 'we' 'see', which you don't see or refuse to admit to yourself that possibly there could be a better way to think about expansion, that you are just not getting.

We really have much in common...Ready?!

Coming -
Part #2
Manufacturing; Big Boys, Small Boys and Somewhere in-Between

Creating an Enterprise IT Strategy...

Creating an Enterprise IT Strategy That Aligns with Business Strategy...

Dear Mr. Koch, CIO Editor;

I have tried to conceptualize inner feelings and practices which hinder interaction on projects concerning Enterprise IT Strategic and business process alignment.

The thought led by Boeing experience starts here:

Creating an enterprise IT strategy that aligns with the business strategy of the company

It is a cloudy and hard road to take when your CIO/CTO alignment is in the hands of CFO’s who have not graduated beyond their expertise of financial granularity, yet to embrace, the expansive vision of practicing CIO’s.

CIO’s are not IT Systems specialists-these are your IT Managers, etc.

Thought-creative, innovative and business intelligent, built on the premises that a Governance team/group/board has formed, will form and is functional. Functional in terms of individual abilities to be far-reaching and visionary, by using and understanding IT as a business medium which supports business value and its core functions.

To miss these values, actually flags the enterprise and governance team for failure. Network infrastructure, is a core competency unto its self but not the enterprise. The enterprise is survival-it is profit and cash flow(s). IT is supportive in nature-to bring about change within digital process alignment through management strategy which tactically supports business processes in all business divisions and units.

The lesson here: ability to create an eager group, which implements an honest exchange of information. An IT Enterprise Strategy is in actuality an exercise for making IT Strategy visible to the CEO, CFO and COO. When they themselves, are eager and claim the project, vision, and strategy as their own-we all win in this enterprise. This is the only top responsibility of an aggressive and thought-provoking CIO.

This requires trust, golf, boating, smiling, knowledge, architects, and the ability to forge ahead with excellent RFI's, RFP’s, and RFQ's through collaborative partnerships with suppliers, and the business units IT vision.

No more-no less.

Best Regards,

Lyle K’ang, MBA/IM

IT Business/CTO Consultant
http://www.SiloManagement.blogspot.com

Chicken and Egg

Readers Viewpoint
Chicken and Egg
Posted: MAR 21, 2005 11:01:50 PM http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=3266

Enterprise Architecture must belong to an IT Emerging Technology group that has real interest from all the ’C’s.

The interesting inclusion of this practice is to have an ’IT Network Infrastructure Business Systems Manager’ belong and interface with these groups to teach business strategy and IT convergence together.

When technical groups meet cross-functional business groups, teaching begins. Architects’ step in and teach high-level thinking and process. Business Systems Managers teach process management to shore-up and encourage IT/IS specialists to think in broader terms-not only in granular functions.

Enterprise Architects’ then align their thinking to business processes and the CEO, albeit the Governance Board. CIO and CTOs belong to the Governance team. CIOs are asked more and more to think outward, concerning strategic and convergence alignments that equate well to CFOs and COOs responsibilties.

In a nut shell, these are the individuals that need direction in understanding what business they are in-core competencies, and ever-expansive excercises which the CIO/CTO bring to a Business/Governance Board.

It starts-by understanding the business units requests, the business of the enterprise and the ability to educate, soft skills included, everyone up and down, and through lateral points, while significantly calling for process alignment to eliminate and weaken, silo management (stove pipe) practices.

Lyle K’ang, MBA/IM
IT Business/CTO Consultant

VENTURE & ANGEL FUNDING

Many of you out there would like to be funded and not by the traditional banker.

What I need is a Paul Allen; http://capital.vulcan.com/
or equally astute and ethical person to find a business interest with my project.

Without an interest from a Paul Allen, Angel funding and Venture Capital would be not as exciting for a $160M U.S.D. project.

What do you think?