Too many years ago, when I was at Verizon, a key problem was lack of consistent customer data – including the basics such as name, address and other customer information. Today’s blog explores some of the key customer data issues that persist in today’s IT systems… a sort of “Back to the Future.” The same

This week, I’ve combined my blog and International Travel Tip into one topic.  I hope you enjoy it. Let’s say you are leading a multi-national project team in a foreign country, and a massive natural disaster strikes.  Are you ready? On Saturday, February 27, 2010, I was asleep in the Santiago Marriott.  As a leader

Welcome back.  OK, I know you’ve all been anxiously waiting for a ‘Cloud’ blog.  These days, it is difficult to blog about anything cloud without resorting to sappy references to ‘cloudy days’, hybrid public-private clouds and the like.  This blog takes a different approach. Situation: Service Providers are jumping on a bandwagon and rushing to offer

Let’s take a quick look at the ‘art of the possible’ – in other words, what types of telecom business issues can be addressed with EMC’s new massively parallel big data solutions. But first – I am sure you agree that today’s technology trend is ‘more data is better.’ A luxury car ad on television

I have recently worked with a client where customer growth has been averaging over 25% annually, and systems were becoming slower, call center representatives complaining of frequent crashes and lost data. The CIO had begun a new CRM system development, but was faced with the question – “How long will my current systems last at

I recently spoke at the Next Generation Telecom conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  This blog captures a few key themes from my speech and highlights some innovative work my team is doing in helping telcos deal with exponential customer growth. But first, a quick sidebar to draw out parallels between musical rehearsals and the

Welcome back… Let’s return quickly to the movie Amadeus. For those of you that have the DVD, fast forward to Scene 20, about 1/3 of the way into the movie. Or, search YouTube for ‘Ballet scene from Amadeus’.  Here’s the setup: Brash young Mozart is commissioned to write an opera for the Emperor of Austria. In

Here is a simple exercise – for you as a CIO or Senior IT leader to complete.  It will take perhaps 15 minutes. Have your Executive Assistant (or find 15 minutes yourself) do the following: 1) Open your outlook calendar across any 3 week span.  Review all the appointments, meetings, lunches, and work-related activity. 2)

Setting the stage:  we go back to the early 1800’s..  Antonio Salieri was a renowned Italian Composer and Conductor.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Salieri As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for music at the court chapel and attached school. He was one of the most important and sought after teachers of his generation

For my inaugural  Blog, I have decided to take a completely different tack (or is it ‘tact’?) and begin to stitch together a stream of consciousness related to a simple yet confounding question.  Why do some Telecom CIO organizations fail miserably (or at least do not thrive) when others are wildly successful?  How can Telecom