I'm not a big follower of the business of business. At uni in the 60s I went to one economics class, realised I wasn't cut from that cloth in all of about 1.5 seconds and immediately did two things: I opted to take the course as pass/fail, which meant all I needed was to pass by the skin of my teeth (these were "progressive" times), and then I went to a Crosby, Stills & Nash concert.
Well, well, well. A new year and the prognosticators are out in force - even in these pages. Me, I'm a bit more cautious; I like a sure bet. So here's my sole 2002 prediction, and it's a stone-cold winner.
I must have hit a real nerve last month when I asked readers to add to my list of reasons for kicking a sales and marketing type out of the CIO's office. There's not enough space to run them all, so I'll go with first in, best served. Here you go.
Last week, I was at an "event" and someone trotted out that old chestnut about CIO meaning career is over.
In the handful of weeks following the HP-Compaq announcement, I think it's safe to say that thus far hundreds of thousands of words have been inked or digitised about the acquisition and what it means, why it happened and so on and so forth.
Why business isn't spending big on IT at the moment.
Oh man, I really, really promised myself that I wasn't going to write about the Internet economy again for a long, long time. Time to give it a rest I thought, but the fickle finger of fate having wrote, moved me on, so to speak.
Sometimes ya just gotta wonder. A couple of weeks ago, I was distracted for a moment. Not thinking clearly, I actually picked up my phone. It was a conference organiser and the person calling wanted me to speak about "topic XYZ" at an upcoming conference. Hello?
Penny wise, pound foolish. Not I. Nope, I'm penny foolish and pound foolish. In fact, I'm dollar foolish, franc foolish, yuan foolish, rupee foolish - well, you get the picture. Now, I'm not talking about my spending habits, I'm talking about being part of the "silent inefficient majority" (SIM).
You know the hype Wireless will change everything. And you know it's not true. So we went looking for the here and now of wireless technology. What works and what doesn't. Where the potholes are. The risks.
Call me a cynic, but I'm not sure about CRM. I'm sure about the "C" and the "R", but the "M", or management bit, seems more skewed to pissing people off than making them happy chappy customers for life.
God knows the Web already has enough to answer for, but I want to add my own personal gripe: there are too many experts.
I feel your pain. Really I do. It's been that kind of year - only February and it seems like May already.
It's been on the top 10 list for so long it deserves Hall of Fame status (kind of like Cher). I mean, let's just fly the white flag, retire the concept and know it'll be there forever. Why? Because how in the world can you align two things THAT KEEP CHANGING?
I love to shop. Came out of the womb with a Platinum Amex card and haven't stopped to take a breath since. In fact, I'd say I'm an expert when it comes to shopping, so here's an expert's read on e-tailing in Australia: it ain't working and it's probably never going to work big time.