TED – Larry Brilliant Wants to Stop Pandemics
Accepting the 2006 TED Prize, Dr. Larry Brilliant talks about how smallpox was eradicated from the planet, and calls for a new global system that can identify and contain pandemics before they spread. Larry Brilliant discusses the eradication of smallpox and protection from pandemic. His slogan of "Early Detection, Early Response " is inspiring. You will also learn about GPHIN (Global Public Health Intelligence Network) located, not surprisingly, in Ottawa.
Whither Twitter?
Honestly, I don't have a lot of faith in the future of Twitter. While I understand the capability for real-time microblogs, I see it as an interesting capability of a more extensive social networking site. I am staying with Twitter to observe possible changes and how users are leveraging the tool. Right now, it appears to have a few key areas of focus:
Categories: Technology Tags: Facebook, Korean, taco, twitter
Some thoughts driven by – IT Project Failures – Massive and Spectacular
I spent a long time in the project delivery game prior to formally moving to the business development side. I cannot remember the number of intelligent, dilligent driven people dedicated to successfully deliver value to their businesses. Many of these projects have been successful. But being in the business, I have had significant exposure to project which, on the surface, should have been effectively delivered but have failed. Some thoughts came to mind when reading about the massive IT failure of UK prison IT in Michael Krigsman’s blog.
As I read stories of failures, there are many which shout to me, “The Project Manager should be fired!!” Having been a PM, I am very sympathetic to the circumstances which can place the fault for a failed project on a PM. However, that does not eliminate the very real situations where much fault does lie with the PM.
At this point in my first draft, I started on about 2 pages of discussion around project management, differentiation between technology PM and others and more interesting discussion. Then I reread it and discovered that I missed my own point, which was:
More and more PM are not strong leaders. They are bookish, shuddering types who do not drive a project but minute it. These paper PMP’s are so dedicated to process uber alles that they cannot use it effectively to lead.
These pm’s are more like what I used to know as project coordinators. They build out plans based on input from others. They dutifully fillout their charts and reports. They take notes and minutes at meetings and publish them to stakeholders. They are ideal PM’s where everything is done and there is nothing new – where there are no surprises.
Unfortunately, these are not the PM’s who build team who aggressively acheive the new and formerly impossible. They are not the leaders who could successfully deploy a new system to the UK prison system. They are the note-takers who collect the CYA information needed for when the project goes to court.
The place for timid PM’s is not at the leading edge. I sometimes wonder whether a PM with time to get and keep their PMP is one I want on my projects.
Categories: Business, Project Management, Technology Tags: cannot, development, discussion, fault, first draft, game, note takers, prison system, project coordinators, project delivery
IT Project Failures – Massive and Spectacular
The project to provide an IT system to support a new way of working with offenders was to be introduced by January 2008, and had an approved lifetime cost of £234 million to 2020. By July 2007, £155 million had been spent on the project, it was two years behind schedule, and estimated lifetime project costs had risen to £690 million.
Categories: Economy, Project Management, Technology Tags: failures-in-project-management, it-project-failure-doc, it-project-failures, it-project-failures-food, massive-it-project-failures, massive-national-project-failures, massive-program-failures, massive-project-fail, massive-project-failures, project-failures-massive, spectacular-it-project-failure, spectacular-it-project-failures, spectacular-it-projects-failures, spectacular-project-failure, spectacular-project-failures, spectacular-project-failures-failures, spectacular-project-failures-in-it, the-project-was-supposed-to-create-a-single-database-allowing-uk-prison-authorities-to-track-and-manage-offenders-while-they-are-in-custody-and-following-their-release-the-project-was-to-be-introduce, uk-prison-authorities-to-track-and-manage-offenders
More truthiness required
More diatribe later. Right now the question:
Where is the media when the Comedy Network and on-line comics provide more insight than their 24 hour screeds. Case in point, from xkcd – A Webcomic:
Categories: Economy, Media, Politics, Technology Tags: 24 hour, Case, case in point, comedy network, line comics, Network, point, webcomic, xkcd
LA Times – interesting article – On Twitter, mindcasting is the new lifecasting
Appeared in print as “Don’t fear invasion of the mindcasters” in the LA Times Business section.
An interesting article about Twitter, the new darling of the media.
Categories: Media, Technology Tags: LA, mindcast, social network, twitter
