Archives / May 2011

In every review of BPM best practices you’ll ever read, you’ll see listed with extra emphasis: executive sponsorship. Actually, this criterion is listed for ERP projects, CRM projects, Security projects… It is listed for pretty much every type of IT … Continue reading →

In an apparent bid to become tomorrow’s ERP system, Appian makes an appeal to “stop application sprawl“. But they perked up when talk started shifting to how Appian could wrap or replace existing point solutions in addition to automating currently … Continue reading →

Good post from our friend Jaisundar at BouncingThoughts: The real key to agility will need to come from your people. Your culture. Here is how I look at it. Technology may contribute to an agile organization, but mostly the root … Continue reading →

Steve Blank’s process for teaching entrepreneurship – The Lean Launchpad – is a bit like the process for teaching the startup process.  It is a fascinating evolution to observe as it develops; and the results are impressive. I recommend reading … Continue reading →

Anatoly has posted an example regarding orchestration and collaboration, and he has two particularly good pieces of advice at the end, though the whole post is worth reading: Rule 1. If your attempts to model a process are unsuccessful because … Continue reading →

John Lilly (of Greylock, previously CEO of Mozilla), recently wrote a post “Recruiting DNA“, in which he wrote about how early job experience shapes how you approach the world: One of the things I’ve been really, really struck by is … Continue reading →

I don’t know if there’s a better representation of the health of a consumer business than this kind of chart found in the Asymco blog: In the chart above, it shows that Apple derives more profit per unit than any … Continue reading →

Jacob Ukelson has a great post on Business Politics Management vs. Business Process Management- I suggest that we should have a separate branch of BPM that is Business Politics Management – it is the cousin of regular BPM, but for … Continue reading →

Another incremental update from the BlueworksLive team.  The key features: Tagging – generally just giving you an easier way to find things created in BlueworksLive. Better visibility to activity within a space APIs for provisioning and de-provisioning (admin). Of course, … Continue reading →

The good news, unemployment has dropped to a recent low, of 6.5%: Though the report showed a modest pace of job growth, there has been a string of recent announcements by companies planning to add jobs in Central Texas this … Continue reading →

Marco Arment is the creator of Instapaper, a great reading app for webpages, blogs, etc. that you want to cache for reading later on your iPhone, iPad, or browser of choice. He recently announced an “extended vacation” for his free … Continue reading →

Good coverage of Progress’ analyst day by Neil Ward-Dutton: My concern at the previous year’s event was that Progress was in danger of painting itself into a corner: by highlighting RPM as the “next step beyond BPM”, it was in … Continue reading →

From the NYTimes: Two years ago, ad executive, Nancy Giordano, moved to Austin from Los Angeles, and within 12 months she had organized and started TEDx Austin with Jen Spencer. The idea-sharing conference had a waiting list its first year, … Continue reading →

I was asked the other day by a consultant from a large provider, “What do I need to know to get into BPM consulting?” So you want to be a BPM Practitioner? “Great, we need all we can get!” Actually, what I … Continue reading →

Marco Arment’s Instapaper could come under the Apple’s guns in the next version of Safari, which purportedly will offer a “Reading List” feature. Marco (rightly) concludes there isn’t much to worry about.  First, what is an instapaper competitor? Saving articles … Continue reading →

Great stuff from Neil, debunking yet another generational myth pushed upon us by the likes of Time and Fortune: I don’t know about you, but when I was a young adult I wanted every minute of my life to have … Continue reading →

Score one for the “BPMN Zealots“, as Bruce Silver reports: Today Software AG announced a tight integration between ARIS, its leading Business Process Analysis suite, and webMethods, its SOA-based BPM Suite.  The integration features roundtripping and continuous synchronization between business-oriented … Continue reading →

Sandy Kemsley’s blog on BPMS pricing, she points out that pricing is still incredibly opaque.  There’s also a discussion on Quora that she refers to. The problems: Different vendors use different metrics to price (user, process, CPU, PVU, duration, etc. … Continue reading →

Michele Cantara gave a rapid fire session on the last day of Gartner BPM 2011, covering how to leverage Services firms to gain expertise for your BPM efforts.  As with most presentations there was plenty to agree with, but I’m … Continue reading →

Mark Cotgrove of Nimbus has recently gotten into the blogging game.  He has a fresh perspective and a great writing voice.  But out of his first 4 posts, two of them take personal shots at people I have a lot … Continue reading →

We’ve written previously about the fact that the Austin economy and startup community seems to be humming along, as well as about the economy in general, which appears to be particularly startup friendly at the moment.  Or at least, it … Continue reading →

There were several blogs about Gartner BPM 2011, capturing overall impressions.  From ebizQ, Ann Stuart reviews the keynotes (including this quote from Daryl Plummer): –Visibility is critical: “If you can’t see it, you can’t fix it. You probably don’t even … Continue reading →

If Moore’s Law had been easy to adhere to it wouldn’t have garnered the respect it has as an axiom of human progress.  For some reason everyone has always assumed it was about to run its course… and every time … Continue reading →

I was interested to see the “Great Case Management Debate” at Gartner’s BPM 2011 conference.  After all, it has been quite the topic, ever since Keith Swenson put his weight behind the ACM moniker more than a year ago. But … Continue reading →

This is a question that has probably been asked a few times.  Joshua Baer does a great job breaking it down in his blog: I actually think most of the right things are happening. I’ve been here for more than … Continue reading →

This is a fun post from John Reynolds about the BPM Implementation Dream Team. Rapid Iteration BPM implementation projects, like the ones that I work on, depend on “Business” to take on building responsibilities and “IT” to take on requirement … Continue reading →

Elise Olding reports on twitter stats in her latest blog post: April 27th stats: # tweets for the day – 637                    # unique tweeters – 91 April 28th stats: # tweets for the day – 789                    # unique tweeters – … Continue reading →

Gartner’s BPM Summit this year in Baltimore was a little different than previous years for a few reasons. First off, almost 850 attendees were present according to Gartner’s stats which is a  non-trivial improvement over last year! Secondly, for the … Continue reading →

As a business, it is important to establish good habits.  And of course habit #1 is making enough money to keep the business alive.  An article titled “The Audacity of Getting Paid” really hits the mark.  The author uses Facebook, … Continue reading →

Joel Spolsky: There’s a lot of stuff that’s accidental about Fog Creek and Stack Exchange, but lunch is not one of them. Ten years ago Michael and I set out with the rather ambitious goal of making a great place … Continue reading →

If there weren’t already lots of reasons to like Mark Suster’s Blog, I have to admit, this article (“What Should You Do With Your Crappy Little Services Business?”) gives me another great one: There’s a line of thinking in Silicon … Continue reading →