Author Archives: Chris Niccolls

A Cloud Story I: The Coming of the Cloud


We’ve all hearing stories about Cloud based services and how they’re going to change the way we live and work. If you manage services in a large firm you’re probably hearing little snippets here and there about Cloud projects that … Continue reading

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A Well Managed Core


The nuclear disaster in Japan is the case study that just keeps on giving. Putting aside the policy and planning issues about the reactor itself, there is another problem, the extent of which  we still don’t know. The power plant, … Continue reading

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Do Outsourcers Know What Time It Is?


Today, I was puttering around on the Internet, on a site that I frequently visit, Linked-In. I decided that I would take a look at their “Answers” section, which lists questions by members that other members are invited to answer. One of … Continue reading

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S’what’s a SWOT?


A lot of perfectly respectable management theory has been left to marinate in too long in strange acronyms and hard to remember buzz words. Good management doesn’t need to be complicated, and it doesn’t need a special language. There’s a … Continue reading

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Cloud Watching…


There’s definitely a lot of talk about the Cloud, what it is and what it means for you. In fact, I recently viewed a YouTube video that stars a very animated Larry Ellison (Oracle’s CEO) opining on the definition of … Continue reading

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Bulking Up Your Staff?


Everyone I talk to tells me that there are good signs of growth in the economy. And managers in large firms are talking about the positive signs they see that new positions will be… although, not just yet.  The resistance … Continue reading

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Epsilon Cloudburst


Have you heard of Epsilon, the marketing firm? Well, if you haven’t you can probably expect to hear about them soon. One of the many services Epsilon offers is the management of emailing services for many large corporations. Personally, I … Continue reading

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A Tsunami Of Problems


The problems in Japan continue, as do the truly heroic efforts to contain the disaster. Still, how did this all happen? Now that we have some information, we can put together the pieces. The first piece is simply that all … Continue reading

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Filling The Big Shoes


Every manager needs to plan for the development and promotion of their staff. Over the past few years the economy has been slow, so for most of us planning on how to hang on to our existing staff has usually … Continue reading

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When Outsourcing Is Mature…


In the last post we talked about where outsourcing is headed for firms that have reached a “mature” stage. That is to say, if you operate out of one or more lower cost locations, all of which passed their “training” … Continue reading

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