Procure IQ

A recent article in Strategy + Business on The Promise and Perils of Open Collaboration presented seven strategies you can use to make your open collaboration a success that are worth repeating. Craft a Leadership Message The best CEOs articulate a leadership message that is both universal and of immediate relevance to a company’s strategic needs. Open collaboration is a social process that needs to extend beyond R&D and penetrate the entire organization. For that to happen, a clear message of support needs to come from the top. Collaborate with …

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It seems that the fashionable thing to do these days if you’re a Supply Management technology provider is to build a “Quick Start” platform and promote a rapid initial implementation, and the “obvious” rapid ROI that will result. Coupa, Rosslyn Analytics, and Aravo, among others, have all been making noise about their new SaaS platforms that allow for rapid results. And while each platform will give you rapid results if you listen to their advice and apply it properly, I’m starting to worry if this is the right thing to do. Just like a narrow focus on “cost …

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I agree with Bing. Please, Tiger, don’t apologize anymore. But it’s not just Tiger I want to stop apologizing. Unless you have a reason to apologize to the public, unless you mean it, and unless you have a way to fix it (if it needs fixin’), please shut the hell up and stop clogging all the news channels with bullcr@p. Most of us are too damn busy to keep up with real news. We don’t need your insincere whining, and the endless media commentary, clogging up the TV, Radio, and Internet news feeds 24 hours …

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A recent article over on the Harvard Business Review blogs addressed Obama’s Five Collaboration Mistakes that are representative of many of the common collaboration mistakes that prevent cooperation efforts from ever bearing fruit. If you understand them, you can take steps to prevent them, and have a much better chance of seeing results from your efforts. Use the Right Language with Rank-and-FileDon’t do like his Chief of Staff and call them F@cking Retarded. They might not have your understanding of an issue, but it’s not their fault, it’s yours. You should be educating them, at their level, …

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I know Ariba is pretty fond of their SpendMan superhero, but I have to wonder, now that Speedy Gonzales is getting his own movie, if they’ll trade up. After all, who has more credibility, a made up “spend superhero”, or a classic Warner Brothers cartoon character who has been beloved by generations since 1953 and yells “Ariba, Ariba, Ariba, Andale” every time he outruns and outwits a foe. Just watch this classic Speedy Gonzalez vs Sylvester clip on Youtube and then check out the rather unexciting comics on Spendman’s Facebook page. I don’t know about you, but …

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Recently, boingboing ran an article about a Zero rupee note that Indians can slip to corrupt officials who demand bribes. The idea of the note, pictured below, was to shock grafters into honesty. Given all of the recent bribery scandals north and south of the 49th parallel, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have a $0 Dollar bill that honest businessmen can slip to politicians who demand bribes and kickbacks before awarding contracts. Or are our some of our politicians just too corrupt?Share This on Linked In …

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After reading this recent article on TechCrunch which asks How Does Compete Get Its Web Traffic Data?, which followed Jason Calcanis’ rant on Why We Should Boycott Comscore, and after noticing that my Alexa, Ranking, and Traffic Estimate Rankings bounce up and down on the string of a yo-yo despite the fact that my traffic has been non-decreasing since day one (as it’s always holding steady if not steadily increasing), I’m starting to wonder. (Quantcast is still pretty good, though sometimes it seems that it’s gone from reporting over 60% to missing slightly over 60%*, but that’s …

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About a year ago, in Supply Chain Social Networks: Useful Resource or Productivity Killer, I reviewed the new kids on the supply chain social network block, SCM Professionals and iProcurement.org, in my effort to determine whether they offer supply management professionals benefits above and beyond regular social networking.I noted that they had blog, news headline, and presentation sharing capabilities — which are useful if the blog posts, presentations, and news articles contain useful information, as well as the ability to form groups, but that they also had all of the banes of time-wasting social networking sites, such as latest activity …

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Rather than rant about yet another article from Purchasing.com that had me foaming at the mouth, I thought that, for a change, I’d offer Purchasing some constructive feedback and free advice. Hire Geraint John as Editor-in-Chief. For the past few years, I had tremendous respect for two supply management publications that consistently delivered high quality supply management content month-in and month-out. One is the Supply Chain Management Review, which has Robert Rudzki as one of its lead bloggers. The other is CPO Agenda, at which Geraint was Editor-in-Chief until May 2009. To be honest, I used …

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Let’s be honest. Many certifications in many professions are nothing but bunk and not worth the paper they’re printed on. They exist for the sole purpose of helping the organization or private enterprise that offers them a quick buck for little or no effort. (This is especially true in the technology profession where many of the technologies you can get certified in are bunk to begin with.)But some of the certifications, especially those offered by reputable organizations or enterprises, are not that bad … and some of them can considerably fatten your pay check. Consider recent findings from …

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