Procure IQ

I was shocked by this recent headlin on CNet that said that companies conserving water [are] surprised by savings. After all, simple math alone demonstrates the savings potential. Let’s say you have a chain of 50 small hotels that each use 1,000,000 gallons of water per month. That’s a monthly utility bill of roughly $100,000 (in the US). That’s a yearly utility bill of $1,200,000. Let’s say you installed water efficient bathroom fixtures, washing machines, and appliances and cut water utilization by 30%, which is not unreasonable. That’s an annual savings of $360,000! …

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… and blood? According to this recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Scott Adams, if you want to get rich, put your money on companies that you hate the most because the usual reason for hating a company is that the company is so powerful it can make you balance your wallet on your nose while you beg for their product. Why? Those companies are typically wildly successful and the type that will generate a big return on your investment. Like the oil companies. One accident turns paradise …

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When SI reviews a product, SI insists on a demo. It’s very simple. If you can’t show me a demo, then I have nothing to say. I’m not interested in your PowerPoints or your opinions about the marketplace or your scuttlebutt about your competitors. I have one question, and one question only: Where’s the Beef? Two days ago, one of the largest independent vendors in our space offered to provide a demo so that SI could cover them. Then, yesterday, they insisted on an NDA. This is the second time I’ve had …

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With apologies to our Hindu and Zoroastrian friends, sometimes the sacred cow needs to be put down. If it’s old, weak, limping, and in pain, it’s not slaughter, it’s mercy. So how do you know when it’s time to shoot the sacred cow? How do you know when it’s beyond it’s prime and on a rapid decline? Simple. You monitor it’s health and give every cow an annual checkup. When it’s overall health level starts to drop dramatically, you know it’s time. This goes for every cow in your organization — the …

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I found this recent article on Daily Finance on how eBay halts indebted Purdue Grad’s diploma auction very amusing. While I feel sorry for the alumnus, it strengthens my belief that a degree in the philosawfical isn’t worth the printed paper you hand over for the printed parchment in return. As per the article, the graduate said that his philosophy degree has not given him the means to earn enough income to cover his $470 per month obligations to Sallie Mae. A degree is only an investment if it increases your …

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As pointed out by Dick Locke in his post from earlier this week on More Headlines You Hate To See, this is an actual headline from DailyTech: Foxconn Makes Employees Promise Not to Kill Themselves FoxConn is asking all of its “colleagues” to sign a “health and wellness” letter that includes, in one of the numbered clauses, a statement that I will not harm myself or others in response to Apple’s demands to do something about the “suicide …

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Soon after I told you that the cloud is not a fluffy magic box, I found this great post over on an Information Week blog on 3 things that could kill the cloud which points out some more sobering realities of the cloud, which is just really an abstraction of the multi-tenant SaaS model where one provider provides the software and another provides the infrastructure the software runs on. The article has some good points that should be taken into account before you decide that the cloud is the answer. (Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.) …

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Regular readers will notice that I regularly rally against a number of different software products and platforms. It’s not necessarily that I think they’re (intentionally) evil (well, at least not in most cases), but that they commit one or more of the seven deadly software sins and perpetuate myths over reality, which helps no one. So what are the software sins? And why are they dangerous? Let’s answer these questions once and for all. “Shrinkwrap” This is the notion that software …

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There’s a reason “leaders” generally only account for a small percentage of the total market (no more than 30%, and usually only 10%). That reason is the Peter Principle which says that in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. In other words, your average company will continue to promote its “rising stars” through the executive ranks until they implode into black holes and suck the company down with them. As proof that these “rising stars” are promoted until they implode into black holes at your average company, I offer up …

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I was thoroughly impressed when I saw this recent article in the New York Times on how we have met the enemy and he is PowerPoint which contained a quote from Gen. James N. Mattis that said that PowerPoint makes us stupid.The article pointed out that Brigadier General H. R. McMaster, who led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, banned PowerPoint presentations in his campaign and, in a follow-up military conference in North Carolina, likened PowerPoint to an internal threat. According to General McMaster, it’s dangerous because it can create the …

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