Phil Simon is a keynote speaker and recognized technology expert. He is the award-winning author of eight management books, most recently Analytics: The Agile Way. His ninth will be Slack For Dummies (April, 2020, Wiley) He consults organizations on matters related to strategy, data, analytics, and technology. His contributions have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, CNN, Wired, The New York Times, and many other sites. He teaches information systems and analytics at Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business.
What are all of the companies in San Francisco trying to make the Internet of Things happen? Google it if you like, but you're only like to get a simple list of companies, no doubt in an SEO-friendly order. What if you could see those companies in a more comprehensive
Working from home confers significant benefits. Two of my favorites are a two-second commute and the ability to take afternoon naps without offending judgmental coworkers. Among the drawbacks, though: I'm not going to randomly meet someone at the office. Like many single professionals, I have dabbled in the world of
I have consulted on enough enterprise system implementations to know that there's anything but uniformity on how to roll out a new set of mature applications. I've seen plenty of different methodologies and technologies for relatively similar back-office systems (read: ERP and CRM). Of course, some were better than others, although
We all lose things. Some of us are just better at finding them than others. I had to remind myself of that fact the other night in Las Vegas. I went to dinner with a friend at Brio, an Italian restaurant in the Town Square shopping center on The Strip. As
As part of The Affordable Care Act, many Americans have had to change insurance providers or plans. I’m old enough to realize that wide-sweeping changes like this legislation will surely face many legal, technological and financial obstacles; I've even talked about some of these issues before. Suffice to say, I didn’t expect a
I've written many times on this site about the exceptional data-management techniques of Amazon. The company does a remarkable job at managing both its operational and analytical systems. Because of the way that it handles vast troves of information, Amazon can do things that many companies cannot even approach. Yet
Few cities use data as much as Las Vegas. Walk into any casino and you'll see nothing sort of a paean to data. For instance, blackjack dealers use zero discretion when flipping cards. Pit bosses scour for potential cheats looking to move the needle just a few degrees. And that
How are sales going? It's a frequent query that every author gets from time to time. Lamentably, though, that four-word question is difficult if not impossible to answer with any precision. If this seems like a paradox, you're absolutely right. Back in the Mad Men days, real-time sales numbers for
There’s little doubt that basic, static pie charts and even infographics can tell a story. But, as I write in my new book, Visual Organizations understand that contemporary dataviz tools are just plain better. They allow for a high degree of interactivity, motion and animation. So, what does this mean?
These days, many organizations define themselves in terms of their impact on the environment. Naysayers may dismiss companies like Starbucks, UPS and others as engaging in PR stunts. Still, the fact remains: there's potential competitive advantage to be gained by being carbon neutral – or at least by ostensibly caring about
