The NOSE

How to Handle the Performance Review

A thought provoking posting on 'How to handle the "Performance Review" by Creating Passionate Users (by far one of the best blogs). 

Drinking the Project Management Kool Aid

We have drunk the Project Management Kool-Aid and are trying to get our PMO (Project Management Office) off the ground. A recent article in CIO Magazine ("When Failure Is Not An Option") describes A.G. Edwards' implementation journey.

Some key ideas from the article which are germane for us:

• "Project management is the number-one success factor for getting anything done in an organization. A firm's ability to execute its strategy lies within its ability to manage projects." Sam Lawler, director of GlassHouse Technologies' project management practice.
• "A PMO or a formal project management methodology (such as PMI or ITIL) doesn't guarantee success."
• "Projects remain challenged for two reasons. First, implementing formal methodologies requires a change management effort not just in IT but across the business. Second, PMOs often become minibureaucracies that fail to address the problems that dog projects, such as a lack of shared accountability between functional and project managers."

The most interesting aspect of A.G. Edwards' approach is their emphasis on establishing a standard plan framework, or a consistent and repeatable set of steps that govern all projects: "The framework lists 25 activities for managers to track during a project's lifecycle, such as developing architecture specifications, performing requirements analysis and building test plans."

Ted Stevens Hits the Charts with a Techno Remix: A Series of Tubes

If you want to know how the Internet works, you need to go no further then to listen to DJ Senator Ted Stevens Techno Remix: "A Series of Tubes". Way to rock Ted! We eagerly await DJ Senator Ted's next Techno Remix: "The Bridge to Nowhere".

Joi Ito:

"Now, the good folks at Boldheaded have turned his "skillful fusion of political doublespeak and perplexing ignorance on how the Internet works" into the DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix: "A Series of Tubes." [Stream or Download above]

All I can say is just go listen. And then laugh and laugh and laugh."

Creativity in Education

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has posted podcasts and vodcasts online from their annual conference.  Sir Ken Robinson's fascinating talk on creativity is worth a watch.

"Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we stripmine the eart for particular commodities. And for the future it won't serve us --- we have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children."

Via Tarina

Negroponte's Big Idea

Nicholoas Negroponte's Big Idea ("One Laptop Per Child") is moving right along. I came across a seven-minute video clip of a keynote speech at the eSchool News website.

Negroponte on the economics of the $100 laptop:

"Getting to a $100 is not magic. 50% of the cost of your laptop is sales, marketing, distribution, and profit....We have none of those."

"Seventy-five percent of the rest of your laptop is used just to support the operating system and the obesity of the software in it. It's like a fat person using their energy to move their weight."

I guess that means Linux, huh?

Negroponte projects that the first laptops will be rolled out beginning in Q2, 2007. The cost out of the gate will probably be less than $150 but on a downward slope.