Asset Recovery Conference

Careers in Information Technology

In the past few years, I've found that our youth, specifically the graduating class, doesn't always have an opportunistic outlook on future careers. Launching out in a new career isn't the easiest given the unemployment rates. That said, this is one of the best times to be in the IT sector. With this in mind, I jumped at a chance to speak at Forest Lake High School on careers in IT. Here's what I covered:

- Aric

Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum: Atmosphere 2011 Recap

At Google’s 2011 Atmosphere conference Google attempted to answer one question; what does it really take to be innovative?

In front of 350 Fortune 500 CIO’s, speakers used example after example to drive home the point that innovation comes from collaboration not just inspired thought.  

Amit Singh, Google Vice PresidentDr. Astro Teller explained how Ben Franklin sat in coffee houses discussing the theory of electricity.  How Gutenberg created the printing press after visiting a winery and learning about wine presses.  Vince Cerf, the inventor of TCP/IP discussed how TCP/IP only came into existence though the collaborative efforts of many different teams across different companies.  The point was succinctly captured by Steven Johnson who coined his speech - chance favors the connected mind.  Innovation doesn’t simply occur.  

Businesses today must figure out how to enable an inter-disciplinary exchange of ideas.  This means real-time collaboration and socialization.  As CIO’s, the greatest struggle is to build this collaborative and socially-enabled IT infrastructure that retains a level of control especially as more and more consumer products (iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, etc.) make their way into the organization.  

This point was not lost on this audience.  CIO after CIO articulated this point in their own words; each acknowledging that Google’s collaborative products is certainly one crucial step.  

Most CIOs admitted to struggling with finding the right balance between corporate governance and collaborative flexibility.  And to make matters harder, their users are putting more and more demands on their IT department by expecting support for their consumer products.

By no means trivial, each CIO had their own plan for overcoming these challenges. The CIOs I spoke with seemed to have the same three items on their list for 2012 initiatives:

1.     Developing and executing a comprehensive cloud strategy
2.     Adapting existing IT governance and controls to better accommodate a cloud strategy
3.     Device agnostic mobile management strategies

These seemingly universal challenges are those that CIOs across all organizations will face in the months ahead. The content forced participants to think big and an atmosphere of innovation. Through Atmosphere 2011, the best and brightest forward-thinking CIOs, sought answers and shared concerns.

- Aric Bandy

Agosto Recognized in Top 200 Cloud Experts

Talkin’ Cloud, the go-to guide for cloud computing in the IT channel, recognizes the industries top 200 experts on cloud computing.   Included on the list are representatives from Gartner, SugarCRM, RackSpace, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, and many others leading technology firms.  Agosto is honored to be included in such a distinguished list.

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Agosto Featured In Twin Cities Business Feb 2011

Agosto, along with two of their existing customers, were featured in Twin Cities Business Magazines February 2011 edition in an article describing how Cloud Computing has help transform their organizations into more competitive, nimble and profitable organizations: Cloud Confidence. This article continues to solidify Agosto's position as a leader in consulting for cloud computing and SaaS based services.  Here is a downloadable copy of the article for your reference: 

 Download PDF 

Agosto Coffee Talk Series: MOVING TO THE CLOUD ~ Why should you care?

Available Dates:     Every 4th Thursday - January 27th, 2011 -  May 26th, 2011

Time:                       8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m

Location:                 AGOSTO Offices

                                Basset Creek Business Center 

                                901 N 3rd St. Suite 115, Minneapolis, MN 55401

                                For map [Click Here]

Phone:                    612.605.3520

Presentation Highlights

In this fast-paced, interactive presentation, you will walk away with a good understanding of how your company can take advantage of Cloud Computing and what impact it may have on your bottom line.  Takeaways include:

• What is Cloud Computing?
• Why Should I Care?
• 2nd Wind Financial Case Study for Cloud and SaaS. 
• What are the Best in Class Doing?
• How Can I Determine if My Company is a Good Fit?

Presenter

Aric Bandy, CEO of Agosto, has 15 years of industry experience. Since joining Agosto in 2007, Aric has become a well known and respected leader in Managed Services, Strategic Services and Cloud Computing. Through Agosto's Strategic practice, Aric provides valuable insight as CIO for several organizations, including 2nd Wind Exercise and Dunn Bros Coffee. Aric serves on the advisory board for Google, has had SaaS projects featured in Inc. Magazine, and continues to be a sought after public speaker on the topic.  

Managing a mobile workforce.

Do you have a good strategy for managing mobile devices?  Do you buy devices for everyone or allow your users to use personal assets?  Each strategy has its strengths and weaknesses.  In the mid-market space I usually advocate that my clients put the responsiblity on the users and provide a reimbursement or stipend.  A decent strategy & technology plan will accomodate most major mobile devices.  When doing this its very important to establish an Acceptible Use Policy and leverage mobile controls (forced passwords, use remote wipe when phones are lost, etc.). 

This type of strategy is best for both the company and the individual.  The company doesn't have a big capital outlay and the responsibility of care & maintenance falls on the user.  The individual gets to use whatever carrier / plan / phone they want.  Additionally, this eliminates the two cell phone issues (personal & work).  It's really the best all-around strategy. 

Brien Posey recently wrote a great article on the technology side of supporting mobile devices, "10 things you should know about supporting mobile devices."  (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1817&tag=nl.e108).  I agree with everything except having consistent devices and allowing personal devices.  I think Brien is coming from a corporate IT perspective.  Looking at things from more of a 'what's good for the business and the users' standpoint tends to support my perspective.     

- Aric Bandy

IT Budgeting Tips for the SMB Market

IT budgeting is always a key topic around this time of year.  I am always floored at how inaccurate most organization's IT budget is, worse yet that it’s considered normal. This isn't rocket science.  We're geeks; we're supposed to be good at math.  

In my years of managing IT budgets for client's as well as my own company, I've learned a few key things: 

1.     The budget should be detailed.  Too often SMBs don’t get granular in their IT budget, usually because the person tasked with creating the budget doesn't understand how (a finance person who doesn't understand IT or an IT person that doesn't understand budgeting).  

• Capture all costs!  Maintenance agreements, Training, etc. 

2.     Budget for the unexpected. Let's face it, IT isn't perfect.  Look at historic trends to determine a reasonable amount for unplanned expenses.  

3.     Review previous year’s budgets to determine budget accuracy.  Senior management needs accurate budgets to make sound decisions.  You need to understand if you’re previous budgets were off and adjust accordingly.  You can even make this into a little game, what’s your % of error.  See if you’re more accurate than other departments.    

4.     Be realistic.  Senior management needs real numbers.  I’ve seen IT departments go to either extreme; projecting high so they have room for error or lack of proper planning and projecting low because they want to show that their department yields value.  The latter situation usually happens when a senior manager doesn’t understand IT and constantly focuses on just making it cheaper.  By simply complying, you’re not truly serving your organization. You have to advocate for an appropriate level of spending.    

5.     Understand the Strategic Vision.  The biggest mistake an IT department can make is to assume that next year will be the same as the last year.  Business changes rapidly, especially in this economy, and IT needs to change just as fast.  If you’re planning for next year’s budget you need to incorporate an appropriate amount to enable the organizations strategic goals.

6.     Get input from other departments.  IT only sees what IT sees.  There may be strategic discussions happening within other departments that have IT requirements.  You need to know what they are and plan accordingly. 

7.     Funnel Expense-reductions into an R&D account.  If you’re managing your expenses / budget well you’ll uncover savings.  Need a place to start, see Jody Gilbert’s recent post on 5 tips for controlling your budget (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/five-tips/?p=302&tag=nl.e106).  Funnel these savings into a special project or R&D fund.  Use these funds to exploring new ideas or ways to improve the business using IT, e.g. a cloud computing pilot, open source, etc. 

Hopefully you find these tips helpful.  If you other tips, please share! 

-        Aric Bandy

Living in the Clouds: SaaS 101

Last week I had the privilege of participating in a SaaS round-table for Proformative, a Silicon Valley Corporate Finance think tank.  We had a great discussion on SaaS and corporate IT governance.  I presented the following SaaS 101 presentation. 

- Aric Bandy

Vendor Management Improves Business Operations

Two years ago we stepped in as our client’s IT department and committed to providing end user support.  At the time, our client had 101 locations and around 360 employees all over the Midwest.  We mapped out the vendor responsibilities working directly with each vendor.  Using this map we implemented a triage system between our client, their vendors, and us.  We enabled our client’s employees, whether working in the store or in corporate, to simply contact when problems emerge.  For example, if our client had a problem with NetSuite, an ERP/CRM cloud application, he/she would call and send a ticket to us.  We would open a ticket with NetSuite support.  This triage system allows us to figure out exactly what the problem is within a short period of time and open the ticket with the right entity because we know all the interrelationships between the vendors and the infrastructure.  The main advantage of our Managed Services offering is more holistic view of what is happening with IT operations, thereby allowing problems solved in a timely manner.  Another benefit is that by having us work with IT departments of our client’s vendors, problems can be solved quicker allowing the IT team to focus on revenue generating strategic initiatives.

One example of how our services improve our client’s business is by managing their Point of Sale (POS) system.  Considering that this particular client is a retailer, it is of essential to be able to process sales transactions timely and accurately.  At the time we started working with our client, their POS system was around ten years old, and had outdated architecture.  We realized that the databases on each location were growing too large and failing.  Typically what would have happened in the past is that their IT staff would just keep fixing the problems in a reactive way, a short-term solution that does not address the root cause of the problems.  During times when transaction would fail, credit card transactions had to be written on a piece of paper and processed manually.  Once the transaction system recovered, the stores would call in to process the transaction, sometimes much later after the transaction had actually occurred.  This problem was compounded by the fact that 75 percent of the stores were having frequent outages.  Their POS was off once, twice, and sometimes even three times a month for up to a day, and sometimes even more than once a day.  When our team stepped in, we continued to perform the same patches and fixes, but we also started looking into a more long-term solution because these failures were not acceptable for the success of our clients business.  We sat down and looked at some low cost simple solutions that we could implement to help solve these problems. Within three weeks, we had solved nearly all of the transaction problems by revamping their data warehousing process.  There is still an occasional issue here and there which is to be expected in a complex environment, but outages decreased from 75 percent of stores once to three times a month to maybe one to two stores a quarter. It has drastically improved their operations and their ability to conduct business.