Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Use of data acquired from social media sites Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yelp!, and LinkedIn by end-user organizations to support their BI and data warehousing efforts is quite limited. Moreover, it appears this will remain the case for the next 6-12 months or so.

Throughout this Executive Update series, we have been examining a nonprofit association facing serious IT leadership, financial, and support issues.1 Over the course of a year, the association initiated a turnaround effort to resolve crises, restore customer confidence, and allow the association to refocus on its primary business mission and goals.

I arrived in my hotel room last night quite tired after a long day giving a workshop on lean-agile for leadership and a presentation on a similar subject at a university. To relax, I turned on the TV and started watching a show hosted by Elvis Costello, who was interviewing Bono and Edge from the band U2.

Ever since the present financial meltdown began, there has been increasing concern about identifying and somehow preventing systemic risk in the global economy.

Often, when I'm called in to evaluate large, troubled projects, I find there are three groups of people involved: 1) a small group at the top who "think" that the project is in trouble, 2) a much larger bunch of people at the bottom who "know" that the project is in trouble, and 3) a bunch of middle managers who are trying to keep the people on the top from talking to the people on the bott

The complex relationship between IT and the business is a critical issue for any business process, especially when it comes to allocating funds to the related IT solution (e.g., a DSS for a strategic decision process; an e-commerce solution for a sales process). But the issue becomes particularly problematic when dealing with a training or learning process.

Egypt is a regional hub that links the Mediterranean, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. With a population of about 80 million, it is the largest country in the region.1 About 28% of its population is enrolled in school and university programs, 58% are under the age of 25, 19 million people make up its workforce, and around 5.7 million are working for the government sector.2 Egypt is witnessing its reincarnation into a modern, liberal, and private sector-led, market-driven economy.

In fits and starts, green IT is emerging as a significant issue for the public sector. The driving forces are practical and virtuous. Soaring energy costs, the threat of catastrophic climate change, and the more mundane (but nevertheless very real) risk inherent in fossil fuel-based air pollution have compelled regional and national governments to take remedial action.