No one who works in computing can be unaware of the meaningless and constant jargon that we are all forced to listen to. I'd be interested to see a graduate school study of the amount of time IT managers spend just trying to understand the new terms they keep encountering. It's frustrating, of course, because in most cases the new terms just turn out to be some old term, given a slight twist.

As spring is starting to spring around the country and even before the first robin has arrived, spring training has started for professional baseball. So how about a baseball analogy for software development?

Managers often struggle with the decision of whether or not to significantly modify the customer relationship management (CRM) and other software packages they have just purchased. Often companies decide to make changes to the packaged application to meet their business requirements. This is very common and often times necessary, but should be undertaken with foresight and understanding of the consequences.

In several Advisors, I've mentioned my working assumption that a company should not outsource core business processes. As I use the term, a core business process results in a product or service that uniquely defines the company. In other words, the process is one in which the company adds unique value and is critical to the way the company positions itself in its market.

"The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor." (Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in First, Break All the Rules,

Some years ago when I was starting out on my own, I asked a colleague for some advice about the wonderful world of consulting. He said that one of the most important things to him was understanding the role the client wanted him to play on a project.

Despite many stories to the contrary, e-business is certainly NOT dead. What's dead are the independent subsidiaries that many firms created to launch e-businesses. This is actually a good sign.

The introduction of the euro cash was a runaway success with the public queuing to get rid of the old money on the first day. It was certainly an historic occasion, with 360 million people all facing a new currency at the same time, a rare common experience across Europe. That leaves the DUKS (Denmark, UK, and Sweden) who are wondering whether they should get their feet wet.

It's been approximately five months since the first anthrax attacks took place in the US. Although the attacks ceased as abruptly as they appeared, the healthcare and emergency response systems in this country have been scrambling to implement new technologies and procedures to deal with the next bioterrorist attack, should it come.