“an investment in knowledge always pay the best interest.”
-- Bengamin Franklin

While these wise words are always spoken, sometimes it is not enough when trying to convince management of the necessity to attended an IT conference.  Many times you need to make a stronger case in writing.

Here’s what you need to do.  First, answer the questions below, then prepare an estimate of the costs (airfare, hotel, meals, transportation, etc), and then plan back-up for you work while you’re away.  Now, write down and present it to your employee, in person if possible.  Prove why your attendance is a true investment that will benefit them just as much as it will benefit you!

Questions:

1. How are the most important issues or plans facing your organization right now?
2. What role do you plan in dealing with these issues or reaching the plan goals?
3. What sessions or opportunities at the conference relate to and support your role/contribution?

Ask for approval to attend early!  Last-minute requests are never the best way to go and early registration saves you money.  Then, follow up with your employer if you don’t get an answer right away.  As busy as every organization is, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks.

Beware “Innovation”

As marketers, we love to innovate! However we advise caution if planning on using “We need to innovate” as a justification in this current economic climate. This year’s research has shown that most organizations are in “Recover and Refocus” mode and we have developed the program accordingly. The term “innovation” may create the impression that you will return from the conference with risky, costly or disruptive ideas that have little immediate benefit to your organization.

Are you silently adhering to the old-fashioned IT models to keep your enterprise running in the short term, or are you innovating your IT environment to help your enterprise in the long term.

In the Jan/Feb 2009 From the Inside, I talked about "innovate or die", and in the Mar/Apr 2009, I talked about how much the economy sucks and the opportunities that exist.

Recessions have a way of pushing for innovations within business and business practices. The old-fashioned, tried and true, models and methods aren't working as well now, so companies are starting to look for new ways to draw in customers and decrease expenses.

Businesses continue to struggle over getting the mid-market customer that had sustained them for the last several years. The CEO and CFO, as well as sales departments, are starting to look at the value market and the premium markets. Data, reporting, and accessibility to this information is key to finding these markets that the company had previously treated as the forgotten step child.

It may take some innovation to produce the data, or to provide the information needed to combine geographic location, sales data, and customer profiles.

If your CEO asked you how you can provide accessible data like this, or provide some other innovation, what type of idea will you deliver? Are you able to provide high-speed experiments, or will you have to tell your CEO it will take 18-24 months before you could do anything?

Do you know how to fully use all the tools you already have? Do you know what tools exist that would solve your problems or make your job easier? Are you able to tap data from outside your enterprise to enhance the presentation, add accuracy, and provide more data? Are you able to provide outside systems easy access to the data you have accumulated over the last 30 years?

Web services, APIs, graphical reports, data accessibility tools, and mining and warehousing tools are important now, but what will your business ask of you next? Can you connect to Facebook, Twitter, or Windows Live and Sharepoint? Can Salesforce.com access your customer data information? What automation do you have within your systems? What automation is missing? If you can't answer these questions, the International Spectrum 2010 conference is coming up April 12-15, 2010. You can get them answered there, as well as get the tools that will facilitate the innovation your CEO is going to require of you.

If you can't wait until then, take look at the webinars available, or talk with someone at your local user group or a consultant. There is a lot more you can do for your business's ROI than you may think.

I did a session this year at International Spectrum 2009 Conference called "Alphabet Soup".  I talked about current IT terms and what they mean to us, and how they effect us in our day to day life.

One of the terms I covered was "Green" and "Green IT".  After the session was done, a few people said I should write more about it and what it means to us.  So here I am.

The question of what "Green" is in IT is very relative.  "Green" started out as a term for "cutting your carbon footprint".  The problem is that there are many different ways to do this.  Let me start out with a case and point from a recent issue of an IT Magazine I read.  They did an article on creating a "Green" computer.  The researchers put a computer together that used as many components that where manufactured out of recycled components as possible.  Then did stress tests on the computer and did an evaluation and article on that computer.

The next issue they included an additional article/retraction because they got slammed by readers whose concepts of "Green" differed from the researchers.  The ideas of what "Green" computing is ranged from lower power consumption, which of course leads to a lower "carbon footprint" at the power plants, to recycled parts, to using laptops and think clients instead of desktops.  Other explained that they didn't think this computer was really "Green" because it required more energy to create the components made from recycle components due to the extraction and then manufacture process.

They are only a few examples, and as you can see, the term "Green" is a bit relative.  If you focus on the concept of "lower Carbon footprint" and assume that means lower power consumption, then any computer system that uses less power than another would say that is green.

I've talked with some CIOs and their concept of going green is removing 1 computer from there data center and making sure that everyone turns off their computer at night.

Another replaced most of their thick client PCs with thin clients, and moved all the processing to a central server in the computer room.  While this cuts down on the amount of power used on each PC, it increases the amount of power in the computer room, but in computer and in cooling and conditioning.  But since this is lowering the amount of power used by whole company, then its termed going "Green".

You can really go pretty far with this concept.  By using Linux computers instead of Windows computer (which usually requires more processing power), you would be going "Green" because you don't need such a large computer and don't need the same power consumption.
“Green” has become a marketing buzzword lately.  So if you are asked, "Is your MultiValue database server Green" you can say "Yes".

We don't require the same hardware resources as other applications and databases.  You save on power consumption.  You don’t need the large storage arrays, or the complex multiprocessor systems.

Today was a bit of a strange day.  We had a spring storm come in, and dump a bit of snow on the ground (12” or so).  Didn’t seem to affect the people attending session too much.  They were still well attended.

The snow did cause some travel issues, unfortunately.

We did get a couple people that braved the snow and came to the exhibition hall.

While the snow caused some problems, the breakfast and the closing party were very successful.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the closing party and the improv comedy.  As soon as I get a change to extract the video snip-its, I’ll post them a few of them on the blog.

The .NET sessions were popular today, as to be expected, but so was Nehemiah’s “Maintaining Legacy applications”.  Nehemiah asked his session attendees, what their skill levels were, and found a large chunk of them new to MultiValue (5 years or less).

The connectivity session, and the 2 document imaging sessions also were popular.

As I talked with attendees, I found that many people were looking forward to talking to the vendors in the Exhibition Hall.  When walking the exhibition hall, most vendors were always talking to someone.

By the close of the exhibition hall today, a few vendors made comment about the new faces, and that there was a lot of interest.  In attendee was heading back to the office that afternoon to get an ok to purchase one of the tools she found on in the hall.

We had a good turn out from the local MultiValue users today in addition to the full conference attendees.  The Ice Cream was very popular, as to be expected.

I was able to gather a lot of information and announcements for the conference recap article that will be in the May/Jun issue of the magazine.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and I’m looking forward to Closing Party.  For those of you that have full conference attendance, make sure you full out your passport and turn them in.  The prizes will be given out at the party.
 

Well, day 2 of the conference was just as well attended as the first day.  We started with the Entrinisk sponsored breakfast, and then had sessions all day long, before the Sneak Preview party. The Dashboard topics this morning seemed to be a hot topic, and the Case Study this afternoon on converting green screen to GUI was very full.

Talked with many more of the attendees today and was able to point them to solutions they needed.  I was also able to schedule some impromptu training for some "newbie" MultiValue developers that came to the show for some training.

Everyone seems to be enjoying the sessions, but haven't reached the "information overload" level yet.  Still have 2 more day to try and get them to that point.

The Sneak Preview party was well attended.  Everyone got to see and talk to all the exhibitors before all the Exhibit only attendees come in tomorrow.   The party was sponsored by the Colorado MultiValue User Group, which I thank for their support.

Well, it’s the first day of the conference, and thing are going well.  For those of you that are wondering about the attendance, we are down by 7% from last year.   The other conference at the hotel, just down the hall, is down by 50%.  I’ve talked to a few other show organizers, they if they aren’t just flat cancelling their conferences, the industry across the board is down by an average of 30%.

In the welcome address, I talked about a few predictions I have for the upcoming year and beyond.  We had standing room only in the general session.  I tried to get an audio recording to post here, but apparently I don’t know how hit a record button on the digital recorder.  Sorry.

After my general session, we started our workshops.  Many people have already expressed being satisfied with what these workshops provided for them.  I know I have received a few complaints about having to pick from 4 or 5 different session that were all scheduled at the same time.

I would consider that being successful.  If I can schedule a list of session make it hard time to pick just one, then I have been successful in the change to the conference program I started 3 years ago.

We ended the day with a class on writing articles, and how it can enhance your position in your company as well as a few other benefits.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), there are another set of good sessions, before the sneak preview party.  I’ll post some pictures of the conference and party tomorrow.

I a few session that I was doing today, so I didn't get to my Twitter updates.  You can follow the Spectrum Conference Twitter at:

http://twitter.com/intlnathan

Clif Oliver is also doing some Twitter updates as well. If you are interersted in following his you can find it at: http://twitter.com/clifoliver

Innovate or your application will die a slow death. Harsh words, but you’ll start seeing more and more CIOs, CTOs, and even CEOs demanding more and more from their existing systems and business applications.

Most companies rely on their business software and systems more than they rely on their employees. As companies start cutting back on costs, they will look at the IT department, and see 80% of their IT budget applied to maintenance of existing systems, with the remaining 20% on new innovations or R&D.

This is the 80/20 rule or paradigm. While this is valid, it is also a trap that many IT departments fall into. When times get tough, they start focusing more of their budgets into the maintenance role and forsake innovation. While this works well for the short term, many times it becomes the long term plan as well, causing company’s business systems to fall farther and farther behind the requirements of the business.

With the way things are in the economy, I expect to see many companies will start looking at the IT budget, but I don’t expect them to do the wholesale cutting they did during the dot-com bust. During the dot-com bust, many companies started to cut IT budgets, but quickly found that they could not do it without adversely impacting the productivity of the rest of their business.

Instead, the companies that invested in their IT departments, and specifically in new software tools and innovation, found that they could run their companies with less people and more software. While this concept only goes so far, many existing business applications severely lack the innovations in key areas due to the focus on the 80/20 paradigm.

Some of this is due to lack of planning, bean counting, and even lack of knowledge that something can or cannot be done within their business systems.

Another reason is the “I can do it better and cheaper” concept that is so prevalent in the MultiValue database market. Since the MultiValue database environment is so efficient and effective in developing applications that don’t take so much time or resources, we have a tendency to overlook all the tools that exist in the marketplace that have already solved many of the application problems and user demands.

Or we look at the tools and say to ourselves, “I can do that better and cheaper”. And we spend the 20% of our IT budget developing a tool that we could have purchased cheaper. Then, we spend a part of the 80% that should be spent on business systems maintaining tools developed in-house, when a third-party tool will always end up with more features and flexibility than we ever have time to program into the “in-house developed” tool

Take a look at the ROI of developing a tool vs. purchasing a tool — 60-200 hours of your time developing the tool is likely to cost you around $4,000-$14,000. Depending on the tools, you have already spent the license costs, plus a few years of support fees.

Now, look at the maintenance costs if you write the tool yourself — 20-500 hours a year on maintenance and add new functionality as needed. Again, ends up being around $4,000-$35,000 a year. Most yearly maintenance costs for these tools are less that this.

Using third-party tools is well worth it, and it allows you to spend more time on focusing on improving and innovating business systems instead of creating new tools.

Improving and innovating business systems is not solely a focus of fixing the bugs in the existing systems, but building the business software framework that can benefit from the new technologies that your CEO is demanding you put to use. More and more companies are looking at SaaS tools and applications to enhance the productivity of their business, as well.

SaaS business applications like SalesForce.com are becoming more and more prevalent in business applications for the same reason that third-party tools help your business. It costs less to have someone else maintain it and keep it current. Then the business can have their IT staff focus more on keeping your business running instead of the interfaces running.

Many companies don’t know, or are not told about, all the tools that exist to solve their problems. Now would be a good time to do a little research to see what tools exists that would make your job easier and cause your IT budget to be lower.

Remember, your CEO or company management is looking for ways to cut costs across the whole business, not just in the IT department. If the IT department can supply them with a tool that will save the company money, they will have no problem purchasing it.

I've had a few people looking at banner ads for the Spectrum Website.   One of the common questions I've had is how to design the banner ad to be the most effective.  There is a lot of information on the web that can be used, but I figured I'd list a few resources that I recommend.

Articles: 

The Complete Guide to Creating Effective Square Banner Ads
http://www.anywired.com/the-complete-guide-to-creating-effective-square-banner-ads/146/

Banner Ad Creation Software

For easy of use, and the most options available, without having to be graphic designer, I have found Websylte 4 to work best.  I've tried a few other banner creating software, but they always seem limited.

Webstyle 4
http://site.xara.com/products/webstyle/

Of course, working with a graphic designer will always get you a better product, but you really need to know what you want ahead of time.

The first and foremost communication should be your company’s standard request form or a formal memo directed to your manager requesting attendance and why. Be sure to include the ROI and cost savings for attending (see below for some examples.) A sample of a memo requesting attendance can be found at http://www.intl-spectrum.com/Conference/WhyAttend.aspx. Schedule a follow-up meeting with your boss to discuss the request.

In your memo and follow-up meeting focus on how attending the conference is relevant to your company and/or your team’ goals and future projects. Here are some talking points to help you make a case for attending:

• International Spectrum has been hosting this conference for over 25 years and it is regarded by the industry as “the premier MultiValue Educational event.”
• I am going to look for a solution for “this” problem.
• I believe “this new technology” could benefit the company and I would like to learn more about it.
• I plan on meeting with “x” vendors to discuss these issues.
• I am going to talk with several companies about “x” technology we are looking at.
  

Ask how to make it happen and get the ball rolling:

• Do I get corporate travel involved?
• Do I need to have dollars in the budget right now? Is there money in another departmental budget that is unused?
• What are some of the things that I should look for while attending?
• Is there a branch office in the area that I can visit?
• If you are serious about purchasing “x” software can a vendor schedule an on-site visit to demo or meet with current users?

It is only natural for an administrator to ask, "How can we justify spending money to participate in a conference when we are facing budget reductions?" The answer lies in the value of the conference's content and the focused interaction it provides. Sometimes learning one new piece of information or gaining better understanding about only one process can justify the entire cost of attending International Spectrum. And making one professional contact can be worth much more.

As companies decrease training budgets, they still require IT to do more with less. As companies increasingly turn to technology to compensate for a lack of employees, the needs for up-to-date solutions and products become more important and cheaper to implement. Since International Spectrum brings all the tools providers under one roof, you save time and money on research by seeing everything in one place.

The cost of attending this conference is often less than the cost of attending classes at other training sites or online. By offering workshops, peer-to-peer discussions, and varied IT and Enterprise presentations, International Spectrum 2009 offers you the knowledge of multiple trainers, professionals, and companies that are focused on the use of different techniques, methodologies, and products designed to increase your productivity and ability to meet the challenges your company or organization faces.