Arden Training

2012-02-21T05:08:00.000-08:00

"Lean Manufacturing" for Information Technology

In our work with one of our clients and one of our partners, additional exposure came to light for the interest in using "lean manufacturing" methodologies for our industry.

During the early part of the last decade, one problem that many individuals faced in our industry was lack of technical knowledge of the decision makers. Because the decision makers did not have a grounding in the industry, it took considerable amount of time to educate them to help them make a decision.

Let's consider a simple example. Go back in time to 2002. Envision that you are a network administrator and you realize that the processors on your primary server (which is five years old) is a key bottleneck to moving data to and from employees. After you do the research, you find a Dell server with current a processor (and RAM) for $5,000. You go to your manager (who is the CFO of your company) and share with her the benefits of increased work speed that will result from the $5,000 investment. All she hears is $5,000. Being that America is in the midst of a recession, what your CFO hears is "$5,000". You know what doesn't happen next.

Fast forward to the next recession. It is 2009. Now you are the CIO. Your network administrator comes to you with a $15,000 investment to virtualize your server environment. You immediately understand the benefits and sell the President of the company on making this investment. And it gets made.

Now that we have managers in our industry who have a background in information technology, we are ready for "lean manufacturing". Some of the methodologies used are ITIL for service management and Agile for applications development.

It is exciting seeing our industry maturing to the point where we are starting to complete more projects on time and within the budget, respond to customer's needs more readily, make decisions faster, and create more quality applications.

From a training perspective, we are seeing this play out in the demand for programs to help I.T. professionals. For example, we are working on several projects. They include:

Project management for a software as a service company
Training on project management software for an international manufacturing company
Agile training for an international distribution company
Training on a web based document management software for a local networking company

Work That Brain

2012-01-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

Work That Brain

With much focus in America today on healthy lifestyle choices for our body we sometimes overlook including the brain. Having a well exercised brain allows one to take a vital step towards overall health.

There are many ways to keep your brainhealthy. One these is exercise. Our brain uses 25 percent of theoxygen that we take in. This is whyexercise, even a simple walk, is important to the brain. Our brain also requires a good supply ofblood flow.

Another key area of focus is eating those foods whichallow your arteries to stay clear so as to provide a good path for blood to keep flowing to the brain. One tip to remember when making choices for thosegood-for-you foods goes back to kindergarten art class. Colors. Green vegetables, red berries and cherries, blue berries, yellow squash,purple eggplant, the list goes on. Make it easy. Eat colorful foods.

Wealso need to keep our brains active. This can be accomplished by challenging our brain with puzzles, learninga new language, or enduring a new and challenging experience.

Remember to avoid those things that can harm thebrain. Too much stress can lead to theproduction of cortisol. While this mayhelp for short term memory, it is slowly damaging the hippo campus.

In addition, remember to protect our brains when riding bikes,motorcycles, and other sports than can cause head injury.

Overall, if we continue to work the brain and provide itwith a good supply of oxygen and blood while also maintaining a well-balanceddiet and exercise routine, it should stay healthy.

Over the past eighteen months, I have made several changes that have led to significant results in my life. These have included introducing more vegetables and fruits into my diet. I have reduced eating foods that we all know are not healthy. I have introduced daily exercise into my life at a pace that fits my schedule. I have discontinued my habit of smoking cigarettes. These have lead to a more fully functioning brain every day.

2012-01-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

Web Site Design and Content Management Systems - Doug Landers (guest columnist)

Our clients often ask us about being able to update/edit their web site without having to learn web programming skills (e.g. HTML). The tool used for this is a Content Management System (CMS). CMS come in all different flavors and levels of complexity.

There are tools like WebSite Tonight from GoDaddy and Homestead/Intuit that one can use to get a siteup quickly. These are the easiest froman end user perspective and lower cost, but they come at a price. There is very little customization that canbe done and sometimes they are limited on the number of pages/assets you canhave. At the other end of the spectrumare the tools like Ektron's CMS.Net and RedDot. These are very good systems but are more expensive and usually require aspecialist to get them up and running and to keep the site performing. There are many options in the middle that arefree and are usually self-maintainable after the initial setup.

At a high level, a CMStakes your content (pictures, words, etc.) and combines them with a look(design template) and shows that to the user. Some of the middle ground CMS tools that may be familiar by name areDrupal, Joomla, and DotNetNuke. Theseare low/no cost for the CMS, although some modules that you may want to add inmight not be free. There are also sitesthat offer templates/themes that you can purchase and use. The drawback is if you want to change thetemplate or change some of the items it may require someone familiar withtemplate building for that CMS tool. These also have a fair amount of overhead and modules preinstalled thatyou may never use, but do affect performance. These tools are not bad tools and are popular.

Here are a few CMSpitfall:

Going the inexpensive route. Although it seems like a good option at thetime, it could cost you in the end. Likeit or not image does count in business. If your web site is seen as unprofessional then people may assume thesame about you or your company.

Not seeing the whole cost of a web site. When people try to compare web site proposalsthey are sometimes not easily comparable. Some companies will use a lower initial cost and then higher hosting andlock you in for a year. Others will havea moderate initial cost and reasonable hosting.

Not being realistic about your time. If you are already stretched doing otherbusiness activities, being your own web master may not be the best option.

Being realistic on budget. Yes web sites do cost money and have aperceived low value to some. However, itis almost always the go-to place for people to get information on yourbusiness, products or services.

Not knowing your strengths. We are all good at different things. If technology isn't a strength for you, thatis fine and there are others that it is â use them.

The reality is we all wantcontrol of our web site, but I can tell you that an average is that 5% of clients that really control their own site. We always build a site assuming it will beself-managed, but they rarely are. Andusually it has nothing to do with the CMS itself; it has more to do with the skill setsthat are in place. CMS tools are great,but they are not magic. There arelearning curves, pieces that all need to fit together and cost to bring yourbrand to life online.

BrandGarden is anintegrated marketing firm based in Mason, Ohio. We help small and medium businesses with allaspects of their marketing â online and offline. We offer a full range of services fromstrategy to design to execution of the marketing plan. We take the complexity out of marketing bybeing a one stop for our clients, reducing their time spent explaining theirvision and goals to multiple groups.

2011-12-26T04:49:00.000-08:00

XPages Introduction manuals available as freeware

As part of an initiative to drive more XPages skills in the marketplace, IBM has made the materials for the Introduction to XPages training available for download. This may be of value to individuals who would like to use it self-instruct. One caveat is that there is no content support available for the materials - they are being provided in as-is state. This freeware is based on Notes Domino 8.5.

This is one action in IBM's OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement, which is part of the larger Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. OER was pioneered 10 years ago when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched its OpenCourseWare initiative, making educational course materials in digital form available on a free and open basis to all.
This OpenCourseWare Pilot is provided in IBM Lotus Greenhouse.

Here are a few key points about the OpenCourseWare Pilot :

Materials usage is intended for those who would like to setup their own environment and self-instruct on XPages.
To access and download the free courseware you need to set yourself up as a member of Lotus Greenhouse (if you are not already)
Classroom and self-paced eLearning versions of this course are available for purchase for individuals who prefer formal instruction and lab support.
A variety of additional XPages Application Development courses are available for a fee to continue your study of this technology and further develop your skills.

Here is a link to a page that provides instructions for becoming a member of Greenhouse and for downloading the freeware:

http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/ibms-introduction-to-xpages-courseware-free

Social Capabilities available in Notes 8.5.3

With the recent release of Lotus Notes 8.5.3, IBM announced an entitlement to the Files and Profiles features of IBM Connections 3.0.1 to customers with Notes client licenses.

Files allows a worker to more easily share documents with co-workers. Profiles can help an employee find a subject matter expert more readily.

This page provides more details on how to download and set up these capabilities:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/notesanddomino/nd85.html