I’ve received several questions about ISO 19770, the international standard for Software Asset Management, over the past couple of months. Let’s review the landscape… First of all, ISO is an acronym for the International Organization for Standards (ISO) based in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a network of the national standards institutes of over 163 countries that, through many specialized committees, works to develop a consensus among member nations on standards that will be accepted by all countries. You have very likely heard or seen advertisements for companies that included a reference to their ISO 9000 certification, which is becoming a worldwide quality management requirement for companies that wish to become part of a supply chain for major global manufacturers or distributors.

As this is the first week of the first year of a new decade, predictions are in demand. Below are my predictions for Information Technology in the Federal, State, and Local public sector. I promise to revisit these predictions at the end of December to test their accuracy. Wink. Cloud Computing: Off and running, finally. In the last few months the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, and the General Services Administration have committed to the cloud for office productivity applications like Google Apps or Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Major cities including Los Angeles and New York have also made the decision to adopt cloud services. The latest buzz is that FedRAMP will be ready for prime time by April.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of participating in a panel for the Women in Technology event: “Enabling the Channel – Insights from Leading OEMs and Distributors.” The event was hosted by our friends at Google at their fun and hip office in Washington DC. My fellow panelists, Theresa Caragol, Vice President, Global Alliances & Partners, Ciena; Liz Anthony, Public Sector Channel Marketing Manager, Cisco; and Lynne Corddry, Vice President, Business Development, Public Sector, Red Hat, Inc., and I enjoyed a lively discussion and some very intuitive questions from the audience. The event was moderated by Christine Schaefer from DLT Solutions and Mary Conley Eggert from Tech Image.

In the first blog entry of this series, I used this AdultSwim video on YouTube to outline the five stages of grief and then related them to the five steps to a successful technology implementation. The subsequent entries included have gone into more detail for each stage and step – Needs/Denial, Process/Anger, and Training/Bargaining. That brings us to this final entry in this series, which will cover: Step 4: Technology Rollout; or, Stage 4: Depression Stage 5: Rallying the Users; or Stage 5: Acceptance Along the way I’ve drawn a comparison between Technology Implementation, Therapy and the Kübler-Ross Model for Grief. Implementing new technology in your agency, or any organization, can be hard and if not done right can have catastrophic consequences. Don’t believe me? Just ask Hershey; yes, the chocolate company. Hershey Food Corp spent $112 million and 30 months of implementation effort, however, when they attempted to go live in July 1999, the company experienced catastrophic failures with sales order processing, which had a crippling effect in shipping delays and deliveries of incomplete orders. That’s a lot of melting chocolate.

This is the fourth entry in a six-part blog series. In the first blog entry in this series, I revisited the YouTube clip outlining the five stages and focused on Step 1 Assess Needs/Stage 1 Denial. I can’t get enough of that video…if you haven’t watched it yet, now is as good a time as any. Step 3: Training and Discipline; or, Stage 3: Bargaining

This is the third entry in a six-part blog series. In my last blog entry in this series, I revisited the YouTube clip outlining the five stages and focused on Step 1 Assess Needs/Stage 1 Denial. Now, it’s time to talk about:

First, some background. In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual's ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

This is the second entry in a six-part blog series. In my last blog entry in this series, I humorously drew connections between Technology Implementation, Therapy and the Kübler-Ross Model for Grief[TR1] (here is the video again, just because it is hilarious: [c2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usm9SpnHYJQ&feature=player_embedded). Now, I want to follow-through on that analogy to show the specific connections between the five steps to a successful implementation and the five stages of grief: Step 1: Assess Needs First and Technology Second; or, Stage 1: Denial

The annual Oracle Open World (OOW) conference is fast approaching and is sure to be bigger and better than ever this year. With more than 40,000 attendees expected, it will again be the biggest conference held in San Francisco during 2010. Why so many attendees, many of whom make it an annual ritual? Why should you attend? Here are just a few reasons, in no particular order, that I haven’t missed an OOW in at least 8 years.

First I want to thank all of those people who have read and commented on my blog over the past few months. Apparently there is a lot of interest in emerging trends and many firms are positioning themselves to take advantage of the perceived shift in the market. After reading my past few blogs a few organizations have contacted me to discuss my thoughts and to share with me what they perceive to be the upcoming trends for their respective industries/markets.