A THINKING MAN’S GUIDE TO VOYAGES SOUTH

A THINKING MAN’S GUIDE TO VOYAGES SOUTH~the many facets of Caribbean Cruising

http://sail.vedamind.com/www_freecrusingguide/2011/07/24/a-thinking-mans-guide-to-voyages-souththe-many-facets-of-caribbean-cruising/

2011-08-28 Sunday - Adele - Someone Like You VMA 2011 - MTV

2011-08-27 Sunday - 10 Actions to Revitalize Microsoft Shareholder Value

Microsoft (MSFT) closed at 25.25 on Friday, August 25, 2011

Here are 10 actions I would suggest to the Microsoft Board of Directors to revitalize shareholder value.

1.  Fire Steve Ballmer and replace him with an industry outsider.

2.  Cut 10% of the workforce immediately

3.  Target a 30% reduction of the workforce over a 2-3 year period

4. Eliminate low-margin products/divisions

5. Break-up the company and create some spin-offs

• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Small Business
• Microsoft Consulting

6. Create a new Linux/Cloud Services Division

7.  Create a new Enterprise Open Source Services Division

 2012-04-12 Update: Wow.  Today Microsoft announced 'Microsoft Open Technologies', "a new wholly owned subsidiary"

8. Create a new $5B Micro-cap Start-up Angel Investor funding initiative

•  Quarterly Demo Contests
• $500K each to [0-3] selected winners
• Over time, create 10,000 new start-ups, of which Microsoft shareholders would retain significant ownership.

9.  Implement an "UP or OUT" Annual Review process. 

10.  Hire me as a Shareholder Value Creative Consultant

2011-08-26 Friday - CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge

Today I registered for the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Contest 


http://milliondollar.cnbc.com/
 
Starts: September 19, 2011 at 9:30:00 ET

Ends: November 25, 2011 at 4:00:00 ET

2011-08-12 Friday - Weekend Reading Links

Java run-time monitoring, Part 1: Run-time performance and availability monitoring for Java systems
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-rtm1/index.html

Java run-time monitoring, Part 2: Postcompilation instrumentation and performance monitoring http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-rtm2/index.html

Java run-time monitoring, Part 3: Monitoring performance and availability of an application's ecosystem
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-rtm3/index.html

 

 

 

The Art of ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING

http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~lockwood/class/cs306/books/artofasm/toc.html

Programming from the Ground Up
An introduction to programming using linux assembly language
http://programminggroundup.blogspot.com/2007/01/programming-from-ground-up.html

http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pgubook/

Neo4j Tutorial: The Power of the Daleks
http://nosql.mypopescu.com/post/8771740065/neo4j-tutorial-the-power-of-the-daleks

Build a Python app for parsing shared memory dumps
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2l2B5b/www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-parse-memory-dumps/index.html?cmp=dw&cpb=dwlin&ct=dwgra&cr=twitter&ccy=zz&csr=pythonlxdumpanalysis

2011-08-12 Friday - Faster Isn't Always Better

I received an email today...which reminded me of Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare.

http://www.bpminstitute.org/roundtables/past-round-table/article/pmi-mortgage-insurance-co-s-roadmap-to-business-agility.html?m=e&s=dcevent&c=wspreview&k=bpm&v=all

"Case study about how PMI used rules management and process management to achieve business agility i.e. better, faster and cheaper changes to achieve business results. Also discusses how IT collaborated with business as facilitator and enabler."

...which reminded me of this recent news item...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Mortgage-insurer-PMI-Group-apf-2378822000.html?x=0&.v=4

"Mortgage insurer The PMI Group Inc. warned investors on Thursday that it may be unable to continue selling new policies and could shut down."
(...)
"Like other mortgage insurers, PMI has been able to sell profitable policies in recent years, but the gains from those sales hasn't outpaced losses from policies sold during the bubble."

...from which one might draw a conclusion that going "faster" maybe isn't always such a good idea?

What if by adopting a Business Rule Management System, they were able to be more agile - and thus make fundamental changes to their core business model "faster"?

Which eliminated the benefit of a slower pace - that would have allowed more contemplation of a suggested change.

And as a consequence of that - they destroyed shareholder value, employee careers, and killed their company?


Technology isn't always the right answer.

Sometimes, technology can simply be a weapon that magnifies your mistakes - to the point of being the instrument of your destruction.