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| It was on a Friday back in 1991 when DM News, the weekly
periodical for the vast multi-billion dollar direct marketing industry
did an article about when the industry would be able to turn to
personal computer technology to do their cumbersome "merge/purge" and
zip code presort processing. They had turned to half a dozen of the
leading technology experts for an answer: It would still be several
years before the technology becomes advanced enough to even think about
such processing was the consensus. Greg Nail, the Director of Marketing for a major firm brought a copy of that paper up to Eric's office where Eric sat before twin tower PCs; the 100Mhz machines were the latest available (about 1/30th of the processor speed of today's average PC). Eric scanned the article. "Damn it! I wish someone would have told ME it was impossible... and saved me all this work. I just finished the first full run of the merge/purge and presort on the lists from that whole stack of tapes... (list arrived on cumbersome 9 track tapes at that time)". The Director of Marketing grinned; Eric had done it again. This was only one system in the midst of many previous and more to come for a multitude of clients. But that day, that client began saving $35,000-$50,000 per MONTH by not having to have their processing done on a mainframe system by an outside service bureau. Their turnaround time, critical to the success of their mailings, went from 3-5 days to 1-2 days; and revenues increased accordingly. While the computers have been updated, that same base system is still being used successfully today by that same client. |
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"Skill or just luck? If I hadn't had the knowledge and skills that I did,
I wouldn't have been in the position to have been in the right place at the
right time for the luck to have manifested itself..."
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A bit about me...
I am not one of these people!
Then there are those of us who live our lives on the cutting edge of
technology. We are "off the wall" and not only think "outside of the
box", but live outside of the box. We live to design and develop unique
systems which have never before been attempted. Working 9 to 5 is some
sort of dream world. For us, 18 hour days, 6-7 days a week until a
project is launched and implemented is the norm. We manage projects
whose requirements may sometimes change hourly, loosely guiding or
directing the efforts of development teams of extremely creative people
who often appear to outsiders to be "oddballs" and "misfits".
In reality, we've learned to assemble teams of some of the most
talented and creative people available. We set the "standard
for excellence" through the use of performance based goals and
objectives designed specifically to meet budgetary and design specifications. Leading these teams is
sometimes akin to herding cats; not because the people are
unmanageable, but rather because all of their own ideas, talent and
creativity are coaxed into the effort, rather than simply assigning
tasks to them. It is the leader's responsibility to challenge
and mentor his team, to both teach and learn from them such that the
entire team becomes more knowledgeable, efficient and effective. It
is knowing when to lead, and when to follow; for if you've
done your job correctly in assembling the team, your team will often
have talents and capabilities greater than your own in specialized areas.
It provides the opportunity for the entire team to grow.
In this type of dynamic environment, the management challenge is not getting people to work,
but rather getting them to go home. We are the ones that often hide
behind closed doors for hours or days at a time. We are teased about
having an upside down "T" slot in the door by which we can be passed
the occasional pizza and a "Big Gulp" to sustain ourselves.
Successfully launching dynamic, new and unique systems, especially in
"start-up" environments requires the best of both types of technology
people, and a project manager, CIO/CTO that is capable of leading the
effort from requirements analysis through the development of
performance based goals and objectives, system design to meet those
goals and objectives, system development, acceptance testing, and
implementation. This leader must then be capable of guiding the entity
through its expansion to maturity and mitigating and managing the
"growing pains" associated with that expansion.
Most importantly, he or she must realize, plan for and guide the change
to a "mature" business structure, including the change to the type of
technology personnel that can best take over the maintenance of the
system; including the realization that their own position must
transition to a "corporate" type CIO/CTO so that they may move on to
the next new system challenge with no impact to the entity."
Of Note...
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