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Posts from the ‘News’ Category

Feb 6

6 Comments

Saying goodbye to Tom Miller – or – what do you do when Superman retires?

Making work look like fun

Making work look like fun

Tom Miller has announced that he will retire from Sage North America on March 29, 2013.

This is not new news – it’s been out there for a while now. It took me a while to figure out what I would like to say.

I would like to use this space and honor his legacy.

Personally I’ve always been the type of guy that likes to sharpen the saw by reading smart ideas by smart people presented in new and interesting ways. Yet, while reading these sources of information and inspiration, I’m always reminded of the classics – Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie, Peter Drucker, Napoleon Hill – which, to me, are the fundamental sources upon which most other business philosophies are built upon.

I am not going out too far on a limb to say: Tom Miller is the embodiment of these fundamental sources of business inspiration.

He’s a living, breathing example of those classics.

I would challenge anyone to name a time where they interacted with Tom and didn’t come away richer for the experience. Whether it’s direct advice or, more likely than not, you walking away thinking you came up with a great idea even though he skillfully planted it, fed and watered it and helped it grow.

Tom has mastered the unbelievably difficult skill of helping others reach their potential. He’s not in the fish-handing-out business, he’s in the teaching-people-to-fish business.

He embodies the positive thinking, get ‘er done, 1 + 1 can equal 3 mentality that I aspire to maintain. Tom doesn’t see obstacles and problems, he sees opportunities and exciting challenges. Tom believes in the power of free enterprise and the ability of sharp business owners to find ways to create value for their customers, their partners and themselves.

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Jul 29

4 Comments

The Road Ahead for Sage

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qmnonic/266203795/sizes/z/in/photostream/Recently Dennis Howlett, self-proclaimed no-nonsense purveyor of truth in matters pertaining to enterprise IT, penned an article called “Sage on the road to nowhere.” As a long-time observer of Sage UK, Mr. Howlett makes some tough and mostly accurate assessments of the current situation and the challenges faced by Sage as they shift to addressing new customer expectations in the increasingly Cloud-based world of software applications.

Luckily for all involved, Sage leadership has seemingly woken up to these new, and growing, set of expectations and now it’s a matter of proper, disciplined execution on the road ahead. There is no doubt that this journey of transformation will continue to experience bumps in the road with some painful ramifications for many involved.

But it’s completely necessary if Sage wants to survive in the new economy.

If you don’t believe this, consider companies like Blockbuster Video, RIM, Sears, Best Buy and others that – not waking up in time to the transformations in their particular industries – have been either put out of business completely or dramatically crippled.

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Mar 9

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I’ve got some bad news for you, sunshine

For those not in the know, the title of this post was taken from “In the Flesh” – a song on Pink Floyd’s The Wall album. The Wall resonates heavily with themes of abandonment and isolation and relates the story of a protagonist who steadily builds up a wall to hide behind in response to the negative pressures in his life.

[Here's a link to the video for those interested: WARNING FOR LANGUAGE AND THEMES THAT MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME. Please don't click if you are one of those folks that get offended at such things. In fact, no one should click on it. I'm asking you not to.]

I think the themes are appropriate as the next few articles are going to focus on the Sage Transformation journey.

What exactly is the “Sage Transformation” journey?

From what I can tell (and please understand that the following is just my opinion and is not endorsed, confirmed, approved or in any other way agreed upon by anyone at Sage), at its core, the Sage Transformation journey is a plan designed to help Sage respond to the rapidly changing landscape of software publishing.

It includes many different elements including re-branding, introduction of subscription pricing, re-organization efforts, direct sales, closer interaction with end user customers, improved cross-selling, connected services and many more. We’ll cover some of these topics in the coming days but for now, let’s keep our focus on the big picture.

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Nov 18

1 Comment

Does anyone really think Facebook gives a damn about their privacy?

Dislike!

I read this latest article on yet another example that Facebook is going to do whatever it wants, however it wants to do it. And as the big boy on the block, they are going to keep doing it and doing it and doing it because … hold on to your hats for this shocking revelation, folks … Facebook doesn’t care about anybody’s rights.

They have provided a shared virtual space from which they can re-use and re-purpose anything you do, post or share.

Oh, yes - it’s subject to your privacy and application settings so you might feel somewhat safe (assuming you set these properly which most people don’t). And of course, they have changed these privacy and application settings more times than Katy Perry changes outfits during a concert so ultimately they decide what “privacy” is.

 There is a nice little clause in there that the rights transfer back to you if you delete the content or your account. Remember people: while our memories may fade, our lives on the Internet go on forever.  The law offices of Craig Deslack had this to say about it.

That’s just one voice but Google the issue and you will see that it’s not a solitary voice.

And it’s not enough that they want to own and track you while you are on Facebook or logged in to your Facebook account. The point of the article linked in the first sentence is that they are tracking you even when you aren’t logged in to Facebook. The little computer elves are quietly and silently watching and tracking your every movement.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t know. I do know I’m not the only one who feels this way. And I also know that it’s not just Facebook. It’s all of the social networking giants. I’m singling out Facebook because they seem to be the worst and biggest repeat offender and display the biggest lack of concern over their customer rights.

But let’s not kid ourselves – it’s all of them. They are all looking for ways to slice and dice our lives up for better targetted messaging and advertising.

Here’s the very real, very near future, friends. One in which personalized messages target our every waking moment.

The real question is: what are our choices? De-friend Facebook? Un-link LinkedIn? Silence the tweeting? I’m open to ideas.

Nov 3

googlejuice

Google Makes It Clear: Want More Juice – Post Current and Helpful Content

Kiss the good old days of boosting a web site’s Google ranking by soliciting inbound links from highly ranked towing company and auto dealership web sites.

The old way of boosting search engine visibility is quickly going away in favor of a new approach.

Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.

If I search for [olympics], I probably want information about next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics (the only time my favorite sport, cricket, was played). Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I just type [olympics] without specifying 2012, I still find what I’m looking for.

Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.

We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.

I’ve thought for quite some time that the biggest boost in web rankings is just plain good content that’s updated regularly. Not all searches will be impacted by these Google changes however according to Google you can expect up to 35% of all search results to be affected by the freshness of the content.

Read More  Image via LikeCool

Jul 25

sage simply certification

Sage Introduces Sage Simply Certification

Sage today announced a certification program for students and accounting professionals wishing to improve their resume and prove their knowledge of Sage Simply accounting.

Celebrating 25 years, Sage Simply Accounting software is the #1 choice of Canadian small businesses and accountantsi, used by more than 500,000 Canadian businesses. Developed in Sage’s global research and development centre in Richmond, B.C., the fully bilingual Sage Simply Accounting is known for its easy to learn, easy to use approach to accounting, while providing the most comprehensive features that small businesses require—from start-up through to maturity. Sage Simply Accounting is supported by a highly trained team of customer service specialists in our Richmond, B.C., centre, and by more than 11,000 consultant partners located in communities across Canada who help thousands of companies daily to manage their business more effectively with Sage Simply Accounting.

The fee for certification is $49 and requires passing a written test with a minimum score of 75%. More details from Sage.

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