Writing generally involves deadlines and limited access to the people who can provide the information and the direction. Much of being successful is being able to get everything you need in one shot, usually at the drop of a hat. In this situation – which can happen pretty much anywhere – I try to lead Continue Reading

This morning Andrew and I had a breakthrough design session. Despite weeks (months?) of him telling me he felt outside the development process and unable to insert himself in the project, and weeks of me responding EXACTLY the same way (“then change the process!”), I feel we broke past the communication barrier and established a Continue Reading

The first version of the client extranet is complete. This version has the “backend” view of all the work items a company manages for a client, including support items (or “tickets”), project tasks, feature requests, or anything else you want to manage. My favorite feature (right now): the “twitter-like” messaging feature that allows you to Continue Reading

Scott Lake’s post about being more than an email address (how to categorize people who sign up for the MG beta) got me thinking. The Scotts’ discussion touched on an important aspect of communications. Target audience. The person you are speaking with. It affects the vocabulary, the delivery and the complexity of your message. It Continue Reading

Scott Annan’s recent post on community driven software got me thinking about ways that companies can gain insights for product directions. For the most part, social networks are generating some great discussion when it comes to technology. Although I’m not sure much of it comes in the CRM space, I think that there are still Continue Reading

I am always amazed at how lousy software companies are. Yesterday I read two different blogs that highlighted the two biggest problems with software companies: product quality and customer service. The first was an irate internal email Bill Gates sent in 2003 about his experience trying to install Movie Maker. You can read the whole Continue Reading

I always hit project deadlines. I think its equally important to clients and members of the team to know that, come what may(!), we will deliver on the day we said we would. There are three ways to ensure you always hit your deadline: Stop “scope creep”. Deal with all new features as “phase 2″ Continue Reading