In today’s podcast, the subjects are telecommuting and collaboration. I am pleased to be joined by Adrian C. Ott to talk about her new book The 24 Hour Customer.

• What was the impetus for the book?
• Explain the book’s basic model.
• Describe time slicing?
• Why do some companies get stuck in the motivation quadrant?
• Why are habits so important? Can you talk about what some banks are doing?
• Talk to me about the importance of status bars for an online checkout management system.

For more information about Adrian and her excellent book, go to the book’s site.

To listen to the podcast, click here to go to iTunes.

In today’s podcast, the subject is consulting and my guest is William McKnight. William is a very successful consultant who specializes in data warehousing, master data management, and operational business intelligence. He is also the author of the book 90 Days to Success in Consulting, a great primer for those starting out in consulting.

In this 15 minute podcast, William talks about what prompted him to write this book, the difference between consultants and contractors, ethics, and other subjects. Note that our discussion is less about the technical ins and outs about what we do and more about topics related to cultivating a successful consulting practice.

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

Today’s topic is social media for educational institutions.  I’m joined by two distinguished folks:

• Jim Harris, the blogger in chief of Obsessive Compulsive Data Quality. Jim writes and speaks extensively on social media
• Andrew Gossen is the Senior Director for Social Media Strategy, Alumni Affairs & Development at Cornell University

In this 32 minute podcast, we talk about many topics, including the following:

• Social media ROI
• The cost of not doing social media
• The role of the community manager
• Quality content vs. plain old content

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

After a bit of a respite, Technology Today is back.

I read quite a bit about emerging technologies. Rarely, however, will I have to put down a book and attempt to process the gravity of what I have just read. I recently had that experience multiple times while reading Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business by David Siegel. I wrote about the semantic web a little while ago.

Pull is an amazing book with far-reaching implications for organizations, people, and business in general. I this podcast, I speak with the book’s author about questions such as:

• What exactly is the semantic web?
• What’s the deal with changing from push to pull? Isn’t that already happening?
• What do you mean by “personal data locker” and why is it so important?
• How do you see the adoption of the semantic web over the next five years or so?
• What are the implications for Apple?
• What should CIOs know about all this? Isn’t it too early for practical solutions?

David has also generously agreed to give away a copy of his most recent book if you find an Easter egg on his site.

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

Andrew Gossen, Senior Director for Social Media Strategy, Alumni Affairs & Development at Cornell University.

Jim Harris, Blogger in Chief at OCDQBlog.

• Tell me about how you started in this position. It’s a fascinating story.
• What are the ways in which the Cornell alumni association uses social media? What lessons do you have for other educational institutions?
• Many people think that being a social media expert means knowing how to set up a Facebook page. What are some of the other myths out there surrounding social media?
• What have been some specific results from increasing Cornell Alumni’s social media presence?

Julian and I discuss the following topics.

• Are organizations are too eager to jump into new technologies?
• Talk to me the relationship between data quality and technology.
• Do some organizations have “too much” technology?
• How can an organization ready itself for a massive system endeavor?

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

Against this backdrop, I read an article on NPR with great interest. One thing led to another and I was ultimately able to speak with Laura Schoppe, head of Fuentek, a consultancy that helps organizations transfer technology from one application to new ones.

During this 20 minute podcast, Laura discusses the challenges–and opportunities–associated with being completely virtual, management challenges, software as a service (SaaS), open source, and a host of other interesting topics.

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

I have worked with BI tools since the late 1990s and they can do some pretty amazing things. It’s just a cool technology with far-reaching implications.

Who better to discuss BI than Jill Dyché, partner at Baseline Consulting and author of -Data, The CRM Handbook, and Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth.

In this extremely informative podcast, Jill and I discuss the evolution of BI, whether organizations can have too many BI tools, data governance, MDM, and the business-IT relationship.

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

Patrick answers questions such as:

• What inspired you to write Breakthrough IT?
• How does IT typically function in most organizations? What can it do better?
• Obviously not all of the onus lies with IT. What do business users need to do different?
• Talk to me about an IT project portfolio.
• Let’s talk about canceling IT projects. One of the things that I liked about the book is that you use this “investment model of IT projects.” When is it time to pull the plug on a project and what can people do to retrieve as much valuable as possible from a failed endeavor?

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.

1. In what areas are MDM technologies used best?
2. Are there levels of MDM? Can you talk about them?
3. What does an organization need to do before starting an MDM project?
4. In which industries is MDM most frequently used?
5. What’s one of the biggest mistakes that organizations make during MDM projects?

As an aside, I found out after recording the podcast that Dalton’s a big Rush fan. This is probably a good thing, as we would have spent the entire podcast comparing notes on favorite albums, concerts, and other Rush-related trivia.

To listen to the podcast, click here or visit iTunes.