The Greening of America…

Last year around this time, I made a bet with a German colleague of mine that the U.S. was no closer to becoming a greener nation… unless it made financial sense to do so (i.e. the costs to be green are not worth  the effort).  He tended to agree, but thought the U.S. was a bit closer to taking the next step in being green.  Fast forward to today and it appears the greening of America is well underway.

Last night I was going through the mail and ended up looking at a Sam’s Club mini circular focused on their green efforts.  I was stunned to see all of the green activities that are going on at this single (albeit massive) retailer.  With their clout, they have been able to require mfrs to lessen the paper content in packaging, increase the quantity of “compacted” goods (laundry detergents), push CFL’s to a wider audience… the list goes on and on (fair trade coffee, organic wines, etc.)

Is Sam’s Club doing this out of the goodness of their heart?  I doubt it… but that’s OK.  I attended a conference a few years ago whose theme was, “Doing Well, by Doing Good”.  In essence companies will do good (conserve energy, better packaging, etc) if they can do well (make more money).  Are the auto makers now all of a sudden becoming “tree huggers”?  Not hardly.  If they can sell more hybrids to make more money, they’ll do it.

In the end, it looks like neither one us lost the bet.  We’ll just have to buy each other a beer the next time we meet.  An organic one of course.  And drink from a bottle so as not to use a glass mug which requires water, energy and detergents for cleaning.  And a local one so as to conserve the gas used for transporting the drinks.  Cheers!

The Future’s So Bright…

I continue to believe that AMR is doing the best job at connecting the dots between the “Analyst” world of business and the “real” world of business. This piece by CEO Tony Friscia highlights the challenges businesses face in trying to position themselves for the future. This opening piece paints the picture the clearest…

Trying to predict the future based on current trends and conditions invariably misses the mark. The problem: conditions always change. If, in 1945, you tried to predict the success of a hotel chain like Holiday Inn without considering the creation of a national highway system, you would have thought it a bad idea and been dead wrong.

His discussion further talks about the world just 10 short yrs ago when there was no MySpace or Facebook and Google had yet to be incorporated.

You’re missing the boat if you don’t follow their writing.

Happy Anniversary… to us!

A year ago, Siemens PLM Software (then UGS) officially became a part of the larger Siemens family… which is strange because honestly it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.  Much to the chagrin of our competitors, we haven’t disappeared from the face of the earth.  In fact, one can look at our accomplishments this past year and chuckle at their attempts to paint our demise… Synchronous Technology, Solid Edge 20, Teamcenter 2007, NX 5 roll out, etc.

In honor of the old cartoon, The Flintstones, here’s the Happy Anniversary quartet…

3 dots… and a marathon

A bit early for my weekend ramblings, but will not be able to get online Friday so off we go…

Big weekend for fellow colleague Chris as he runs in the Flying Pig half marathon Saturday… So, he’s running around 11 more miles than I can right now… Standing O… Stop by his blog and wish him well… or tweet him at aakelley…. Go get ‘em Pre!

It’s been incredibly interesting seeing all of the buzz surrounding our announcement of Synchronous Technology last week… The debates have been educational and for those analysts and bloggers that have really taken the time to understand what the big deal is, my hat is off to you…

John Cooper was announced as being elected to the College Football HoF today… Doesn’t get enough credit for taking Ohio State to a higher level in the late 80’s and 90’s… Had his downfalls of course against the team up north, but helped make them better than just a good team and established them as a perennial top 15 team… Congrats

Have a great weekend!

More PLM Results…

Dassault Systemes reported their 08Q1 results early this morning and essentially met expectations.  And like their previous quarter, PTC’s results, and Autodesk’s results… Americas continues to be the weak spot.  All have reported negative growth or have been treading water there.  What is more interesting is that Enovia showed weakness as well.  Q2 will tell if this is an aberration or not, but if weakness continues here, it does not bode well for strengthening their PLM presence.

My Shrinking Microsoft Footprint…

Got to thinking on my drive in today about how varied my apps/tech usage is getting.  Pre-2008, my world was primarily MSFT based… Office for Apps, Windows Media, mp3 player (no iPod), Communicator for IM… In 2008, look at the changes… have been won over by my iPod, Twitter/Twihrl for  communicating with  colleagues instead of Communicator, YouTube for videos, Facebook as another form of communicating/reaching out to friends… and now Google Apps.  I needed to set up a survey and was thinking of using SurveyMonkey or some other entity but heard they are filled with Ads, etc.  Chis mentioned that he’s used Google Spreadsheets to run a few surveys.  So I went and tested it out, and viola (though I like to spell it wallah as well!) I had a survey set up to meet Likert Scale survey specs (Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree) in 10 minutes.  One area that I have started using more from MSFT is OneNote… does a great job of tracking/organizing mtgs on the fly.

What does all of this mean?  Not sure for the long term except for the fact that the competition for MSFT continues to heat up… which is why I was a bit shocked when I read Bill Gates making a comment a month ago something to the effect of “Google doesn’t understand the applications business”.   Pretty bold statement to make, though I would have to believe internally they do not believe this.  If they do believe it… l see a lot of unused cube space in Redmond in 10 years.