Howard M Cohen

One of the advantages of using On-Demand Professionals is that you don’t have to worry about conflicts, growth aspirations, politics, or any of the other drama that may occur between employees. On the other hand, when dealing with someone you really…

A Business Leaders Guide to DevOps Adopting and Adapting to a Culture of Continuous Improvement Far more than just a methodology, DevOps has been credited with enabling organizations of all kinds all over the world to achieve better results, faster,…

Eventually, just about every technology professional considers launching out on his or her own as an independent contractor by hiring themselves out to multiple clients instead of just a single company. Part of the appeal is rooted in the desire for…

It seems obvious to observe that the benefits of implementing a DevOps environment will inure to the development and operations departments and that makes great functional sense. Beyond development and operations, DevOps’ benefits must also increase…

More than once has actor Tom Cruise felt “the need for speed.” In films like “Top Gun” in which the phrase appeared, and also “Days of Thunder” in which he played a race car driver, the most important priority was to get a vehicle to move really…

Everyone loves surprises, when they’re good. But in business, surprises are usually bad. Sometimes very bad. A failure to carefully control spend on externally provided services like cloud services can easily turn into a very bad surprise. This is…

One way in which excellent IT engineers distinguish themselves from the rest is when they worry about your budget as well as your infrastructure and incorporate software licensing cost into their design considerations. Software licenses are a major…

Managing and securing the cloud is no longer the problem. The concern has evolved so we are now faced with efficiently and effectively managing and securing clouds — many clouds. Companies have found that the features, capacities and tools available… (Ghostwritten by HMC)

Have you noticed how hard it’s getting to gain and maintain control of your IT spending lately? It used to be easier. All your IT spending was basically controlled by your IT department and you could simply hold them responsible. An annual audit…

How is your company doing? Beyond your stock ticker and latest 10Q, what do your colleagues say? And how do they know? Maybe they read something. Maybe their manager said something. Knowing requires communication. But how do you know if your…

Are you still using Windows 7? Windows Server 2008? Windows XP??? Every software release comes with scheduled dates when “mainstream support” for that product will end. In the case of Windows 7 (SP1), first released in February 2011, mainstream…

If your customers have decided it makes more sense to manage their own IT, ask this question: If you used this time to sell or deliver services to your customer how much would you earn? Is it more than you would pay an external vendor to provide that…

“What we’ve got here,” announces the prison warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke, “is a failure to communicate.” How many times have you heard that is the root of any given problem? If only we all communicated more and better, everything would be…

The key to success in the IT partner channel has always been the same: keep coming up with something new to expand what your customer can achieve bringing new value to their bottom line. “Always” requires constant new innovation. You must always stay…

When you make a purchase at Nordstrom’s, the person who rings you up always come out from behind the counter to give you your package and shake your hand. The reason they do that offers us great insight into why, even in the age of digital…

About a century before email was invented, economist Vilfredo Pareto made the observation that 80% of Italy’s wealth belonged to only 20% of the population. That interesting ratio has since been applied to almost anywhere with a sizable population.…

The customer experience. For more and more companies, this has become the new corporate mantra. Creating remarkable and delightful customer experiences, whether with a new product, when shopping online or in retail, or during business-to-business…

Providing evidence to leadership that your internal communications programs are producing a net return can be challenging. It’s important to accurately measure your efforts, map ground-level results up to broader company strategies and present…

If you refer to them as your Xerox Rep, then define “rep” as “resource!” Stories of vendor reps who are little more than the “pipeline police” are legendary, but they are the shortsighted few. Your Xerox Partner Manager takes you and your business …