May 13, 2013

A very clever restaurant receipt technology innovation

0 (480×640)Restaurant receipt technology has been the same for a long, long time. And when you are out with friends it’s always the same drill when you divide the bill – you either figure out what everyone ordered and how much they owe or you simply divide the total bill by the number of people in the party.

There are over 200,000 restaurants in the United States and people have been eating out for dinner since restaurants first emerged in the 18th century. At some point in the 20th century, cash registers and receipts became the normal way of tallying bills for dinner.

But it wasn’t until now that the clever receipt technology has emerged that addresses the persistent need to divvy up the bill. Enter Legal Seafood, the first and only place I’ve seen that has made the innovation.

See the photo of one of their receipts and note that each guest’s complete meal is conveniently subtotaled. Also note that the grand total is also divided by the total number in the party should you just want to split the bill evenly.

What a great and simple way to add value to your customers’ dining experience. A nice upgrade to an old technology.

 

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment
January 10, 2013

Front Load Your IT Projects

frontloaderWe have so much technology these days, readily available. It’s easy to jump right in and start solving problems. And that’s tempting.

But it’s not the best approach, not by a long shot.

It’s better to front load your project with as much analysis, planning, and decision making as possible. To spend a significant amount of time defining the problem. To establish and validate the business objectives. To determine the scope of the initiative. To understand and define the challenges that will threaten the success of the project. To define what success looks like.

The challenge in many IT projects used to be developing and implementing solutions. And that’s still a big and important piece, but it’s typically no longer the hardest or most critical factor for success. Before moving toward solutions, considerable time should be spent defining things up front, reviewing options and approaches, acknowledging and contemplating the organizational challenges, considering the broader context. The project team, stakeholders, vendors, sponsors, and others can then be engaged to debate issues, make decisions, and commit to a path forward.

Expending all this energy up front isn’t free, but it’s cheaper than changing things further down the line. And it’s a great jump start on all the necessary communication and coordination that is crucial to any initiative.

Photo credit: mpd01065

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment
November 27, 2012

The Help Desk is calling…

The Help Desk’s job is to react. They are the fire department, with staff at the ready, a firetruck backed in, and the training to respond to a variety of problems.

They take the thing that’s broken and fix it. They restore order. They get you back to where you were before things went astray.

When you call, that’s what they do.

But what if they called you? What if they called and asked how they could help you? Right now, with whatever you’re up against.

It’s a little crazy and a little scary to think about a proactive help desk. One that reaches out and tries not to fix something that’s broken, but to expand on what you’re doing. Not to restore order, but to elevate the game. To build on what’s already working, to help overcome a hurdle that brings things to the next level, to challenge you and to help you with the challenge.

If they called, would you be ready?

Photo credit: Glenna VonHenna

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , Leave a Comment
November 20, 2012

Confirm or expand

Many of us in IT like being experts. Delving into the technicalities, mastering the technologies, and figuring out how it all works is what drew us in in the first place, after all. And mastery is rewarding. It’s comforting and confidence-building.

But it’s also dangerous.

It’s dangerous if we become complacent and overconfident. If we continually work to confirm our abilities rather than expand them. If we adopt a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset.

Continually embracing new challenges, technical and otherwise, is crucial.

Photo credit: BTO Educational

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Leave a Comment
November 19, 2012

What are your Twinkies?

Twinkies are an old favorite, now becoming obsolete. There is some nostalgia for the past given the abrupt news of the closing of Hostess, which has made the famous snack since 1930. And there is hope for Twinkie’s survival beyond Hostess.

But even if it survives, the Twinkie is more a part of the past than of the future.

What are you holding onto that shares that same trajectory?

Photo credit: mrwynd

Filed Under: Technology Leave a Comment
October 1, 2012

The C Prompt

It’s amazing how solving problems with many things in the fast-paced, high-tech world require us to revert back to basics. So much has changed in the cost, proliferation, and innovation of devices, platforms, and connectivity. Yet, the fundamentals remain as important and relevant as ever.

Remember the C:> prompt? Those of us who were at the beginning of the computing revolution do.

Personal computing, the birthplace of uber-connectivity, had humble beginnings. There were no graphical interfaces. There were lots of manuals. Interconnectivity was rare and difficult. Confusion and frustration reined. Progress was difficult. But the promise of future possibilities was profound. And everything that was promised and delivered was built on top of that old foundation.

Sure, it has proven rickety from time to time. And major gaps (security!) still haunt us to this day. But these are the shoulders of giants that were stood upon. Respecting and understanding those underpinnings is key to understanding how things work now, and to leveraging what we have now into new future possibilities.

 

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: Leave a Comment
February 17, 2012

Complex problems sometimes require a simple approach

Problems in technology can be difficult to resolve. Our systems today are incredibly complex and they exist in very dynamic environments. When things go wrong, it can be tricky to figure out how to fix them.

In fact, it’s hard to even figure out exactly where the problem is sometimes. And we can really paint ourselves in a corner when we dig into the nooks and crannies of these complex and dynamic systems. We look closely, examining the nuances of the system. We tweak esoteric details and look for weird anomalies in the weeds.

Often times, however, a better approach is to simplify the situation. To minimize the complexity. To break things down to their component parts and examine them from a simple and straight-forward perspective.

Sometimes the intimidatingly complex problem has a simple and obvious solution, if you look at it the right way.

Photo credit: dvs

Filed Under: Sources of Insight, Technology Leave a Comment
December 13, 2011

Ease of Use and Expertise

When you use a software tool consistently, you will get used to its quirks. Eventually, you will become expert in working with (or around) them. You get to knowing the limitations, workarounds, and ways to navigate the nooks and crannies of the interface.

Being an expert is valuable. Experts are needed to get the tool to do the things that need to be done in order to get the results we want.

But, it’s even nicer when less and less expertise is needed. When software tools are easy to use, and more energy is focused on strategy and results.

Good software tools constantly shift in this direction. Each update doesn’t just add bells and whistles. Attention is paid to ease of use – to streamlining things for seasoned users and to lower barriers for new users.

This sort of progress can be a threat to the experts in tools, of course. That’s why even if you are an expert at the tool level, it’s always a good idea to focus your attention on strategy and results. Don’t limit yourself to being an expert.

Photo credit: Neil Rickards

Filed Under: Strategy, Technology Tagged With: Leave a Comment
October 24, 2011

An hour to learn

What could you learn today?

Well, just about anything it seems. There is so much instructional content on the web now, and it’s increasing every day.

And more and more of it is in an easily digestible format – audio or video.

Colleges and universities are putting classroom training online. YouTube channels are dedicated to science, mathematics, business, and engineering.

Sites like Khan Academy provide thousands of training videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history, along with hundreds of practice exercises to test your skills and give you valuable feedback.

Bucky Roberts will teach you computer programming in more than a dozen languages at The New Boston Academy.

And there are many, many more.

Many of the lessons available are short and practical. You could easily learn something new and useful in an hour or less. Broader topics could be tackled in small chunks, over time.

Oh yeah, and they’re all free.

What will you learn today?

Photo credit: Ingo Bernhardt

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , 3 Comments
September 13, 2011

Skitch: a nifty screen capture utility

Screen capture is built into every computer, and it’s incredibly handy for a variety of tasks – capturing an error message, documenting configuration settings, or creating instructions for a task.

What’s really handy, though, is when you can crop, mark up, or highlight parts of an image in order to clearly highlight something specific. These sorts of tweaks really help to clarify your message, but they take extra effort, and extra software. There are a variety of tools for tackling these capture and edit tasks, but Skitch is particularly capable and easy to use. And now it’s free.

Evernote buys Skitch

Earlier this week, the company that makes Evernote the leading cross-platform, cross-device note taking and filing software (pretty darn handy in its own right – but that’s a post for another day) purchased Skitch. They took one of the top selling Mac apps – at $20 a copy – and made it free.

It’s a slick little utility, and I hope Evernote makes it cross platform and integrates it more tightly with their core product. That seems to be the plan, but only time will tell. For now, it’s a great little stand alone utility to have on your Mac. Try it out.

 

 

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , 2 Comments
« Older Posts