The company life is all about communication be it direct, face-to-face or virtual and remote with colleagues, clients and company partners. Have you ever counted how many meetings you attend in the period of a month or a year? Many people’s work days consist of meetings almost entirely. After all these hours of discussing most of them say “Now I can get back to work and finally focus on my job”.

Do they not treat meetings like part of their work then? What does this sentence imply? Do they indirectly send the message that the time spent in a meeting was simply counter-productive?

Are you one of those early birds who installed the then free available Windows 7 Release Candidate? Fun is over. Beginning March 1, the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) will start to shut down every two hours in preparation for its expiration on June 1, 2010. That means you will need to migrate your RC systems to an official version of Windows 7. Another option is to go back to yuor your previous operating system. But who’s willing to do that?

Most of us will remember a rather dramatic introduction of Windows Vista several years ago. With a lot of marketing power users were forced to switch to a not very well performing new operating system. There were many complaints about the big amount of bugs and the poor performance. Microsoft seemed to ignore the complaints, but after a while they had to conclude Windows Vista was not the right way to go. Quite soon after the Vista introduction it became clear Microsoft was aiming to launch a new OS. Windows 7 should make us forget about the Vista debacle and should be able to compete with the very user friendly Apple OSX. New data shows Microsoft has learned from the past mistakes.

We all know that only the “learning organizations” have a bright future ahead. Knowledge is the key predictor of success. So why aren’t we eager to share our knowledge? Why often people working for the same organization don’t cooperate?

Nowadays, with the development of IT industry companies give their employees the variety of tools to make their work more productive and efficient. But it requires a lot of time to adopt them and adapt to new working patterns. Often the managers first have to break down people’s resistance to change  and innovation.

The question is- are all these tools a help or a hindrance? Do they actually stimulate collaboration?

YouTube was among the first big brands which decided to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6 and today Google joined the IE6 ban. Like many others Google is using more and more Javascript technology to realize Rich Internet Applications (RIA). The main issue is that JavaScript is not supported in the same way by different browsers and especially preparing a working Internet application for IE6 is a time consuming trial and error challenge.

Yesterday I was talking to a researcher of the Amsterdam University. As Goyello we take part in the Symbiosis program and from time to time they measure the progress of all the participants. During the interview we concluded that in many outsourcing projects in general the demand management is the weakest part and the main cause of failure. Nothing new, I stressed the importance before. The main question is probably why this keeps going wrong. I think the answer is simple: Software development is Art! And artists are hard to handle.

Whether or not you are using Twitter, please continue reading. This is not a typical “new on Twitter” post, although it is about Twitter. Last night Seesmic launched a new revolutionary application Seesmic Look. Seesmic Look is a unique way to learn, observe or be immersed in the real-time web. It’s a Windows desktop app bringing together Twitter data with a beautiful design, approachability and ease of use. Even without a Twitter account it enables you to find valuable information and to jump on the hot trends on Twitter. Having a Twitter account your personal timelines will be incorporated as well. The great look and feel of the application makes it a nice to use one. Seesmic Look works on Windows XP, Vista and 7

Recently, I was reading some bits about Kanban system for Software Engineering. I thought “oh no… another Agile fancy word, which introduces hardly any value”. Well, after a few minutes of reading and thinking I must say one thing. Kanban is an Agile manifesto grasp in set of important principles. I must say, that it changed my way of thinking regarding Agile and how we have implemented it in our company.

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The beginning of a new year is always a great time to start moving your career in a better direction. It’s pretty common that at that time many employees set Workplace and Career New Year’ s Resolutions.

This is also the time for looking back on what you achieved last year, what failures you faced and what lessons you learned. Based on that many of us start planning their career paths all over again.

But can you actually plan it? Does a strict career path limit your perspective? Or maybe it’s just pointless since we are unable to control external factors that affect us?

According to a new report by Forrester Research, Inc. the technology sector will see a recovery in 2010 as businesses and governments in the US and around the world begin spending again on information technology. After declining 8.2 percent in 2009, US IT spending will grow 6.6 percent in 2010 to $568 billion. Global IT spending, which dropped 8.9 percent last year, will rise 8.1 percent in 2010 to more than $1.6 trillion.

photo credit: Ultor83