Oracle + Open Source
two worlds inexorably colliding

In this month’s newsletter Open Insights 48 - Balancing Time & Money, we talk about the important and delicate balancing act of using your time wisely.  One simple equation to evaluate a project, or use of your time can sometimes shed a lot of light on how much effort and energy you may want to put in that direction.

Our recent issue of Open Insights was a little delayed by a much needed vacation, but we’re finally back.

This month we discuss difficult, and intractible problems, and how sometimes if you can’t find a solution, you might consider changing the problem!

Open Insights 47 - Change the Problem

In our newest issue of Open Insights, Issue 46 Interests Aligned we talk a bit about interests.  Whether you’re a nation state, or a company looking to hire a new resource, you have interests, and you naturally try to improve or maximize them.  But the best situation in business is not opposing interests, where the trickiest or wiliest wins out.  The ideal situation is when interests of both parties are aligned, and thus everyone wins.

Hard to believe we’ve reached our 45th issue of our monthly newsletter.  Time flies, that’s for sure.

This month’s topic is fixed fee contracts.  We tell a story of a recent business experience, the trouble, the challenge, and the resolution.  Hopefully it’ll help folks out there who are also looking at fixed fee project-based billing, and how to manage scope, and client expectations.

Open Insights 45 - Contractualities

We skipped a month of our newsletter accidentally.  Somehow our email management software never sent it.  So Open Insights 44 came out in June instead.

When an idea “gains legs”, it begins to have a life of it’s own.  We can see this a lot in the presidential election, but it also applies to consulting.

We’re a little behind on our Oracle + Open Source updates…

April’s newsletter was Open Insights 43 - On Prudence.  We talked about risk taking, both the kind we think we like, and the kind that one might call prudent.

Our latest newsletter, issue #42 this month, features a discussion on efficiency, and how it can vary so dramatically between resources, or individuals that you hire for work. Take a look at Open Insights 42.

February 2008’s issue of Open Insights talked about the Japanese classic, Roshomon, a movie with three different characters and three dramatically different views of what transpired during a murder.  We apply this phenomenon to consulting, discussing differing views from different players in the drama, and how to hopefully walk the tightrope between them in Open Insights 41.

Just catching up with some of our backlog of postings.  January’s newsletter talked about being self-taught.  Take a look at Open Insights 40.

The latest issue of Open Insights is out, hot off the presses.  You can view it online here. Other recent issues can be viewed online as well.

This month’s topic is Reputation Management, or Search Engine Reputation Management.  Related closely to Search Engine Optimization, it is all about building your personal or business brand around your products, services, writings, and social networking memberships.

Archives of the newsletter are available here.  If you like the newsletter, go ahead and subscribe here.  It is published the first of every month.