You are right that the Republicans control the House and the Democrats the Senate, so I reversed the two chambers of Congress when I wrote this posting. I was tired when I wrote this posting and should have waited. I have updated and corrected my original draft and the update is what is showing now.

Compromise and consensus building, I add, are still difficult and on too many issues and for both the House and Senate and for both major political parties – and definitely in an election year. My basic concerns as to the JOBS Act stand, as this is not so much a matter of who voted for what, as it is of what was ultimately voted for and signed into law – and its impact upon regulatory law as it would provide due diligence protection and both for the marketplace as a whole and for businesses and consumers that participate in it.

Thanks for the catch – and I add that this mix-up on my part probably indicates something as to my view of the mess that both parties are in that I got them confused as I typed.

Tim

The governing philosophy that serves as North Korea’s core implementing principle for its version of Stalinist style communism is called Sŏn’gun – or military first. So this is a defining step. And now that he has been offered this position and even publically begged to take it he can and will graciously accept. That is part of the emerging pattern along with his being identified in the North Korean press as being “heaven-born” just like his grandfather and father were. That, I add, is an honorific only offered in reference to these dynastic leaders and can be seen as their version of beatification for those about to ascend the throne.

Kim Il-sung was the Great Leader, Kim Jong-il was the Dear Leader, and it is certain that Kim Jong-un will receive his own personally defining title too as his near-deification takes place and his cult of personality takes form and hold.

That noted, the basic discussion of my 12-25-2011 posting still holds. And in fact it is during precisely this type of transition that China would find its greatest value in being North Korea’s one channel to the outside world, and its one real ally and “friend.” Right now the world is in the dark as to what is happening in North Korea and in knowing what might follow – and China has the only flashlight. I expect to post further on this in the coming year.

First of all, you are completely correct in pointing out the value of well designed software in helping to manage, organize and visualize the organizational structure, and both for knowing where you are and for moving forward. I have never used HumanConcepts.com (http://www.humanconcepts.com) products but they have a very good reputation and a strong following in the form of an established customer base.

Having noted that, I set aside this specific software solution to add some general considerations for using any business management software. And I add that while my following notes are couched in terms of software used to architect and manage business organization and the table of contents, the basic principles I would cite here apply to CRM software and every other business productivity or management software solution that you might consider pursuing.

Every software package is an algorithmic implementation, and as such every software solution carries with it a set of basic, underlying assumptions that tend to simply be taken for granted. Effective, well designed business software is flexible and it covers a great deal of range as to applicability and fit. But it can be really important to know at least something of what the underlying assumptions are, as a matter of your own due diligence. I specifically note in that context that this review can help you to identify what for your business might be their blind spots. So do your homework on the company. Read their whitepapers and know where and how their software solutions are implemented, successfully or not.

What types of businesses and other organizations use this software, and how do they match and differ from your organization? This may not matter as much for more routinely organized parts of your business. But this can become important for parts of your organization that directly connect into creating and supporting your unique value proposition, and particularly where a more novel organizational model for that part of the business might facilitate this. I have been drilling down into some of the details related to this in more recent postings on tables of organization, and also on the closely related issues of compensation package policy and getting the right people in the right chairs – some of this already live to the blog as of today’s writing and some is written and scheduled to go live in the following weeks so this is all a work in progress. And current and pending postings related to this will all be coming online at:

• Business Strategy and Operations – 2, (http://plattperspective.wordpress.com/business-strategy-and-operations-%e2%80%93-2/) and
• HR and Personnel. (http://plattperspective.wordpress.com/hr-and-personnel/)

I would enjoy and appreciate your thoughts in feedback to some of that too.

But to return more specifically to your comment, use these tools and you will gain a great deal of benefit from them but do so with your eyes open to their limitations too. And particularly if your business seeks to vigorously pursue and provide unique value propositions and/or blue ocean strategies those limitations are going to appear precisely where consistent, unexamined use of these tools holds the greatest potential impact – and if misapplied might lead to loss of potential.

So run the software, fitting in your own data and then review the results, and with the same due diligence and risk remediation care that you would follow everywhere else in a well run business.

Thanks again, Tim Platt

Tim