I have spent many hours over the past few weeks running around the countryside in preparation for three running challenges I signed up for earlier this year. Firstly, The Three Peaks Challenge, a team from K3 SYSPRO will be taking on the highest mountains of Scotland, England and Wales, raising money for Cystic Fibrosis. Secondly, The Great Langdale Marathon 2012, and thirdly, The Wall Run – an ultra-marathon, taking place in June 2013.
As the Social Media Specialist for SYSPRO USA, I am always on the lookout for new trends and updates in the social media world, especially how these trends impact the manufacturing and distribution industries. I’m a firm believer that Social Media is one of the greatest tools a company can use for engagement with customers and consumers. I once had a colleague here ask me if I think organizations will ever adopt social media as a way for employees to communicate internally.
While cloud computing is one of the latest trends in the IT industry, the delivery of computing and storage capacity as a service is not that new. In fact, some of the underlying concepts of cloud computing date back to the 1970s with users accessing mainframes via thin clients or terminal computers.
A few weeks ago my ageing TV packed up and it was a sad moment when I threw my trusty appliance of many years onto the tip. I am now the proud owner of a flat screen, HD, Internet connected, “you name it my TV has got it” TV and wondering why I didn’t upgrade it a long time ago.
Why does someone climb a mountain? Why am I climbing Kilimanjaro? These are questions we have all asked ourselves and don’t really have an answer to. With 10 women doing this with me – it’s not about a personal challenge of “I must get to the top at all costs” it’s more a case of “I’m really looking forward to the fun I’m going to have with my friends over the next nine days, and hopefully we will all summit.”
Given the importance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, many manufacturers might find selecting the right one for their needs to be an overwhelming experience.
I recently upgraded my cell phone (or mobile phone, for some people). I used to have a feature phone, but the opportunity arose for me to change to a new phone that runs the Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango) operating system. Getting used to the physical phone, from one with real keys to one with a keyboard display, wasn’t the biggest adjustment – but getting used to the new way of doing things, actually doing everything, was an enormous challenge for me. In tech speak it’s called changing the UX (user experience). The last time I had such a challenge was moving from a DOS-based PC to one running the first version of Windows.
Recently I had several very ordinary (and seemingly unrelated) personal experiences that, in hindsight, had a common theme related to using an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business software system. Can you spot the theme?