What is agile development?
Agile development is a term used for iterative and/or incremental software development methodologies. Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Lean Development are a few methodologies associated with agile development. Even though each of these methodologies are different, they all share a common core definition – the Agile Manifesto. With this method, software development occurs in iterations. Continuous feedback is gathered from users and this is then used to fine-tune the development process. Read further >

Apps are the new black. No, not in the fashion sense, but to illustrate the popularity or versatility of the growing influence of social media, especially in the pharmaceutical industry space. Read further >

The sales of the iPad show up as an incredible success story – a current research report from DisplaySearch even says that Apple moved to the no. 1 spot in the “mobile PC” market. Taking into account that the iPad is a PC – and combining this with the sales of Apple notebooks, we end up at 10.2 million units sold in the fourth quarter of 2010. HP, in comparison, reported 9.3 million units sold. Read further >

A New World of Interactive Data Visualization
Significant research around the value of interactive data visualization techniques (PDF) as it relates to accounting decision making suggests that the bar will continue to be raised on professionals’ communication and reporting skills in the coming years. The availability of better tools as well as a generally greater mastery of data visualization techniques are giving rise to exciting new ways to present accounting and other data in more compelling and meaningful ways. Read further >

Emotion displays have an important function in organizational settings because they are able to influence social interactions and cooperative behavior. How? Read further >

Tax season is in full swing and the economy is on the upswing. The question now is whether to hire people or utilize outsourcing services to minimize the commitment to an increased payroll. Two years ago firms started downsizing, and utilized outsourced services to reduce the overhead of salaries and benefits. We may have “right sized” over the last couple of years and saved money by outsourcing various services such as tax preparation, IT, bookkeeping, etc. Read further >

I agree with Don Dodge’s observations in his blog, “Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing” that “search is amazing compared to 10 years ago at AltaVista. He rightfully observes that search innovation continues, much of it unnoticed, but nonetheless striking when examined in full retrospectively. These enhancements include the extension of search to more content types in Google, such as photos, videos and news. He reminds us of the integration of maps into search, the emergence of Instant Search and the increased sophistication in identifying advertising relevant to customers’ keywords. Read further >

“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”

Most people believe that quote originated somewhere on Madison Avenue in the advertising business. I don’t know about that, but I believe what it says. First impressions matter in personal relationships, business relationships, and in marketing to customers. Making a positive first impression even has a place in the software industry. Take the following, for example.

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A vital component of patient safety is screening for drug-drug interactions. As I described in my last post, this type of screening is one of the requirements to achieve meaningful use of electronic health records. Read further >

Some 25 years ago a revolution hit the publishing industry. Desktop Publishing became a reality with the Apple Macintosh, PageMaker, Postscript (the page description language created by Adobe), and, of course, the affordable Laserprinter. Suddenly it was much cheaper than ever before to create high quality publications. An important side effect was the availability of fonts (typefaces) to a much bigger community of graphical designers. At last designers could create both beautiful, high standard, practical printed material without any restrictions. Even better – in the slipstream of established type foundries, smaller, specialized type foundries emerged who designed many more fonts which in turn evoked a whole new graphical language. Read further >