Chief Architect at CCH Small Firm Services,
Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting
Cliff McCartney is the Chief Architect at CCH Small Firm Services, a Wolters Kluwer business. Before joining WK in 2008 he was the VP of Technology and CTO at iLumen, a financial services software company based in Atlanta, Georgia. He has served as a technology principal in two startup companies, and he also has experience in consulting, project management, and product development.
Cliff has almost 30 years of software development experience, serving in executive, design, and development roles. He has programmed everything from mainframes to minicomputers to PCs to tablets to smartphones, in environments as diverse as airline reservations and financial benchmarking.
Cliff holds an MBA in Management of Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Technology Association of Georgia and the International Association of Software Architects. His passion lies in the technology, sociology, and psychology of producing insanely great software products.
When I was very young, one of my favorite activities was building things with Lego bricks. I don’t know how exactly how many of them I had, but it’s safe to say it was in the hundreds. I had red, white, yellow, and blue ones. I had short, long, thin, and thick ones. I had wheels, windows, and lots of little decorative pieces. I spent an extraordinary amount of time turning ideas into things with them. Read further >
Next year I will celebrate my 30-year anniversary in software development. I don’t really write code anymore, but every day I work with and around people who do. I still have a software developer’s mind, and I really enjoy being around software people. 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.
I recently visited China to fulfill the international residency requirement for my MBA. I was there for two weeks, and I visited Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. Read further >
It is a very exciting time to be an observer of technology. Events are coming along faster and with more impact all the time. The degree to which technology affects society at a fundamental level today seems to be unprecedented in both scope and speed. Big Things are happening more frequently and with greater impact. Read further >
“There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don’t know.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Cloud computing is one of today’s hottest technology topics. If you’re in the technology business, you really don’t have to try too hard to hear the term. I even heard the phrase “to the cloud” in an advertisement for Microsoft Windows while I was watching a football game this past weekend! Read further >
In my last post, I wrote about an “Anytime, Anywhere, Anyhow” strategy for software architecture. This time, I’ll explore one of the trends that make that strategy possible. Read further >
“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” – Mitch Kapor
I remember all the speculation in the 1960s and 1970s about the world in the year 2000. I remember predictions of flying cars, colonies on Mars, and drive-through automated supermarkets. Dick Tracy had a phone in his watch. Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, had us routinely traveling to the moon, and occasionally to Jupiter. Computers were gigantic all-knowing, all-seeing machines that made us smarter, more comfortable, and more affluent.
