…and I’m not talking about your eyes!

Larry’s Column

Reprinted with permission from the Greater Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce magazine, “Valparaiso” (Summer 2007 Issue)

When I work with business owners, coaching them to improve their businesses, I want to get a sense of their vision for their company. It’s rare, at the beginning of our relationship that they actually have gone through the thought process to the point where they can articulate their vision for their company. Most business owners have a vision… sort of, but it is kind of like the vision of a person who has cataracts and their vision is foggy, indistinct, and cloudy. Usually the response I get is a mumbled phrase, something about increasing sales or making more money, but I rarely get a well thought out, concise, understandable, articulate picture of what they want their business to become in the future. I’m positive the reason for that mumbled statement is that they have not really conceptualized that important part of their future, or if they have, they have not been able to clarify their vision. So they just give me a quick answer designed to sort of satisfy me and shut me up. But I’m not so easily satisfied and I’m certainly not easy to shut up! Read more

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced today VFrame Data Center (VFrame DC), an orchestration platform that leverages network intelligence to provision resources together as virtualized services. This industry-first approach greatly reduces application deployment times, improves overall resource utilization, and offers greater business agility. Further, VFrame DC includes an open API, and easily integrates with third party management applications, as well as best-of-breed server and storage virtualization offerings. Read more

The last date for submitting applications for the Computer Society of India (CSI) and Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2006-07 is August 1. Instituted in 2002, the CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards encourage the spectacular efforts by states and organizations in the implementation and development of indigenously developed practices and software in the area of e-Governance that benefit the common citizen. Read more

As the light microscopes market approaches maturity, the market for electron and scanning probe microscopes appears set to grow at a steady pace. Nanotechnology applications in bioscience and material science research will likely boost demand for microscopic imaging and analysis systems. In addition, a wide spectrum of emerging end-user opportunities in bioscience and genome research, hold promise for future market growth. Read more