Posts from the ‘Products’ Category

Dec 13

“Down Goes Frasier!” Announcers Howard Cosell & Angelo Dundee Genius in Turning a 15-Round Heavyweight Boxing Title Match Into An Elegant Art Form

“Down goes Frasier! Down goes Frasier! Down goes Frasier!” – Howard Cosell

The year was 1973 and these words are what might be considered the most quoted moment in boxing history. This frequently referenced boxing moment happened during the heavyweight championship of the world between reigning champion, Joe Frasier, and his challenger, George Foreman. Foreman was thought by many to be a long shot which is part of the reason Cosell’s “down goes Frasier” quote stands out like it does. But that’s only part of the reason. -

Nov 29

Chuck Berry & Johnnie Johnson: Unduplicated Collaborative Genius

Chuck Berry. Rock & Roll Legend. Guitar virtuoso. Innovator. Master showman. Enigmatic personality.

For those who don’t know Chuck Berry’s music very well you’ll probably recognize his enduring hit song, Johnny B. Goode. (Think “Go, Johnny Go!”) In fact, Chuck Berry might be THE most influential guitar player of all time. Guitarists including Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, John Lennon and George Harrison without question point to Berry as the most influential musician in their lives. The Grateful Dead’s master picker Jerry Garcia thought Berry was a rock god to be deified. Look at most rock musicians from the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s and you’re bound to find a few Chuck Berry covers in their repertoire. -

Nov 15

E Pluribus Unum, STEM Scores & the Growing Skills Gap

E pluribus unum—”Out of many, one.” This phrase in the American vernacular alludes to the union between America’s states and federal government, as symbolized by the shield on the eagle’s breast on the U.S.A.’s Great Seal. As this phrasepertains to our educational system here in the United States one can argue this ideal of unanimity is never more appropriate.

As the singing duo Hall & Oates belted out it’s all about “Adult Education”. Really it’s about child and adult education to be perfectly clear. STEM scores are a major concern for us. (STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.) It’s unquestioned that the success of a country’s educational system is directly linked to its continued growth and prosperity yet when you see statistics like these courtesy of the National Math & Science Initiative, you realize that changes need to occur.

Here are just a few examples from the NMSI about of this crisis: -

Jun 6

Becoming & Staying An Industry Leader Is Priority #1 for Finance. Yes, Finance!

Finance teams are the performance management captain of the corporate ship empowered to provide the executive team, and business and support units with real insight and understanding of past, present, and future performance while guiding them on what the information means to each of their constituents and how it can be interpreted for decision making. That is their most strategic value to the business. However, because of the explosion of information, speed of business, growing systems through M&A and unique information capture needs of different areas of the business not to mention growing business practice demands, such as regulatory compliance to meet the regional, national, and global reporting requirements, the corporation’s most important analytical asset, finance departments, remains mired in just completing the basic week-to-week tasks without providing this strategic guidance. As a result, emerging trends, exploitable opportunities, efficiency gains, addition-by-subtraction divestitures, and M&A opportunities go undiscovered because the analytical part of finance is asleep at the wheel. It has its proverbial head down doing the day-to-day grind of low-value activities where this analytical blind spot can eventually drive the company out of business. Read more

Apr 19

GRC Maturity – Measuring a New Paradigm for Risk and Compliance (Part II)

(This is the second in a series of blog posts where we present risk and compliance speaker and thought leader, Michael Rasmussen’s, GRC maturity model.)

GRC Maturity — Measuring a New Paradigm for Risk and Compliance

Lacking an integrated view of GRC results in business processes, partners, employees and systems that behave like leaves blowing in the wind. Modern business requires a new paradigm for tackling risk and compliance issues across the enterprise. No longer can organizations afford to focus on single risk and compliance issues as unrelated projects; nor can they allow software Band-Aids Read more