Useful Information

funnel of dataI decided to give into temptation and pick up on Dennis’ thread Beyond the Data.  See, it appeals to the geek in me: I love data and playing with it, even though I know I am not in the same league as Stephen Wolfram.

But, I also like to think of myself as having a pragmatic side.  All that data is only of value if it helps us produce better results. Or make good decisions faster.

So I spent a few minutes and thought of a concrete example of how the data behind a project management system can help people act smarter in construction project management.

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Freeze Rays!

Freeze RayHeat is a problem. If you’ve ever actually tried to use a laptop on your lap for an extended period while it was rendering real time 3D images you have experienced the problem first hand (and first lap). Computers, car engines, battery charging, air conditioning. Hey, it’s global warming: we are surrounded by heat producing technology.

Meanwhile, what seems more science fiction than a freeze ray?  But researchers are making progress with laser cooling!

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Choosing Project Management Software

decisionsMost companies embark down a surprisingly unplanned and unstructured path when looking at project management software.

Sometimes the initiative starts from the top, sometimes it starts with Project Managers, and sometimes it starts with an IT department. However, it is surprising how often these searches begin without the other players knowing about the search, without evaluation criteria being established, without budgets being established – basically with no plan at all.

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Finding the Right Tree Ring in a Forest of Information

Tree DoctorDennis recently blogged about how RFI’s are similar to blood cells, in part because of how important the proper, healthy circulation of information is to the life of every project.

Yet he and I also have threads going about the problems caused by disorganized data.  It occurred to me that these two topics intersect. Yes, it is incredibly important that RFIs circulate freely and correctly.  But it is just as important that you have clear, precise information about when that RFI circulated and to whom.

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