Does Process innovation lead technology innovation or vice versa

The thought occurred to me in the context of shared services models that are pretty popular in most large multi-business companies in the process of evaluating an upgrade to our ERP package. My company implemented a shared services model years ago and then dissolved it because the ineffectiveness of the ERP softwares ability to handle the org structure and process in a simple manner.

Years later the same SW provider released a new version whose primary benefit is that it enables distributed multi-business organizations to create shared service centers and the financial accounting and back office services that are much simpler to operate and create. This lead me to thinking about the lag between what most businesses were doing and the ability of software providers to deliver the functionality. Centers of Excellence/Shared Services organizations have been around for over a decade but the SW is finally catching up to it.

Then on the flip side distributed computing enabled creation of "offshore" business models and shared services centers as people didn't have to be local to provide the back office support necessary to run daily operations. In this case the technology really led the business process innovation.

So my question remains does process innovation preceed or lag technology innovation. As with all MBA type questions the answer quite confidently can be "it depends"

Warning for the Wise

Those who spend too much will eventually be owned by those who are thrifty.
Sir John Templeton

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
~ Langston Hughes ~

Getting PHP 5.2 to work with Tomcat 6.0

Read this blog entry first
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/running-php-5x-on-windows-using-tomcat-4x-or-5x/

Download Tomcat 6.0
Download PHP version 5.2.6 - Zip Distribution (the windows installer doesn't work properly)
Add the php directory and extension directory to the system path
Add the 2 environment variables noted in the blog referred above
Copy the php.ini file from php.ini.recommended
change the doc_root to reference the apache tomcat webapps directory
Add the extension php_java.dll
Copy php5servlet.jar to the tom/lib folder
Copy the fun app to tomcat/webapps
Copy the 2 dlls to the php_home folder
Remember to restart tomcat if it was already running

Steve Jobs on Death

If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.

J. K. Rowling on Imagination

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation ... it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Randy Pausch - Positivity Epitomized

Experience is something you get when you don't get what you wanted.
Brick walls are there for a reason : to prove how badly you want something.

Subprime Slime

Are we still living in the USA, the role-model of a capitalist society. What happened to the invisible hand of the free market. We are actually discussing options where the government would come in and bailout all those 1-3 million people that are supposed to lose their homes.

Now I am not a heartless SOB but bailing people out for making bad decisions only perpetuates the problem. Not resolve it. Now comes regulation: Spend an hour with a mortgage counselor before you get a mortgage. There is a productivity hit to an already long an tenuous process. If we really want to educate, lets fix primary education where you learn the concept of simple and compound interest cause that is about the only math you need to know in order to get a mortgage along with the alacrity to read the fine print.

Consider the alternative, if the government bails folks out where is the cash coming from. All those honest taxpayers that have been paying higher taxes since they aren’t using their homes as a tax shield. Of course they could by print more money so the value of the dollar keeps going down and results in higher rates of inflation.

Americans have been living beyond their means for a few years and the hen is coming home to roost. Folks making $30000 were buying $300000 houses. Whatever happened to living within your means. I belive that everyone deserves a good life but expectations on what constitutes a good life have become whacked over the last 5 years. Everyone thinks an SUV and a McMansion are the twenty first century equivalent of a chevy and a ranch. The government already has a bailout clause for those that have been living beyond their means, it is called bankruptcy protection. Use it!

Just as folks were eager to accept the easy credit, now its time to pay for those excesses. Let the market work it out just as it did with the dot com bust and keep GW out of it. He has done enough damage already.