Thomas Otter
Group Vice President Product Management at SAP-SuccessFactors. Previously Research Vice President, Gartner Group. Recognised industry leader in HCM (Human Capital Management) technologies.
Cloud Computing and vague recollections of the Anarchical Society.
Mark Zuckerberg says the world is much more divided than he ever expected https://t.co/EPPQLiMtYp #division pic.twitter.com/rxZ0iwbDu3 — World Economic Forum (@wef) April 7, 2018 elicited this magnificent response. Study STEM, they said. It’s not like a degree in Political Science and International Relations will ever be useful for anything… https://t.co/Z3CxQGHWAw — Eva (@evacide) April […]
Code is law. The case of law 36.
Larry Lessig’s Code and other Laws of Cyberspace of remains one of the most important books written about how software impacts law. Lessing and other academics have shown how code has fundamentally changed copyright law. The design of technology, especially software, changes the nature of regulation and enforcement of laws. My academic work is in […]
Asking the awkward question about employee engagement surveys.
For all of my working career, I’ve argued that HR needs to get more analytical, so I’ve welcomed HR’s growing interest in data based analysis and benchmarking. I have been something of a flag-waver for data driven HR for many years. I’m thrilled to see the increasing sophistication in workforce analytics. The posse of machine […]
Of Cobblestones, Solomon, Paula, Gunter, Joseph and the GDPR.
I’ve been reading a fair bit of software vendor marketing and press from around the world about the GDPR. It seems to me that a lot of it misses the point. GDPR is seen as a compliance burden, an unwelcome dose of EU bureaucracy or at best a useful opportunity sell security software. It is […]
Customers, colleagues, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and my writing day.
I have been spending the last few months deep in accessibility law, testing, standards, universal design, GDPR, the early history of business computing and of course my old friend, Sarbanes Oxley. I am an expert on Heidelberg and Sandton coffee shops, and I have spent far too long debating the value of one font over […]
Product Management, Hopping and Localization.
(Taking some liberty with the facts). Imagine for a moment you are the product manager for augmented /autonomous driving at Volvo. You have got every different type of snow and ice covered. You have figured out how to find parking at IKEA, at the back of the store where you collect the Billy Bookcases on the mind of its own trolley. (You […]
Stoicism and Product Management
Tim Ferriss has made Stoicism hip and accessible. That is a good thing. I came across Ryan Holiday via Tim’s podcast, and it rekindled a long lost interest in things Greek philosophy. I have quoted liberally from Ryan’s Daily Stoic. Thanks Ryan and Tim. Buy Ryan’s books and read them. I reckon Epictetus would have been […]
To the max.
Building product, once you get beyond the brain wave stage, really requires customer input. Not all customer input is made equal though. What makes a massive impact is when you find that customer that shares your goals, your vision,and brings that dose of realism and practicality to the party. Treasure those customers. They don’t come […]
Employee Central Momentum
I had been meaning to write about EC momentum for a little while, and the press releases this week makes this week as good as any to do. Here is the juicy bit from today’s earnings announcement. Human Capital Management Shows Strong Momentum Customers are increasingly turning to SAP to manage their global workforce, both […]
Ada Lovelace day. A note to men in the software industry.
Today is Ada Lovelace day. If you work in computer science or the computer industry, and you don’t know who she was, please take a moment and google her. But briefly, without her, we would not have a software industry. She was the first programmer, ever. By remembering her pioneering, yet until recently, unheralded efforts, […]
