Regardless of how we feel about global warming we need to understand our planet better and appreciate the beauty all around us. Guess I need to add Kilimanjaro to my places to see 
Mt. Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Continues Rapid Retreat
Mount Kilimanjaro’s top, shown in June, has lost 26 percent of its ice since 2000, a study says.
Italian police say they have arrested two more suspected mafia bosses, a day after seizing their brother in a raid near the southern city of Naples. So the Godfather is alive and well – LOL
via BBC NEWS | Europe | Italy raid nets two mafia bosses.
Getting Ready for a great trip to Australia……
Sydney Harbour and islands Sydney’s sparkling harbour, famous around the world, is easy to explore…
On my flight home from a great trip – hit 3 states in 4 days to visit customers, partners, our wonderful team in Dallas and time for a dinner with my Dad J. What was really cool about this trip is everything went off without a hitch – no delays, no hassles, no canceled meeting – nothing went wrong. Ok so I forgot my socks – but a quick trip to Walmart fixed that little problem. It’s just nice to have a good trip, where your customers and prospects like what you are doing and you get to share that with your team. Good times……
I’m on a high speed train to Paris – I spent the week traveling across Europe to talk to IT executives about what’s on their mind in the midst of this current economic uncertainty. Specifically what are their goals for their IT organizations and their business in general? What’s clear is we have returned to a value based economy at least in Europe and North America. Technology projects in 2009 will only get funded if they can help companies reduce costs/cash outlays.
In my meetings in Europe (21 meetings in 4 countries in 6 days), thematically executives told me:
I’m always amazed to learn that people in our industry think that software Solutions to the enterprise cannot be affordable and simple. My recommendation to those that think Enterprise solutions need to be expensive and complex; get a very strong cup of coffee and wake up to the fact that our customers are demanding simplicity, affordability and aggregation of their tools.
What are you hearing?
Steve
I ended my trip to Europe today, I’m sitting in a lounge at 6:50am having a beer (re-adjusting to US time – its 10pm at home ) reflecting on all the people I met with customers, partners, and old friends and what nuggets I got on this trip. After surviving all the questions about President Bush, Obama and McCain and what’s going on with the “US meltdown” I have to say I had a great trip. Make no mistake there is a lot of angst over here like at home – but people are generally optimistic. In fact to hear my Swiss friend tell it, Switzerland is totally insulated from the economic woes of the world, I had to remind him about the Swiss pumping in 68 billion francs into UBS but the point is he runs a small business in the audio over IP space and his business is growing 30% and he generally feel optimistic about his prospects.
I finished my last evening in Europe (Zurich) having dinner with this friend and his wife and we were discussing why some companies make it, in fact thrive in tough economic times. Btw he is on some cleansing kick – no wine in six weeks 
so our conversation was not laced with Alcoholic so admittedly our analysis may be flawed. Here is what we came up with:
Truly successful companies are typically driven by folks who have started a business from scratch, even better if its the business they are currently running.
Management is fanatical about the customers, meaning they spend as much time with their customers and partners as they do in the office – even better they have no office. Andy Grove was onto something with the no-office thing
The little things really do matter. Most importantly relationships with their customers – they are intimate and they help stir the course of the business.
Transparency – no hide the ball. Truly great companies have no walls – they want their employees, customers, suppliers, partners and even their competitors to know what they are doing and why.
Great companies are focused and do not get taken off their course to pursue some hair brain idea or fad – they are relentless on making a difference in their customers life’s in a positive way.
Brand is more than a cool logo or name.
I’m sure we missed something – but I wonder, if some of the high profile failed institutions of late would have adhered to the above if they would have had a different outcome. Who is to say? but I can say this that companies that have adhered to this approach are reporting off-the charts earnings and revenue growth – did you see Apples earnings? Just some thoughts….
Btw in my next post I’ll explain why as a shareholder/stakeholder in the USA, I’m not happy about brand “USA” being tarnished by short term thinkers….
Off to catch my flight……..
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WOW! What a week, I’ve been traveling in Europe meeting FireScope customers and partners this week and watching from afar the events back home. Somebody told me on Monday the stock market was up over 900 points but when I looked on Tuesday it was off 700 plus points – what a difference a day makes. Well markets will gyrate for a while like they do ever 10 to 15 years and at least for the foreseeable future we will all feel a pinch in our retirement accounts (well maybe more than a pinch – I’m sure I’m off 30% ), but in the end the markets will recover and we will get back to the business of business. Long term I’m encouraged by what I see, mainly excesses being addressed; however, painful setting us up for future long term growth
I’m also encouraged by the companies I’m meeting with during my visit to Europe. Many of these companies are looking for ways to improve their businesses with investments that help reduce costs and improving efficiencies – I’m sorry to report that they do not feel that the BSM and CMDB software offerings are meeting their needs. This is not good for any of us that participate in this market. While in London, Paris, Munich and Zurich, I heard the same thing, the offerings that are on the market are to costly, take to long to deploy and should you decide to make a change in your business model it was a nightmare to change your BSM dashboard or CMDB – Hard to believe that solutions that are touted as helping companies improve on their business model are actually hurting companies or holding them back from adapting their service views to the ever changing business needs. If this last couple of weeks have taught us anything, its that markets change and they change fast. Perhaps we need more participation by business guys in the development process of our offerings, so that our engineers design products that take into consideration dynamic businesses needs – I’m not sure….
What am I sure about, is FireScope is going to continue to advocate for a stronger value proposition for its customers with an ITSM suite of products second to no one in terms of quality and value. So what does that mean – simpler products with tremendous functionality that helps customers around the globe meet their rapidly changing business needs. It also means that we are going to continue to be a strong innovator and low cost leader for our customers. Watch what we do in Mid November when we introduce our CMDB product, this product will be like no other in the market. Like our BSM it will be low cost, easy to deploy, and provide feature and functionality not yet seen in the industry.
Stay tuned……..
