Stephen D Robinson, Ph.D.

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Great run, up until my iPod’s wire snagged the edge of the pier’s railing. It shot out of my hand and into Long Island sound! Goodbye sweet iShuffle

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“Money spent on computing technology delivers gains in worker productivity that are three to five times those of other investments, according to a study being published Tuesday. ” - news.com

Here’s the summary of the report …

“There have been surprisingly few attempts to catalogue what is known about the economic impact of information and communications technology (IT). In a new report, ITIF does just that, examining the impact of IT in five key areas: 1) productivity; 2) employment; 3) more efficient markets; 4) higher quality goods and services; and 5) innovation and new products and services. The report finds that the integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally-enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion’s share of economic growth and prosperity, both here and abroad, including in developing nations. Importantly, the “IT engine” does not appear likely to run out of gas anytime soon and should power robust growth for at least the next decade, provided that policy makers take the right steps. ” - Information Internet Technology Foundation

And here are a couple of interesting graphs …

Companies run on process. Employees follow procedures, gather information, perform tasks, report results, and conduct a myriad other activities that generate productivity and profit. Technology’s strength is to make these tasks even more efficient, and for common activities there exist affordable products. On an individual level, think of the productivity gains provided by Microsoft Office, web-mail, and desktop publishing software, to name a few.

Unfortunately the processes that drive a business’s true competitive advantage often take years to develop and are so unique that there’s no off-the-shelf or easily customizable solution. Frequently, employees are left to track, organize, and communicate using a mixture of paper forms, spreadsheets, and homegrown Access databases. It doesn’t take long before the complications of duplicate entries, lack of permissions control, and the difficulties of producing performance reports, hinder further efficiency. That’s where a custom business application can help boost productivity and a business’s bottom line.

To build a business application you must first understand the client’s business processes and then craft a web-based application to match those unique needs. Imagine workers performing, tracking, and reporting their tasks as easily as they might interact with any other modern online system. No more fiddly spreadsheets or separate databases, just a unified solution with unified capabilities centrally located and backed up at offsite facilities. Wouldn’t that be nice?