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Thursday, March 29, 2007 |
I wrote last January about Indus International's sale to Vista Equity Partners and subsequently merged with MDSI to form a new company--and how they formed a new company without a name. Well, almost three months later, the new name and brand is unveiled--Ventyx. The company provides what it calls "service delivery management" -- essentially asset and field service management applications plus workforce management. Welcome Ventyx to the world of manufacturing.
3:24:41 PM 
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I know PR people hate it when I rip a fellow practitioner, but the people I know would never do this. I just got a release about a company expanding in the "Tri State Area." It never defined which three states. I know of several areas that refer to themselves as the TriStates. Or, as my wife said this morning, "He knew what he meant." Unfortunately, his job is to transfer that knowledge to me so that I can pass it along.
On the other hand, I've had three calls this week from people I don't know and companies I either had only vague knowledge of or had never heard of. And all three taught me something new that I can use. One is a different way to look at electrical grounding another on understanding Microsoft Sharepoint Server. More on those as I develop the material. So, the good ones are a joy to an editor. Then there are the others...
Another PR person who pinged me some time ago works at A&R Edelman for Adobe. That is a company that is really moving along. I've written a few times about new products. Well, Acrobat 3D version 8 appears to be an excellent engineering and manufacturing collaboration tool--it allows looking at (and marking up) 3D CAD drawings in a safe pdf format. The good news today is that there is a public preview available. Look for yourself.
1:16:16 PM
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Another great Lifehacker post. I haven't had any great job offers from my "online persona", but then my off line persona probably takes care of that ;-)
I think this works for companies as well as people. There is some great information coming from several company blogs (or blogs within companies). Depending upon the goals of the bloggers, you can build credibility, build a community, bring new people into the conversation, or even remind people you're alive. I takes work and a personality to do this, but I think it's worth it. Speaking of which, I suddenly realized that I haven't seen the ProSoft Blog for a couple of weeks. Hope it's not gone for good. Nick was doing a good job over there.
[Oh, and I'm not looking for another job through blogging. I'm having too much fun now. Maybe a juicy speaking engagement, though...]
Why you should develop your online persona. The Web Worker Daily weblog explains that despite the common perception that you should strive to keep your online activity anonymous, you would do well to cultivate a professional and intelligent online identity.
Employers are realizing that what people do online can actually prove their value as potential hires, not just rule them out based on drunken photos or revelations of other past missteps.
The post offers also tips on how you might improve your positive online persona. Of course you should still clean up your digital indiscretions if you have any, but Google can have a lot of good to say about you if you're a solid member of the internet community. As a one-time Lifehacker reader who became an editor by virtue a transparent and professional online persona, I'd say Web Worker Daily is onto something. If you've had any experiences when your life online has influenced your job search, tell us about it in the comments. [~] Adam Pash
[Lifehacker]
10:44:56 AM
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One of the hottest marketing and engineering battles going on in the industry right now is safety systems in process control. Alone among the major suppliers, Invensys Process Systems holds firm to the concept of totally separate safety systems (Triconex in this case) and control systems (Foxboro). Other major suppliers have varying degrees of integrating the two. I find this discussion fascinating--and I'm glad I'm not a process engineer faced with making the decision. Of course, if I were a process engineer, I'd know more than I do now.
A little shameless plug--Wes Iversen, Automation World Managing Editor, has written an outstanding survey of the varying points of view on this topic that will appear in the April issue. I even had to give him two more pages in the magazine to fit it all in. Watch for that.
At any rate, Invensys is taking its technology story to the Second Annual International TÃ[ogonek]V Safety Symposium USA, April 24-25, 2007 in Galveston, Texas. The main objective of the conference is to provide an overview of worldwide developments and show practical experience of manufacturers of safety-related products and end-users in the U.S. Invensys engineers will present three technical papers on the latter day.
If advanced knowledge of safety systems are important to your work, this appears to be an excellent forum to learn--and ask the hard questions.
7:43:53 AM
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The New York Times is reporting that Intel has developed a new microprocessor that gives increased performance while consuming less power. Wonder how long before we see some of these in automation equipment. I can imagine a lot of uses.
7:29:13 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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