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Tag Archives: Elad Katav
Aligning Service and Product Strategy
If you’ve been reading my blog posts, you know that I love my product. We all do here. But we also know that there are competitors out there doing a good job as well. The APM industry is quite competitive, with several companies saying very similar messages. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish one product from the next. Read more
Traveling Transaction Modeling
Over the past few years, traveling has become a major part of my life. I travel a lot for business, so I’m on the road a good chunk of the time. One of the most interesting (and daunting) things about getting from point A to point B is planning the route. This is most difficult when I have a meeting in New York City, because there are four possible (and reasonable) ways to get there. I could fly, go by rail, drive or take a bus. Read more
Tailoring Performance for Your Customers
Last week, my wife started giving me a hard time about my clothes. I had a trip to Europe coming up, and the official verdict from her was that my suits were simply “not enough”. Figuring I’d better do as I was told, I decided it was time to shop around for a new suit. Hoping to impress my wife, I wound up buying the best of the best. Read more
What Can Pizza Deliveries and Hurricanes Teach Us About The End-User Experience?
Last night I ordered a pizza from one of the major chains. They have a fantastic, intuitive website that lets you order a pizza for delivery without ever picking up the phone. The site is full of useful features: a detailed menu, easy ordering etc. But the best feature by far is what wraps up the process. Once you’ve placed an order, you can check its progress from start to finish with a neat bar that pops up. The status bar tells you when your pie is being put together, when it comes out of the oven, when it’s in the driver’s car; the whole nine yards.
iPhones, Televisions, and Angry Birds, Oh My!
As I reflect today on Apple’s launch of iPhone 4S, I realize the concept of an “app store” has become part of our lives. More and more devices are supporting apps, and the ubiqitious app store is the method by which they are disseminated. When I’m downloading something for my phone, it isn’t supposed to be a long “sell cycle”. Sales guys don’t come to my apartment to show off the features. Nobody takes me to lunch. There is no golf involved. I just research the app, maybe by reading some blogs, and then I buy it.
Why is it always on a Friday? (part 2)
When you go into a War Room situation, you have to get your priorities straight right away. Most importantly, you’re not trying to assign blame. While the problem persists, blame is pointless and a waste of time. You need to find the source of the latency. Was something changed? Has some iteration gone foul, one of thousands along the chain from the user’s click to the end transaction? Is some platform no longer valid? Has one of your vendors simply stopped supporting an old version of their software? What is going on?
Why is it always on a Friday? (part 1)
The weekend is tomorrow; you’ve been head-down all week, nose to the grindstone making sure that your people and your apps are doing well , everything is running smoothly and your end-users are experiencing great service. Now is the time to go home, make sure your wife is OK and to “monitor” your family. Suddenly, on Friday afternoon you get the call – something is wrong… and it’s not one of the “easy ones” (they never are on Friday): you’re calling a war room. REALLY!?!?
How do I choose software?
When I’m trying to decide whose software to buy, no matter what I need it for, I start by taking a close look at all the options out there, and I start asking the vendors some questions. There are lots of important questions, most of them revolving around competitors, features and the size of a vendor’s user base.
After many, many years in this business, I’ve learned that the first, most important question you can ask when shopping software is simple: “Do you guys use this stuff? Read more
