The Plan for 2017 and 2018

By David Slight

We'll Talk About Causality and Business Dependency Networks. For a YEAR!

Given our mission to talk about business and technology and learn from diverse perspectives of the group members, we are suggesting and going forth with this self-organizing charter for the coming year. For each of the six BDN perspectives, we will look first at the technology followed by the human perspective. So our calendar for the year looks like the following:

The WHY

November: 

Drivers Tech: what is coming for robotics, automation and futurism

December: 

Drivers Humans: how to evangelize the humanist and people perspectives

Drivers explain why an investment is being made. These are the reasons that senior managers believe will have an impact on the business in a given time frame, yet they are outside the direct control of the organization. A driver requires responses from the business. Drivers can be external (listed first), something in the larger market environment, or internal, an improvement initiative or mandate generated within the organization by senior management.

January: 

Outcomes Tech: What technology and automation do we want to adopt? How far are we willing to let the robots go?

February: 

Outcomes Humans: Define the outcomes we as humans want to achieve.

The outcomes define the end point, or the state at which an investment is aimed.  They are the agreed-upon achievement targets  that help address the drivers. Outcomes are derived from the envisioned changes indicated by the drivers, and help define the benefits that are to be expected.

March: 

Benefits Tech: What benefits can automation and technology provide? How do we measure the benefits?

April:

Humans: Benefits: Who should get the benefits? Large tech corporations or everyone? The developer or sales?

Benefits describe what will happen in the business to help achieve the outcomes. These are advantages to an organization’s stakeholders that can be realized by business changes. Every benefit stream must have an owner who is part of the analysis process. The expected benefits types must be determined, along with how they will be measured. The organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) are a good source of measures. Inclusion of quantitative measures is preferred, if a reliable number can be obtained from the customer.

The WHAT

May: 

Changes Tech: Where is the tipping point when AI starts to think for itself?

June: 

Changes Humans: Can people change, can culture change?

Business changes are new and permanent ways of working within the organization to realize benefits.  The changes come in three forms: 1) Doing new things, 2) doing things better, and 3) stopping counterproductive things.  These can be shown at a high level in several ways, depending on the organization’s preference: as a business process to be changed, a description of the changes to be made, or as organizational capabilities or functional units.

The HOW

July: 

Capabilities Tech:  What capabilities can we rely on from technology?

September: 

Capabilities Humans: What are the essential human capabilities that should be retained and nurtured?

Capabilities are that must be at the required level of maturity in order to support the desired business changes. Multiple capabilities may be required to change an individual process, and some changes may affect more than one process. Training, implementations of new standards, policies, and procedures, or acquisitions and reorganizations are included in this category.

October: 

Enablers Tech: Which technologies are ready for prime time?

November: 

Enablers Humans: What can technology still not enable?  

Enabling technologies  provide the lowest level answers to the question of how  business changes will be achieved.  The items in this column are the IT systems, projects, or product features that will support needed changes. They can support changes in a business process, as well as the introduction of new technology or the work required in a project .

WRAP UP

December: Discuss our charter for 2019

Developing and Managing Human Capital - Notes from the May 23, 2017 AppsJack Business Services Meetup in Kirkland, WA

"Human Capital" was the topic to be discussed.  It was a sunny late-May afternoon and I headed down to Big Fish Grill to have the discussion with about 10 others who had gathered.  Unlike the normal gathering, we were given a smaller table, which in the end wound up being a little better: cozier and easier to hear people.  We never broke into smaller groups and had a good dialog with a big group.

At first it was just me, leadership coach Alan Andersen and coach Susan Stringer.  I had never met Susan before and was immediately impressed by her grace, experience and knowledge.  She has a great present and is a very fun conversationalist.  Eventually, more arrived and we kicked off the discussion about "Developing and Managing Human Capital", the first support process in APQC's process classification framework.  The first thing that was made clear is we all agreed that the CAPITAL word in human capital is evil, wrong, etc.  Richard Webb suggested that thinking of people as money is no worst than thinking of them as slaves.  There was agreement on this point.

In search of a starting point, I rattled off the APQC's subtopics:

• Develop and manage HR planning, policies and strategies
• Recruit, source and select employees
• Develop and counsel employees
• Reward and retain employees
• Redeploy and retire employees
• Manage employee information

I told people that I was personally most interested in the "Manage Employee Information" area, where I had the most experience.  It's subtopics are as follows: Manage reporting processes (who reports to whom), Manage employee inquiry process (how management gets info from employees), Manage and maintain employee data, Manage human resource information systems (HRIS), Develop and manage employee metrics, Develop and manage time and attendance systems (we agreed this was an optional step for some places), Manage employee communication.

No one seemed to bite on the above high-level concepts so I started rattling off the discussion topics that we'd covered over the last year: good books we'd read about HR and people-management, alternatives to the resume and is the resume dead, how to get a great job, how to get maximum wages sustainably, what are the current trends and issues, problems in HR management, what does the modern worker like, what do they expect and need, what is the future of employment, what will technology do to HR and management with tools like LinkedIn and CrystalKnows?  Before I could get too far down the list, people locked on the resume topic and we were off on our first big topic.

The resume, truth, recruiting and qualification

Susan gave us some great and interesting facts about millennials in the workforce: that 50% of the workforce will be millennials by 2020 and 75% of the workforce by 2025.  Incredible statistics.  Susan is doing a presentation soon on millennials in the workforce that I will plan to attend.  She is a student of the topic.  I raised issues about complexity dealing with individuals vs. working with people in populations.  Working with 'classes' and things in groups is far easier than but as humans we seem very reluctant to exclusively deal with things in groups and need to give the attention that people and organizations need at an individual level.  

Richard said that the age of authenticity is what's next and was seeking a term for millennials.  I suggested that they were Generation M to keep it simple then we laughed about sequence issues.

We talked about predictive analytics and the power of organizations like Facebook and LinkedIn to predict events from data such as divorce with very high confidence.  Data is a very powerful thing.  

  

I suggested that the resume is just one signal in the collection (stack) of things necessary to understand and work with a person professionally.  Other signals include online profiles like LinkedIn, social media presence, reference checks and the interview.  We didn't believe that the resume would be going away and generrally believed that i was a gateway and door-opener to other aspects of the person.

Susan impressed us with some of her experiences doing hiring at the executive level and gave examples of people she had vetted by requesting 12 references from them: 3 supervisors, 3 peers, 3 suppliers and 3 others.  This sounded very rigorous to me but I could appreciate just how important getting this information really is for some high-risk, high-reward opportunities.

Susan shared that she asks these questions to the candidate, "How would your former managers describe you?" and to the former managers, "How would you describe your former employee?"  They are very open questions and she would listen for incongruity between the stories.  She said she had been referred to by some in the past as "the female version of Columbo", the TV show detective.  What an amazing skill to go this deeply into someone's background not make sure they are who they say they are.

Talent

We got off on a discussion about the quality of leaders and the leadership and it was stated that only A players can hire A players.  Richard told us stories about the Drugstore.com days (joint-venture between Microsoft, Walmart, and some India companies) and how complex and different those cultures were and how they used a 'bus' to communicate effectively.  Another aspect of that collaboration that worked well was to pass information through a key resource they called the seamstress (it was a man) who would bridge the gap and coordinate between the three different teams.  

Books

We talked a little about books here and there and Andrew Sengul regaled us with stories from Aaron Hurst and The Purpose Economy.  The book says that people can be broken up into three categories: those motivated by money, prestige/fame or a deep personal commitment.  The book suggests to only hire the people with deep personal commitment.  Andrew cited quite a few examples of how it is hard to manage and create organizations of these kinds of individuals.

Alan and Susan both highly recommended the book Leadership and Self-Deception.  Alan believes that everyone is a leader (at least sometimes) and they have to start by leading themselves.  

Corruption

Richard is obsessed with the idea that things and people are corrupt.  He believes and here was agreement in the group that one thing we are trying to do with all of these systems and controls in businesses is to weed out corruption, corrupt people and takers.  Richard says that there is a worthy goal to "instrument corruption" (develop systems that can measure and detect corruption at all levels).  Andrew jumped in and offered that experts at corruption really are good at it: that low-grade corruption is easy to detect and that some people really are grade A snakes.  

Steve Kubacki showed up a bit late (but I had already referenced a couple of his ideas) and we talked more about his idea of random firings to weed out corruption and sick cultures.  

Steve says that more of this needs to happen at the top of the organization than the bottom.  Susan said that, "A good leader assesses the talent and weeds out the tenured people."  So her theory is that this can be done by good people but I agree with Steve in some ways that this needs to be done by policy and not just by people (heroes).  We went into a discussion about CEO and he Board and how those two things should work together for control and regulation of the organization.  

Richard wanted to know how to test for integrity.  Everyone agreed that business and corporations really was a battle or war and that more people need to understand that situation.  We went into a discussion about the role of the HR department (few liked it) and Susan gave us examples of HR departments that provided coaching through the "HR Business Partner" who coached the manager of the group.  I have personally witnessed limitations of this model, especially when the management is not ready for coaching.  

"Balancing the bottom line and people" is a big topic that Susan thinks is a key challenge for organizations.  

We went off on a long rabbit trail tangent about sociopaths and predators (evil people) who are ladder climbers.  We tried to separate between those who are sick, ambitious and charismatic.  There is a desire by people to detect and weed these people out.

We talked about the authoritarian personality and how many people are okay with it (even seek it out) and like to live inside of authoritarian structures because they are given something from daddy.  

Conclusions and Next Steps

We had a great turnout.  It was me, leadership coach Alan Andersen, executive coach Susan Stringer, technology architect Richard Webb, professional services pro Lee Carter, delivery operations pro Dena Carter, operations manager Dominic Wong, business owner Thomas Mercer, business leader Thomas Mercer, software product developer Andrew Sengul and creative psychologist Steve Kubacki.

Please join us soon for Episode 8 of the AppsJack Capable Communities Podcast on the HR/Human Capital topic which will feature consulting business owner Aftab Farooqi, coach Rachel Alexandria, psychologist Steven Kubacki, executive and consultant Joe OKonek and professional services sales director Lee Carter.  We will record on Saturday 6/10 and the conversations will be dripped to the major podcast outlets each Sunday morning during June and early July. 

Our next topic for the meetup and podcast will be managing information technology, a topic near and dear to my heart and another key enabler to business.

AppsJack Capable Communities Meetup – March 2017 – Delivering Product & Services Discussion

Tuesday, March 28, 2017 4 PM
Kirkland, WA

A few business associates and I gathered last Tuesday to talk about challenges relating to delivering products & services.  Delivering products and services is the fourth element in the APQC model.  I showed up at about 3:30 and struck up a conversation with Alan Andersen who was already there.  Alan is a leadership coach and consultant.

I’ve been fortunate to get to know Alan better over the last couple of months and it’s been a good experience for me.  Alan is well read and has so many experiences working with leaders and teams from which he can draw experiences and stories.  We sat and chatted and then a few more people showed up at our table, the Captain's Table.

Richard Webb, always a powerful and interesting force, showed up and we started to get into the meat of the delivery topic.  James Tuff, an entertaining and vivacious technology sales executive and entrepreneur, showed up and sat at the head of the table.  After long we had eight at the table including clinical psychologist and writer Steve Kubacki, an intelligent, insightful, opinionated professional and mountaineer.  Steve is great at these events in that he helps us stayed grounded, balanced and on point.  Steve regularly shares perspectives that help us see things from a more human, less business, perspective.  Tonight was no exception.

My new friend, Thomas Mercer, was sitting to my right.  I was drinking iced tea in copious amounts; I had been sick with a fever earlier in the week but was starting to spring back to life.  Spring was upon us indeed.  12 years prior, Thomas and I had finished the same master’s program at the University of Washington Foster Business School: information systems where we learned about the internet, networks, business.  And when things like Facebook were brand new.  Thomas previously ran a medical practice business that helped people with irritable bowel syndrome with diagnosis and treatment.  He explained to us his time working on that project and ho it related to the challenges of delivery.

Lee Carter, sitting to my left, is a business development manager for Ciber, a technology consulting firm with some major clients in the area, recently relocated to the Seattle area from Dallas, TX.  We were also graced by Bruce Follansbee’s presence.  Bruce is always good for conversation, putting people at ease, and book references.

One of the first things I asked about was blockchain and its relationship to delivery.  Per wikipedia:

blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records called blocks. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block.[6] By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data — once recorded, the data in a block cannot be altered retroactively. Through the use of a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server, a blockchain database is managed autonomously. Blockchains are "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. The ledger itself can also be programmed to trigger transactions automatically."

Richard and Thomas seemed to know quite a bit on the subject and shared what they knew with us.  There was discussion about whether the blockchains should be open or closed, transparent or not.  Issues related to security and privacy were major pivot points for our discussion.  Richard suggested that we loop in Ellen Mooney into the conversation; I guess she is an expert on the topic of digital democracy.

We were pretty much all over the map in the beginning of the discussion, going from micro levels of delivery (firm or product perspectives) up to the macro levels (global supply chains, politics and economics).  Richard talked about Amazon’s CIDC pipelines and brought up the term “logistics engine”.  Many at the table agreed that Amazon is doing very amazing things these days and that their ability to delivery and run supply chains is amazing.  For many years, Walmart, the world’s largest company by revenue in the world, has been known for its logistics and methods like “cross-docking” but it seems that Amazon, between its online presence and many innovative new products and services has begun to eat into that area of innovation.  Much is happening with Amazon.

We talked about hypothetical scenarios where Amazon could, for example, run dentist offices and use 3d printing for delivery of replacement teeth.  It didn’t seem very far-fetched.  Richard mentioned and recommended the movie Elysium which has some interesting and futuristic elements to it where people get scanned with lasers and good things happen.

I realized at some point in the bubbling conversation that the differences between delivering services and delivering products really are stark.  APQC has even recognized this issue by breaking them out into different L1 elements, making the model 13 items, no longer 12.  I think it’s important to pick one or the other for the sake of focus, clarity and conversation.  Delivering products seems a bit easier in that they are tangible and “real”, whereas delivering services seems a bit more human and ambiguous and challenging, at least to me.  Richard doesn't believe that the distinction is all that different.  Similarities between delivering services and managing customer service (the next area in the AQPC model) seem obvious and will be the target of future exploration.

We got into a pretty detailed conversation about banking, the flow of money, financial systems and corruption.  Richard is very passionate about the many issues of corruption and it helps to have Steve there for his thoughts on humanity as well.  Richard gave examples of Visa being able to run all transactions in the world on its system alone.  Steve made some interesting points about capitalism, such as:

“Capitalism is about wiping out the competition as much as possible so you can waste as much as you want.”  

Steve’s a funny guy and I don’t disagree with the point.  I know some people who definitely act that way.  For these people I know, the goal is to get really rich and make a lot of money now so they can chill out, retire and do very little later.  They aren’t trying to create economies or markets or anything, they are trying to dominate existing ones.  In a word: take.  Not my kind of verb.

Someone mentioned the book by Chris Anderson “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” and cited that it was interesting.  James Tuff shared about a new business idea he is working on in the transportation and informatics areas and we all found it interesting helping him think about how he could deliver that set of products and services.  We had a lengthy and fruitful conversation with Reba about her challenges and ideas for competing and delivering value in the very rapidly changing real estate industry.

Business is highly complex and so is delivery.  Delivery is where the rubber meets the road.  Analyzing any business from the perspective of delivery is difficult because of the natural complexity.

Stay tuned for the upcoming podcast episode on delivery when I will sit down with Josh Bosworth and Steve Kubacki to bat the topic around.

Managing Financial Resources for Businesses - Will FinTech Make Us Richer? Recap of March 24, 2016 AppsJack Business Share Meetup in Kirkland, WA

Tuesday, March 24, 2016

AppsJack Business Services Share

Big Fish Grill, Kirkland, WA

• Attendees:
• Samuel Rodriguez
• Eric Veal
• David Bleiweiss (first time)
• Bruce Follansbee
• Dominic Wong
• Chad Oda (first time)
• Fred de Boer (first time)
• Andrew Sengul
• TJ Elston

Welcome David, Chad and Fred to the group.  Please greet and welcome them!

No, we do not believe that FinTech will make us richer but there are a collection of tools and practices within this category that are essential for a productive business.  "You get what you measure" and you have to measure well.  So finance is a very key enabling process to businesses but without the proper values, vision, strategy, products, value proposition, sales, delivery and care for customer service, finance won't help you at all.

Main ideas covered:

• Good quote.  From TJ, a line from the movie Aviator about Howard Hughes with Leonardo DiCaprio:
• Mrs. Hepburn: We don't care about money here.
• Howard Hughes: That's because you have it.
• The purpose of finance.  Money is about measuring/weighing/sizing value(s) and not just about money.  Many things can get boiled down to an "apples to apples" model where money is the factor but many guesses need to be made in the model to put a monetary value to certain intangible values.  Finance is a measurement system that seeks to equate all things into a single system and common language to make businesses, transactions and discussions easier and more fluid.
• Balance required and you can't only look at money, profit and greed anymore.  Approaches like Triple Bottom Line, Balanced Scorecard and AQPC look to balance out our measurements by breaking them into a set of categories.  Portfolio management, weighting and balancing matters.
• AppsJack is about the Management of Things (MoT).  New idea: not just the internet of things but the Management of Things.  IoT proliferates irresponsibly and wastefully.  MoT seeks to balance and distribute technologies to places and industries and applications that need it the most.
• Focus first, diversity second.  We agreed that businesses need to find focus, a value proposition, clarity, value, a product and some success first before they can get into the realm of diversification.  Diversity is a good thing but it can be misapplied.
• Cool and new Financial Technologies.  Andrew shared about KDB and David shared about a new system called Aladdin from Blackstone that he uses that produces very amazing models.

Next meetup topic on Tuesday September 27th in Kirkland from 4-7 PM: "Successfully marketing your IoT Idea."  We are seeking people who have ideas for IoT products, or IoT products themselves and we would like to serve as a panel to build a model that helps them best invest in marketing efforts that will have the highest possible ROI for their product/service.

June 2015 AppsJack Human Resources Meetup Held in Bellevue, WA

June 23, 2015
Lake Hills Library, Bellevue, WA

Last night at 7 PM the June AppsJack Business Services meetup was held at the Lake Hills Library in Bellevue, WA.  The event was attended by 12 guests.  Lively and interesting, entertaining, insightful conversations were had.  The topic was Human Capital Management and the subtopics were Recruiting and Retention.  The group focused some of its attention the issues of millennials.

This event represented the sixth curricula in the AppsJack Meetup calendar year.  AppsJack follows the APQC model to provide structure, value, and context to its meetups and to build knowledge and community around key business areas.  This meetup was the first of the AppsJack content areas to be in the realm of “support processes”.  The previous 5 sessions were on the operating processes from APQC.

Some attendees were repeat visitors and sum were brand new, many of whom had found the event via the AppsJack Meetup group page.  The crowd was a great mix of male and female, young and old, and across a variety of different industries and experience levels.  Among the repeat visitors were Eric Veal (host), Jehan, Hsuan-hua, Dave, and Meng.  The newbies to the group included Liat, Elena, Natsune and a handful of others.

What follows is a listing of the various topics and points covered.  Items marked in bold underline should be considered for future AppsJack meetups.  The next AppsJack meetup will be on Information Technology Management, Internet of Things (IoT) on July 28.

1. Employee education and training programs both on- and off-the-job were discussed.  The issue of training people on the job or after hiring vs. hiring the right people and having people be able to ‘hit the ground running’ from the start.
2. The benefits of diversity were covered.
3. The issue of searching organically (through network) vs. systematically was discussed.  There are pros and cons of each and culture is impacted by the choice in methods made.  Searching applies to both the recruiter and the candidate and both may share some practices.
4. Culture and its importance was discussed.  Someone shared that they wanted to find a company with “a culture”.  It was explained that all companies have a culture, whether they like it or not. Properties of culture were discussed:  was it positive or negative, what were its artifacts, rituals and ceremonies, was it strong or weak?  Learning organizations, per se, were not discussed conceptually and could be a point of subsequent conversations.  With respect to the retention, the notion of an employer’s preference to fire or lay off vs. an employee’s choice to leave was not discussed.  Work-life balance is an aspect of company culture within the context of freedoms and demands for the employee.
5. Someone who was a millennial wanted to discuss differences of the millennials.  Who they are, their traits, differences, and value were discussed.  We learned that millennials want to have a cause or purpose, may trust less in big systems and bureaucracies, expect a lot, need to have something in it for them (purpose), and enjoy life out of work with friends from work.  They want fun companies with good cultures.  “Fiefdoms” and barriers were discussed between roles, departments, levels, locations, age groups, etc.  All of this complexity makes up a corporate culture’s richness.  Age differences of all kinds were discussed.  Industrial and worker-class differences were not covered in detail but it was recognized that they existed and practices for white collar and blue collar industries or groups were thought to be different.
6. The role and importance of modern HR Information systems (HRIS) was brought up as a potential topic but was not covered in detail.  The topic of role-based systems: security, communications, and training was discussed in addition to the power of technology to enable new possibilities for people and businesses.  The importance of knowledge management systems was not discussed but is a critical part of a successful and growing, risk-avoiding organization.
7. The purpose and role of the HR department was mentioned.
8. We spoke about practices and differences between using in-house recruiters and staff vs. using outsourced services and agencies.  The issue of contractors vs. full-time employee labor was discussed but not fully explored.
9. The importance of compensation and pay was mentioned briefly by Dave.  He shared that he was having a hard time landing the right talent and believed that the cause was his employer’s low-pay policies.  Benefits, perks, and the value / prestige / reputation of the company was not really discussed other than one attendees interest in finding a company with a [good] culture.  Points were made about cultures within companies being largely dependent on a person’s immediate manager rather than the overall system and culture for the company, the local level remains very critical.
10. Differences between the HR practice of enterprises vs. those of startups (as well as those across industries and worker classes) were mentioned but not fully discussed.
11. HR business models were not discussed but should be further explored.
12. Ethics was not discussed.
13. The notion of requirements—both those for projects and products as well as those for human resources—was discussed in the context of hiring: hard requirements and soft requirements and how job seeking and landing is typically a gray area and not one that is cut and dried.  Wht also comes into play is personal relationships, biases and perceptions.  Younger professionals were encouraged to act confidently, ‘act as if’ and ‘fake it ‘til you make it’.  The ways that people are perceived as candidates and employees quantitative and qualitative methods, verbal, non-verbal and written communications.
14. Some brief discussions were had about creative hiring and interviewing practices.  This topic should be further explored.  The pros and cons of different interviewing and screening methods were discussed.
15. The importance of models such as Wexler’s 4 Faces of Capitalism and personality tests (Myers Briggs, etc.) were noted but not in detail and should be topics for further discussion.  One member shared that Microsoft leaders were selected who fit what he perceived to be extremely narrow and consistent criteria and types.
16. Other resource types such as financial, relational, reputational, and information were not discussed but could be fodder for future discussion.
17. The differences between needs and approaches to the management of individuals, small groups, and larger organizations was not discussed but should be a topic for another time.
18. Microsoft and AT&T were discussed as local employees and some of their practices were covered.  The issue of managed services vs. staff augmentation and the impact that those practices have on corporate culture and environment was discussed.
19. The question ‘what is organization development?’ was not discussed, but should be soon.
20. Labor unions, guilds, and organized labor were not discussed but could serve as a good topic for another session.
21. Conflict management was not discussed.

There is so much depth and richness to the topic of Human Resources Management it is incredible.  At the end of the event, Natsune promoted her event, which is planned for July 15th in the University District area of Seattle.  Also, Liat shared about a meetup event she is hosting as well.  Several members exchanged contact information and made promises to stay connected with one another.

The next AppsJack Meetup event will be held July 28th and will cover Information Technology Management.  The event may be sponsored by Neudesic Consulting and feature Ben Griner, their Director of Management Consulting.

AppsJack’s meetups are fun local community events that help businesses and business service professionals connect over interesting discussions and topics in comfortable environments.  The events are a great way to meet new people, share experience, and identify individuals within the community with whom you feel comfortable sharing your ideas and issues.  Each month is a different topic and the big events are typically planned for the 4th Tuesday of the month.  AppsJack’s vision is to create an organized network of meetups on business and other critical management topics for people, property and planet.  AppsJack is a knowledge management consulting company who has helped businesses such as Siemens, Microsoft and the US Forest Service manage and improve major initiatives that make communications more effective and efficient.  More info can be found at appsjack.com or by contacting Eric Veal, Founder and CEO of AppsJack Corporation.

Eric Veal, MSIS, MBA, PMP is a NW Washington Native who lives in Kirkland, WA with his wife and pets.  Eric has been consulting with companies on business, technology and growth issues since he first worked on his mom and dad’s businesses in 1996.  Eric is originally from Guemes Island, WA and attended Western Washington University and Foster School of Business, respectively, for his undergraduate and graduate degrees.  Eric received his Project Management Professional certificate in 2006 while working at Siemens Healthcare.  At Siemens, Eric was in their leadership development program and worked as a process improvement consultant and intranet architect.  His experiences at Siemens inspired him to start his own company, AppsJack, to pursue his dreams.