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Bealer, Barry
, President/CEO , Really Strategies Inc. , Lansdale Pennsylvania U.S.A.
Email: bbealer@reallysi.com
Barry is a seasoned and successful professional in both technical and business positions with over 15 years experience in software development and project management arena. Since co-founding Really Strategies Inc., Barry has served as president and CEO of the company, based in Lansdale, Pa. In this role he has successfully built Really Strategies into a profitable company that consistently exceeds customer expectations. This commitment to customer service has resulted in a growing client base that now includes some of the most recognized publishers and media companies in the world.
Prior to founding Really Strategies, Barry served as vice president, client solutions for Reed Technology and Information Services Inc. (an operating unit of Lexis-Nexis). He also served as senior director, project management, where he led a team of project managers that completed projects consisting of client/server migration, large-scale Web site and Web catalog development, CD-ROM development, and editorial and production systems development. Barry also spent ten years at GE Aerospace (now Lockheed Martin Corporation) in various software and system engineering positions.
Barry is an experienced and recognized project management professional with a history of project success in the Internet and publishing industries. He holds a Masters of Business Administration in Information Systems from St. Joseph’s University and a Bachelor of Science in Communications/Electronics from Millersville University.
Bos, Lisa
, Vice President, Consulting Serivces , Really Strategies Inc. , Lansdale Pennsylvania U.S.A.
Email: lbos@reallysi.com
Lisa is recognized industry professional with over 10 years of hands-on data architecture, data analysis, content transformation, and project management experience. She is widely regarded an expert in the design of XML-based content management systems, and in the integration of those systems with Websites and other output media.Since co-founding Really Strategies, Lisa serves as the Vice President of Consulting Services with primary responsibility for managing strategic client projects and a staff of Content Engineers. Lisa is also responsible for the corporate consulting methodology, implementing company standards, and process improvements.
Prior to founding Really Strategies, Lisa was the Vice President of Operations for BioValidity, a content provider of life science content databases, where she successfully launched the company's web site and led its editorial and database development initiatives. Lisa also served as Director of Content Management Systems at Reed Technology and Information Services Inc. (an operating unit of Lexis-Nexis). In that role she managed a technical staff with skills in data analysis and design, XML, and database technologies, while also leading some of Reed's larger projects.
Prior to Reed Technology, Lisa was the Manager of SGML Services at Valley Forge Technical Information Systems, a worldwide provider of authoring and publishing services to automotive manufacturers. As the Manager of SGML Services, she worked with manufactures such as Rover Group, Honda, and Hyundai to develop technical solutions for creating, managing, and publishing diagnostic and service information that is output to print, CD-ROM, the Web, and other electronic formats. Lisa is a frequent presenter at industry tradeshows and has authored a chapter in the XML Handbook, Second Edition, edited by Dr. Charles Goldfarb and Paul Prescod. Lisa holds a BA in English from the University of Miami.
Executives today are increasingly aware of the need to evaluate and implement XML-based tools and technologies. This paper looks at common issues associated with gaining approval for XML-based projects and understanding the appropriate communication techniques to gain timely approval of project requests. At the center of most publishing environments today is XML. This unto itself is not the issue. Understanding how XML can help increase the profit of a company by reducing operational expenses is a little more difficult to explain. The overriding issue that surfaces in companies today is the fear of implementing new technology since a “things are working just fine with our old system” mentality still exists. Developing a case to spend money, sometimes significant money, is key to helping management remove the fear of eliminating what works today with XML.
Fear of new technology and standards is not new. Understanding the risk associated with moving too fast to a new technology is important. As XML-based tools and technologies mature, the risk of migrating existing systems to XML becomes less of an issue. If this paper were being written 5 or even 3 years ago, the risk associated with changing a system to XML would be much larger and much more difficult to get approval for since most XML standards were only evolving at the time. As time goes on, the fear of XML and new XML technologies will continue to decrease which should make executive or management approval of such projects easier. Gaining approval for IT purchases is always a challenge. Gaining approval for XML-based tools and technologies can be even more difficult unless the true benefits of moving a system to XML are identified. A cost/benefit analysis may be the only way to convince an executive to fork over the money. Focusing on the back-end efficiencies that XML can provide and the ultimate operational expense savings is key. Executives understand expense savings and profit increases much better than “yes, the data is much more portable”. Clear communication with executive staff is another key to gaining approval on XML-based projects. Again, remember who your audience is and keep the communication centered on expense savings that correlates to an increase in profits. Unless asked, trying to explain technical advantages of XML will normally get you nowhere with executives and can possibly hurt future conversations. Remember that ROI and depreciation methods will most likely not mean much to a VP of Technology, while the technical advantages of XML generally don’t mean much to a VP of Finance. Speak the language of the audience. XML is upon us and is constantly in the news we receive via our listserve newsletters and trade magazines. Even executive management has heard of XML (hey, it’s only three letters). Having an understanding of how an executive thinks in making decisions on new XML-based technology purchases and installations will go a long way to receiving approval more quickly and reducing the awkward gap that sometimes exists between technical gurus and business types.
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