Economic Trends & Lessons Learned – May 2020
A recent Trends Report by ITR Economics predicts a slow build for commodity prices, GDP and interest rates. As more states and countries around the world begin to rollout plans for re-opening, this study predicts a slow build for US GDP, commodity prices, and interest...
Navigating the Pandemic – Insights from HR Leaders in Tech
In April our team sat down for a virtual leaders lunch with a handful of HR leaders from tech companies across the Portland area. Their experiences managing and navigating their companies through this pandemic showed that the biggest struggles are with morale and...
How Portland Tech Leadership is Navigating the 2020 Pandemic
In April of 2020, ProFocus hosted a discussion of Portland-based technology leaders. This was a roundtable discussion on the topic of managing tech teams during a global pandemic. John Boone, the President of ProFocus Technology, moderated the discussion. The leaders...
Remote Working and Covid-19: Tips for Tech Leaders
As the COVID-19 crisis continues to ramp up, businesses around the world are preparing to grapple with the short and long-term impacts. While the full economic effects of the coronavirus are just beginning to be felt, organizations are already feeling the pinch. Teams...
Tech as an Enabler — Not the End Goal
On February 5, 2020, ProFocus hosted a discussion of Portland-based technology leaders. This was a roundtable discussion on the topic of implementing new technology in your organization, and why tech should be an enabler, rather than the end goal. John Boone, the...
Eye Exercises For Tech Consultants With Excess Screen Time
The “experts” keep telling us that we need to minimize our screen time. But the truth is that much of the working population spends a lot of time with the computer… and Tech Consultants, in particular, have a profession that makes it pretty difficult to cut back...
Why Every Company Is a Software Company
“Software is eating the world.” I seem to be hearing and seeing that expression all over the internet lately, that it’s almost sounding like meme nowadays. But it also happens to be true. Can you think of a single type of company or organization in existence today...
Machine Learning: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love SKYNET
For any of you science fiction buffs out there, probably one of the oldest plots out there is the sentient computer or robot running amok. The HAL-9000 supercomputer from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, brags in an interview with the BBC that he is perfect and incapable of...
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
When I was a kid, one of my favorite authors was Isaac Asimov. He is most famous for his science fiction stories about robotics and machines that could think for themselves. I still clearly remember one of his stories that still haunts me to this day. It was titled...
Beware the Robot Overlords
As technology continues to dominate all aspects of our life, there is a new growing concern. The age of automation. Having been a software developer for a good number of years, I am well aware of the power of technology automation. If there is one thing a computer...