We’ve worked on a couple of software evaluation projects this year – and have had to wrestle with all 4 clients on this one topic:  Don’t ask questions to software vendors if you don’t know what you are going to do with the answer.

For example, a couple of my clients were requesting 5 (five!) years of financial statements.  My questions to them:  What are you looking for – low debt, liquidity, earnings - what?  What constitutes a healthy financial statement?  I get a lot of blank stares, and at times, anger.  If you had to focus on one thing in the evaluation of a software company (not the product, the company)…my recommendation would be to look at the health and breadth of their prospect pipeline.  More on this another day.

Just finished reading the book “Distracted:  The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age” by Maggie Jackson, in which she warns of  “an institutionalized culture of interruption, when your time is taken by a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages, and tweets.” — rendering the afflicted incapable of deep thought, creativity or peace of mind…

People have given up their souls to this stuff (just saw in a news article where a high school teen said:  I would DIE if I had to go to school without my cell phone), as if, because you own a car, you must be in it driving somewhere 24/7, non-stop, endlessly.  Or because you own a toaster you must stand there making toast every minute you are awake…

If you can make the time, it’s a good read…David