John Kirkwood Technology Consulting

I'm on my way back to Abidjan for two days of presentations (I know, terrible for the environment! We were requested) Well, my Montreal connection to Brussels was late, so they've rerouted me through Addis Ababa via Paris (yes, I'll be flying out of Addis in an Ethiopian Airways jet). I had a day in Paris so I zoomed downtown and, besides walking along La Seine in the beautiful Spring weather, admiring the young lovers everywhere, I spent 3 hours finishing the report on my laptop in a bistro in Le Marais. So, I got paid to eat in a Parisian Bistro! Pretty good.

After three 11-hours days of hotels, taxis and offices, the team I'm working with finally headed out for a fantastic Ivoirien meal at a beautiful, chill, bougainvilleas-surrounded, seaside restaurant! Work hard, play hard?? I'm very grateful to be working in Côte d'Ivoire!

I'm very excited to have just signed a contract to help Salanga.org provide a recommendation on an nutrition M&E system for a major African development organization. This allows me to combine three things I love: technology consulting, international development, and travelling to places very different from my home. I fly to Abidjan on Monday, and Nairobi the following week!

"Best of 2017: 30 Web Apps and Software Trends That Ruled the Workplace" I'm finding that there's an emerging ecosystem where apps are linked to revolutionize how organizations work. That is, if you're open to powerful, Cloud-based micro-apps leveraging trusted connections. Nimble. Inexpensive. Easy-to-use. Agnostic. Inter-operable. Simple but flexible. I believe this model is replacing the SAP / Oracle / Microsoft behemoths of the world. Think a universal Bluetooth connectio...n between you, your data, and your clients. I'm helping a client enable their eCommerce site to share orders with its point-of-sale system, which shares sales with its accounting system, which records employee timesheets (that employees recorded themselves on their cell phones) to produce payroll. See Zapier's post on emerging Cloud business apps (Zapier, and DSYNC, are open incarnations of Biztalk / WebSphere in the Cloud - for my legacy friends).

I'm working with a client right now where I'm being asked to write a complex report to be pushed up several levels of hierarchy so that standard solutions consistently never fail. They will use 6 levels of governance to approve this. I realize much of my frustration is because this work seems so remote from providing the innovation and timeliness their users are clamoring for. Then this post came along. Some jobs are more challenging than others!

Updated my website (www.johnkirkwood.ca) with this photo from my Ottawa Arts Council profile - thanks OAC!

Pitching in helping my client, #thymeandagaininottawa at #CanadasTable event - 1,000 seat dinner prepared by some of Canada's finest chefs!

Thanks for liking my page! What am I doing recently? I'm leading a Digital Transformation project for MedicAlert Foundation Canada, including replacing their legacy CRM and website with Cloud-based, eCommerce-centric solution set. Also helping them migrate from legacy Microsoft Office to collaboration-enabled Google G Suite, and replacing hosted SAGE with Cloud-connected accounting. It's exciting to be working with such bold leadership for an inspiring organization!

Hi everyone, I hope you and your loved ones are taking care of yourselves during this crazy, world-wide COVID-19 crisis. I wish you calm perseverance to get through this until we can meet in person again. We can do this by working "together". In the meantime, if your organization needs help in how to work effectively while not being able to meet in person, there are many tools and techniques available that you can use. Please let me know if you'd like help evaluating your opt...ions and - yes - opportunities. Be well! John

I'm so lucky to be able to work with such varied and interesting clients! I just met with Inter Pares and hope to work with them in the coming year (shh - it's a secret!) https://interpares.ca/content/about-us