Doug Wagner, Author at Sunwapta Solutions

6 Mar 2009

Bench or Busy?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:33:13-06:00March 6th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

The other day I read something about how having a lot of technical staff or developers on the bench was a strength for a vendor (this predates the current economy).

I suppose they are thinking, "Hey we can respond to your needs more quickly".

I guess you can put a positive marketing spin on anything.

Having been on both sides of the equation (vendor and customer), I don't see it as a positive thing at all.

Why are all those people on the bench?

Personally, I want the vendor and people that everyone else wants. If they are busy it should mean that […]

5 Mar 2009

Value and Price Trade-offs (Lessons from Session)

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:33:25-06:00March 5th, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

Observations in real life can be useful if you take the time to look.

A Celtic music session I go to here in Calgary recently saw the pub we were holding it in close its doors permanently. Some new options have come up all the way from the far southeast quadrant to a more central southern location (or two).

People from the session live all over Calgary. As we have been exploring new locations, there has been considerable debate around both value (the quality and features of the session) and price (essentially location since there is no admission fee).

There is a […]

4 Mar 2009

What Makes a Good Developer?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:33:29-06:00March 4th, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Dream Teams, Software Development|

I think that "good" is partly a matter of perspective.

For a development team member, a good developer may have some or all of the following skills and attributes:

Team player,
Strong object oriented design and development skills,
Strong in the technical stack the team is using,
Agile experience,
Willingness and ability to learn and embrace new things,
TDD/DDD abilities,
Working knowledge of testing frameworks/concepts,
Etc.

From a management or business perspective you could also add some of the following:

Ability to estimate and then meet commitments,
Likely to stick around,
Marketable skills,
Focused on working client solutions and not just the latest technology,
Able to work with and communicate well with clients,
Able to generate […]

2 Mar 2009

Feed a Need – Serving the Community

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-20T20:36:03-06:00March 2nd, 2009|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Non-Profits and Community|Tags: Community, Feed a Need, Fundraising|

A few years ago, one of my business partners (Al Dhalla) and a long-time friend of his (Al Mohammed) started helping recent immigrants to Calgary by finding people wishing to give away furniture and matching them with people needing furniture.

Thus “Feed a Need” was born.

Since then, the program has grown to include people of all faiths with a genuine need earning them a nomination for a YMCA Peace Award and attention from the media.

Many of the recipients of the program have volunteered their time to help […]

27 Feb 2009

Lessons from Survivor

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:33:39-06:00February 27th, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership|

Ok, I admit I might watch Survivor on occasion. The game in survivor is to manage to be the last person voted off. But it is as much a social game as it is a physical or mental game.

Among the biggest reasons for getting voted off are being annoying or being seen as a leader. The correlation between the two is interesting. Many leaders end up being annoying.

This seems to parallel the real world. One of the biggest reasons for employee dissatisfaction is a bad boss. The big difference is you can seldom vote out your boss in the real world.

How […]

26 Feb 2009

Seth’s Blog Turns 3000

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:33:44-06:00February 26th, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing|

Seth Godin just recently posted his 3000th post. My count is 82 including the one that is being released tonight.

That is a lot of writing and work but it has paid off for him with a strong readership which I am sure translates to cold hard cash… he is a master marketer after all.

Some lessons there about hard work and persistence but I doubt most will hear it in today's world of instant "everything".

26 Feb 2009

Time to Sprint Again

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T16:31:00-06:00February 26th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

Sunwapta Solutions has been in business almost 9 years. Just like any budding or experienced entrepreneur, you do some things right and make some mistakes along the way.

Over the past couple of years we have been really revisiting what makes a business successful. You can read some of my archive collection for what I have learned and shared to date.

More recently we’ve launched a number of initiatives and are in the process of forming or solidifying what I hope are lasting and successful partnerships. The ink isn’t dry yet on the arrangements but I am very excited by the potential. I […]

19 Feb 2009

Happy 20th!

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:33:56-06:00February 19th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

Our sister company in Toronto entered its 20th year in business this year.

They share a lot of similarities with us (Sunwapta Solutions) both in size, market segment and their growth plans. We have done a lot of work in the pension (actuarial) space and they are focused on the insurance (actuarial) space. We also share the same technology stack (Microsoft and .NET) for our development efforts.

Even more importantly, we share many of the same business goals and values. They respect their customers and value long-term relationships.

Every person and company needs "friends and family" to support each other in […]

17 Feb 2009

Going Against the Herd

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:34:00-06:00February 17th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

I used to ride horses quite a bit. Now in the food chain, horses are naturally big prey. They survive by running from big predators or if cornered by kicking them. They are highly in tune with the herd.

If one horse panics, generally the whole group panics. If one horse looks like it's going somewhere important (better food) they all follow the leader.

Fear and greed motivate horses.

The job of the media is not to give us the news. It's to sell news. We all know this.

The financial industry is there to make money from us, not make us rich. […]

13 Feb 2009

Social Network Disease

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:34:05-06:00February 13th, 2009|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Marketing|

I was reading a post by Stuart Crawford today. I meet Stuart in person the other day. He's off on a brave new venture with BulletproofIT. I've extracted a piece of his post here as it was such a vivid mental image.

"In our Red Deer office we have a picture of a guy holding onto his computer for dear life, stating that all his friends are in there."

Good reminder that people live in the real world and the social web should merely be a way of connecting with them better, not a replacement for the real […]

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