Category Archives: Industry

ELNs and Data Portability

By Simon Coles | Published: July 13, 2010
I recall back in the late 90′s a lot of discussion at CENSA meetings about the need to move data between different systems, and of course from one ELN to another. From the customer’s perspective it is a really important issue although sadly one that doesn’t get enough attention until they are committed to a [...]
Also posted in Records Management, SaaS | Leave a comment

Software licensing models

By Simon Coles | Published: June 2, 2010
The Register has a good article on Software Licensing Models which is a useful primer if you’ve never had to encounter this wonderful world before… I thought it might be worthwhile examining our choices in this area from a vendor perspective. I know some Lab Informatics and especially ELN vendors have some quite complex models, [...]
Also posted in Amphora, Sales | Leave a comment

The Apple & Adobe Flash fight just got funny

By Simon Coles | Published: May 14, 2010
I’ve been following the Adobe/Apple fight about Flash on the iPhone & iPad with some interest, and I must say my sympathies are with Apple, especially when you consider how much of a CPU hog Flash is on the Mac. So far so boring. In a move that I take as more of a sign [...]
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Electronic Lab Notebook Requirements – possible pitfalls

By Simon Coles | Published: March 2, 2010
Project teams have been drawing up lists of requirements since the dawn of time, and since that first list the fate of a project has to a great extent been sealed the moment the requirements have been finalized. I wrote this article by accident but I thought it was worth blogging as it explores the specific problems with requirements gathering and RFPs in the ELN industry and suggests some probably unrealistically hopeful solutions. Wouldn't it be delightful if RFPs contained a final sections with questions such as:
  • “If you could remove 5 of our requirements what would they be and why?”
  • “What are the most expensive/troublesome requirements listed above?”
  • “Which of these requirements do you think we don’t really need, based on your experience of similar projects?”
  • “What are we missing?”
  • “If you were us, what are the three things you would be most worried about going forward?”
  • “Please rate our chance of success if we go with you, and if we go with another vendor, with reasons”
Also posted in Project Management, RFPs | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The speed of human progress

By Simon Coles | Published: February 22, 2010
Fascinating factoid from this post on Alertbox about the improvements in usabilty over the years: Human progress happens at 4% per year, averaged across many fields, ranging from 2% to 7% How interesting! I wonder what the state of play is for ELNs…. I suspect we’d like to think it’s something like 10% or 20%, [...]
Also posted in ELN Design | Leave a comment