Business@Hand
About Us
Coming to you from deep in Caledonia Woods, Business@Hand
is a project of John and Joseph Rowland. John has been involved in the nuts
and bolts of business and technology for fifteen years. It has consistently
been his business objective to:
Be a leader in the implementation of information technology as an asset
for driving best practices in education, business and industry.
We are believers in lifelong learning. John has the dubious honor
of originating the Rowland Hierarchy of Learning (after a similar
concept of human need by A. Maslow.)
He has consistently found that learning follows this diagram, unless, of
course, the learner decides to give up somewhere along the way. Mastery should
always be the goal. Because lifelong learning is integral to
his worldview, he has been able to add new technologies to his portfolio
along the way.
Palm Computing is one of those technologies.
John Rowland:
Backgrounder
Not having gotten a Computer Science degree, I have had to gain my knowledge
and experience just as described above. In my early 30's, when I was
working for a retailer who computerized their entire operation, the benefit
of technology began to dawn on me. I changed careers! After a brief
stint as a sales rep for a major PC retailer accompanied by some moonlighting
for my customers, I had my first opportunity to "roll up my sleeves" and
get down to the business of "technologizing" a small business.
That opportunity came in the form of a manufacturer who was a supplier to
the Big Three automakers. Skills and technologies developed there included:
Novell NetWare, integrated manufacturing management / accounting systems,
Microsoft and Lotus office applications, financial management and reporting,
Total Quality Management practices.
In addition to systems analysis and application development, I had the
opportunity to wear many hats at various times during my eight years
with the company, including Quality Manager, Controller and General Manager.
From there, an illness in the family prompted relocation. With that,
I moved on to a much larger company. I accepted an engagement with a Fortune
500 chemical manufacturer. My title was Programmer/Analyst, but in addition
to programming, my responsibilities included managing hardware assets,
maintaining two large fiber-optic campuses, one of which was the largest
in the state at that time, applications support, and Windows NT
administration.
Critical technologies and skills I "pyramided" here were fiber optics, SQL,
Oracle, Windows NT, Crystal Reports and probably most important:
Lotus Notes and Palm Computing. (See the
Snapshots page for related anecdotes.)
Today
I am currently engaged in the roll-out of retail systems to
approximately 500 convenience store sites across the eastern U.S. in a triangular
area roughly bounded by Texas, Michigan and Florida. This project is
a joint venture between a Fortune 1000 oil company and Wal-Mart.
This current position has given further "pyramiding" opportunities in
Windows NT and Lotus Notes programming, having gained certification
as a Notes Programmer in 1999. Additional technologies: RF (wireless
radio frequency) networking.
It was my travels with this project that brought me into the fold of Palm
owners. Having done development for Palms in the past, I recognized
the potential of the devices, but never owned one of my own. It is from
that standpoint of owner and user that I hope to comment in these pages.
Future
In the future, it is my intention to continue "pyramiding" Notes and
Palm Computing. I am currently working on a Palm to PC database
solution using web forms for the data collection user interface tied to
a db backend via http server. Additional technologies that I hope to
develop will be Linux servers (and Notes on Linux,) Linux desktops,
TCL scripting and OLE/ActiveX/VBA <-> LotusScript (because Lotus has
never produced any decent component technology add-ins for Notes, though
they have tried.)
Stay tuned to this site for further developments.
Education and Technical
Training
1977
B.A. Speech. Emporia State University.
1992
QOS Quality Systems Reporting, Ford Motor Company.
Statistical Process Control I. Eastern Michigan University.
Synchronous Manufacturing. General Motors.
1993
Statistical Process Control II. Eastern Michigan Univ.
Measurement Systems Assessment. Eastern Michigan Univ.
Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing. General Motors.
Introduction to Management. Ivy Tech State College.
Introduction to Cobol Programming. Ivy Tech State College.
Design, Logic and Programming. Ivy Tech State College.
1994
Advanced Cobol Programming, Ivy Tech State College.
C Language Programming, Ivy Tech State College.
1996
Lotus Notes Administration I, Teknowlogy.
Lotus Notes Application Development I, Teknowlogy.
1997
Lotus Notes Application Development II, Albemarle.
SQL Datamodel Training, IBS Houston.
1999
Lotus Notes Programmer Certification, Tekmetrics.
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