If you were alive and watching TV through the 90s, you probably saw - or at least heard of - ABC's long running "Home Improvement" - starring Tim Allen - and giving a start to Pamela Anderson (Lee) - whose career nearly EVERYBODY should know.  It was a show about "Tim 'the tool man' Taylor" and his family.  Tim was the "host" of a TV Show called "TOOL TIME" - a fictitious handyman show that was sponsored by the equally fictitious Binford Tools. But one of the things that Tim was ALWAYS looking for was "MORE POWER!" from his tools - and just about everything else in his life.  Tim's tinkering with tools would often lead to disastrous results - with an over-powered tool that did far more than it should and was usually pretty destructive. The other day, I wrote a bit about the power of DETAILS in our EDI world.  But this morning, I was reminded that - even with all the details in the world - we're nothing without the tools to use them.  And how our actions and all the details we can monitor and provide, how they're for nothing if the users don't use the tools we provide them. This concept of TOOLS and how we should use them was pushed to the forefront of My ...

With all due respect to Right Said Fred, I’ll take a bit of their song and use it… But, let’s face it - EDI isn’t sexy. It’s not glamorous… We’re not going to get many invites to black-tie-and-beaded-gown-red-carpet-fancy events. There are no EDI “Oscars” or “Emmys” or “Tony Awards” or anything like that. There’s just data. And details. Lots and lots of details. And they do say that “the devil is in the details”… And do I know a thing or two about details! I’ve often been told that I sometimes put in TOO much detail. When I was taking some creative writing courses in college, one teacher was always fascinated and enthralled by the amount of details I’d provide in a story and another always warned Me about too much detail - to let the reader create the image in their mind, of their experiences. If you’ve read much of My work on EDI Talk (or My latest blog over at Inovis), you’ll know I do tend to go into some details - and, yes, sometimes get a bit off track with them… Now, where were we…? OH! Yes. Details. And not the men’s fashion magazine! Truly, however, it is just those details and our attention to them that can make or break our EDI career. How well we provide ...

Check out Craigs "Back to Basics with EDI 101" post at the Invois blog here: http://blogs.inovis.com/2008/09/11/back-to-basics-with-edi-101/ Craig covers the basics of EDI, why it exists, communications, and standards.  Its a great read for those new to the EDI world. Basically, at the core, EDI is a way of sending data back and forth between two entities. It can be two companies, two universities, or two hospitals; even two divisions of the same big company or corporation. EDI is used in a large number of industries - from retail sales and automotive manufacturing, to banks, hospitals, insurance and so many other industries and uses...

The old saying used as a title for this blog relates back to an earlier and simpler time – before EDI, that’s for sure – and relates to British currency.  They have the Pound and the Penny and even a Half-Penny, too.  But this was all brought about by topic in the Inovis Trusted Link group (over on Yahoo!) that got Me to thinking about AS2 and costs and related things – again.  Not that I think about AS2 a lot, but… But what being "penny wise and pound foolish" means (basically) is that your so concerned with the pennies and how they're being spent, you kind of lose sight of how you're spending your pounds.  Or dollars and cents...  It's all pretty much the same.  But it's all about being so concerned with the small stuff - the petty details - that you lose sight of the BIG picture - the final outcome. Anyway, the original poster over there was wondering on where he could receive some “AS2 training” – and everybody then kind of went off into the “oh, we use ______ for our AS2 connection and love it!” kind of comments – but very few seemed to offer an answer to the poster about his question – AS2 TRAINING. Like there is such a thing! “But, ...

In some recent readings on other websites - geez, you'd wonder if I actually have a job with all the reading and blogging I do - there have been recent posts, blogs, commends, entries and more, about how it seems like the old adage about the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing is still alive and well and with us today - no life support needed... Over on the EDI-L board, one of our own forum members, Earl, was discussing - well - venting - about his current client and some issues with testing through one of those 3rd party EDI providers (won't mention any names!)...  But if you read it, you know.  Anyway, part of this goes back to the trading partner of his client - we'll call them ABC COMPANY, INC....  So, in good faith and in following with the concepts of implementation, Earl's been working to complete the testing for his client to trade with ABC Company.  Now it turns out that the division at ABC Company that they've been testing for has been sold off to another company - XYZ, LLC.  And now testing is no longer needed. Forget about the costs that the client has encountered in testing with the EDI provider.  Forget about the costs that have ...