So why do we make it so complicated ??
Category Archives: Being a CIO
Enterprise 2.0
I was fortunate to meet up with Andrew McAfee from Harvard Business School (blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee) last week, discussing the growth of social networking software inside organisations – commonly called Enterprise 2.0 – so I thought I would add some content here on my observations, leanings and views. Most of you will know from my posts on “learning from my kids” and “facebook” that I am quite keen on this topic
About the best definition I can find so far for this stuff is “… the use of existing and emerging social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.” So that basically covers blogs, wikis, content tagging, social networks, RSS etc
As Andrew says
Despite the hype, these are genuinely new technologies which offer the potential for an organisation to be far more effective around innovation, collaboration, knowledge sharing and collective intelligence. Unfortunately the bariers to adoption now seem to be the lack of foresight or draconian policies of the IT department (or maybe even the irrational fears of some CIOs) rather than the willingness of the customers to embrace the solutions on offer.
There are some simple trends that seem to be driving the adoption of E2.0 solutions
- Software has become simple, social and inclusive. Technology is now actually being used to connect rather than alienate or frustrate people.
- Network effect – all of these solutions improve with scale so its in the interests of participants to promote use and “market” their new found information and connections
- “Platforms” are replacing channels – Web 2.0 promotes the move from channels to platforms (email is a 1.0 channel – a one to one conversation that has no interactivity or contribution). In a web 2.0 world the platforms aspire to be universal, visible and open to the broadest possible interaction.
- Most Web2.0 tools have a distinct lack of upfront structure but they have mechanisms in place that allows structure to emerge. This is a really new (and potentially frightening concept for IT folks) – get out of the way of the customers and almost give them a blank slate. Conventional IT has lots of rules and structure. It slots people into roles, assigns privileges to roles, define workflows and data formats etc. This is not wrong, but applying this approach universally can be barrier to collaboration and innovation. Web 2.0 tools (praticularly inside an enterprise) requires a bit more sublety – segmentation if you will – making sure that the appropriatre tools and services are available to the right people. Wikipedia is a great example of managed collaboration – with great self selection and editing. Del.icio.us allows you to store bookmarks online and share them but people tag their entries, not based on any predefined lists, but entirely on the words they choose themselves.
Adoption Challenges
The biggest challenge for any new solution is usually down to replacing or superceeding what already exists. Email is the most common collaboration tool – however bad we think it is !! – and for anything new there will always be a level of personal evaluation between an incumbent technology and a prospect technology. Remember that customers rarely make rational lists to come to a decision. An existing or incumbent solution is over-weighted – often by a factor of 3 and the new proposition is under-weighted by a similar amount. So new concepts often have to be at least 9x better than existing systems.
So what do I think…
I think Enterprise 2.0 is going to be the difference between innovative and laggard companies. The ones who can embrace and harness the potential from a connected and collaborative organisation will simply be streets ahead of their competritors
Dramatic increase in the number of proud parents whose sons ‘do something with computers’
The government has been criticised for cutting the number of staff working for the British Jobs Survey, and relying instead on information gathered from the elderly parents of those in work.
The latest figures based on this method of collecting employment data has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people who ‘do something in computers’ with the encouraging news that 100% of them ‘are doing very well.’ Other jobs that were revealed to be on the increase were ‘working in London’, ‘something to do with money’ and ‘in a very smart office’. According to the survey of parents, not a single individual was reported to be working as a ‘senior financial advisor to systems analyst set ups’ although this may have been covered by the wider demographic described as ‘working for a big firm who are one of the top ones.’‘It is ridiculous to attempt to rely on this sort of vague and ill informed data,’ said Professor Sally-Anne Donohue, Senior Statistician at the British Jobs Survey.
However her authority to comment on such matters was brought into question by her official entry in the Elderly Parents’ survey. According to the latest information ‘Sally-Anne’s still working at the moment, yes, which is a shame. I think she’s a secretary or something. But these days it’s actually quite common for a girl to work for a little while before you start a family.
I expect she’ll meet a nice man soon and be able to stay at home. Our Bryan’s doing very well though. He’s something to do with computers…’
…..another gem brought to you by newsbiscuit
Is green the new black ?? …. I hope not !!
Having just come back from a week of discussing ‘green IT’ with folks in Silicon Valley, I have to admit to being a little worried and frustrated. Two things bother me.
Firstly, whilst there seems to be a fair level of activity and some well intentioned chest beating and lobbying, there is a distinct lack of agreed process and structure to many initiatives – which is surprising from IT folks. If there is one thing we’re supposedly good at, it’s all the ‘metrics, process and standards’ stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not diminishing the commitment or intent, but from what I saw, there seems to be only aspiration targets being set and no common method for measuring or comparing progress.
As you would expect, the most successful initiatives have a positive business case but most of these reached their tipping point as a result of the available subsidies and not from an underlying commercial commitment.
Secondly, and perhaps more worrying, is the spin around the IT industry about being “seen to be green”, which extends to the shameless re-branding of existing solutions as “Green technologies”. The most blatant is the current spin around virtualization. This is great technology, be it VMware, Solaris Containers, SWsofts cross platform solution or whatever flavour you like, but its hardly new and was only recently classed as ‘green’. If I recall correctly, it was originally about improving utilisation and speed to market.
Now as an industry, IT is an easy target – hell we still have Y2K and he dot com bomb to live down so the last thing we need is being seen to be jumping on a green bandwagon. So let’s be sensible here. The technology community has a huge responsibility here to both reduce our current consumption (by our, I mean our organisation – IT footprint might go up to deliver overall corporate savings) and drive innovation to find new power sources and processing options/methods. Let’s make sure however as technology and business leaders we measure effectively and realistically, take justifiable credit for the right things, avoid the seductive voices of a ‘re-branding quick fix’ and accept the challenges of this inconvenient truth.
JMHO
The power of social networks …
I’ve long been interested in the social networking phenomena and particularly how it polarises opinions. Of all the recent incarnations, the one that has polarised the most opinion has to be Facebook. Now, I’ve posted before about it (and if you want a more in depth view I can heartily recommend JP Rangaswami‘s blog – confused of calcutter) but this mornings FT.com article made me smile and I just had to post part of it here.
Under the title Facebook Revolt forces HSBC U-turn the article reports that …
“….HSBC on Thursday reversed its decision to take away students’ interest-free overdrafts as soon as they leave university after it suffered a consumer revolt by graduates on the pages of Facebook, the cult social-networking site.
The bank said it was not “too big” to listen to customers and that it would freeze interest charges on overdrafts up to £1,500 for students who graduated this summer, repaying any interest charged in August……. ”
“……The move would have cost a graduate who had the maximum interest-free overdraft of £1,500 nearly £12 a month, or more than £142 a year. But a group set up a month ago on Facebook by Wes Streeting, a vice-president of the National Union of Students, called “Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-Off”, attracted strong support from members of the social-networking site which is hugely popular with students and graduates.
The group, which attracted more than 5,000 members, caused acute embarrassment to HSBC at a time when all high street banks are busy marketing their services to young people arriving at university for the first time this September.
Mr Streeting said: “There can be no doubt that using Facebook made the world of difference to our campaign.
“By setting up a group on a site that is incredibly popular with students, it enabled us to contact our members during the summer vacation far more easily than would otherwise have been possible.
“It also meant that we could involve our former members – the graduates who were going to be most affected by this policy.”
“….. On Thursday Andy Ripley, HSBC’s head of product development, announced the climbdown and said the bank would work with the NUS to “enhance our new account offer so that it fully reflects the needs of recent graduates”.
Members of the group celebrated the bank’s U-turn by posting messages on the campaign’s Facebook page…”
As Wolfie Smith would say – power to the people !
On immersion therapy ….
… or why grown ups just don’t get it (…..and maybe we never will)
I posted a long time ago about Second Life and Facebook and how I didn’t really understand the attraction of either. Just to recap, I considered Second Life to be an unsatisfactory role based gaming experience and I didn’t understand why we needed yet another way to interact and communicate online using Facebook.
I was of course deluged by people who would gleefully tell me that “I just didn’t get it”. As was my wont back then, I listened carefully, read diligently and then simply concluded that everyone was wrong 🙂
Well it turns out that I was wrong – I didn’t get it ….. and the worrying thing is that my generation (if you don’t know me, I’ve slipped into the wrong half of my mid forties) don’t get it and in all probability may never get it.
The “it” that I’m referring to is what happens when someone immerses themselves completely in an experience. I realised this when a colleague (of similar age) and I were discussing our Second Life and Facebook experiences. What became clear was that we used them as you would use any other computer applications or game. We started them up, used them for a while, shut them down, went and used something else, came back etc etc ….. which is a very structured and detached relationship. My kids, and those that I know, use these solutions very differently. They immerse themselves in them. In the case of Second Life, adopting genuine persona’s, constructing new relationships/interactions and behaving in a new way as a result. Actually, if you watch committed gamers playing the current genre of networked computer games they do the same. It seems to be the same with Facebook. Of course my daughter could phone, txt, IM or email her friends to tell them how shes feeling – but she doesn’t – she updates her status in Facebook to reflect her mood and then interacts with her friends using it (and its associated application)s to communicate all manner of related feelings, information and activities as a result.
And maybe that’s the point, and the real reason why ‘grown ups don’t get it’. We’ve forgotten what its like to be immersed in something and to engage at that level. We are too thoughtful and practical. We are looking to use something to get something done. We are academically interested and deal in practicality rather than allowing ourselves to become immersed in the emotional impact.
Maybe its just part of growing up ….and maybe, if we really want to understand this stuff, we need to stop behaving and thinking like adults. Now, what would that bring … ???
Just a thought …
Sometimes people just need to be told….
you can empower, cajole, encourage, influence, create climates…….
but sometimes you just have to say it as it is.
Feeling very humble
I’m feeling very humble this morning (and even a little embarrassed) having heard that I’ve been voted one of the Top 50 CIO’s in the UK. Having looked at the list of my peers I am truly in exhaulted company so a big thanks to Silicon.com and everyone who voted me into this listing.
I’ll do my best to justify the position so keep an eye out here on the “On about being a CIO” tag for some little snippets and my views on stuff
Thanks again
Some thoughts on IT relationships (from 2005)
……shamelessly lifted from my work with David Taylor, Author of the Naked Leader series and someone who I am privileged to consider an inspiration, a colleague and friend. His blog on IT leadership is here
The future is your choice – so seize the moment …
- Approach – Be “business first and business always
- Language – Remember that you are the business – make sure everyone speaks “Business English”.
- Service Levels – trusted customer relationships are more important than “service levels”
- Technology – Focus on what it does – people don’t care what it is
- You – Take control of your personal brand – People ask “What’s she/he like?”
Some things to consider
Please try to stop using the term “the business” which in itself creates separation – you are the business. “Users” is a term reserved for drug addicts – avoid it – we have customers !
Don’t, that’s don’t use IT terms and acronyms that your customers don’t understand. Explain concepts in the language of business, based on the key drivers/metrics that concern our customers (ie revenue, profit, cost, etc)
Please focus on what technology can do to drive revenue, create new capabilities, automate processes, attract new customers and delight existing ones – talk about what it does, not what it is (unless you’re a technology company, no-one cares what it is …. especially your customers).
Development must be flexible – project life cycles have to get shorter. Accept that people have the right to change their minds and turn on a sixpence. The time line for projects is weeks and months, not months and years.
Run your projects as if they were a profit centre – every project (even infrastructure development) must be a business project and you must take on the role of ensuring benefits are realised.
Remove the negatives around IT. Whenever I want something from the IT Department, why is the answer “No” – make it “Yes” and we’ll start from there
…….and most of all.
You are all your own “shop window”. Be visible, honest, open and transparent. Remove the smoke and mirrors, take personal ownership and deliver and exceptional IT experience. Take personal pride in everything you do.
A bit about me
from CIO.com
The Accidental CIO 