I’m on my way back from Barcelona right now and one of the things I have been thinking about is controlling my email inbox. The first day I was here, the in-flow was still it’s usual pace (a.k.a. far too much). The second day after people took note of the out-of-office reply they got, it slowed. The third day, it was even less. During the last 3 days I have sent very little email as I’ve been manning a stand here at TechEd. To me, that demonstrates that I’m actually generating in-flow probably by sending mail myself that requires a response (via email). I am going to make a conscious effort to send less email. Think before I send. Pick-up the phone. Do more digging before I reach for the “New mail” button.

Remind me of that in a week.

This leaves me in a position of distrust with TWiT… thinking: “if they are completely off with stuff I know about, are they the same with stuff I’m not an expert in?”

Steve, please bring back the Gillmor Gang… train journeys suck without it!

1. Firstly, and most crucially, for most people these days computing and IT has become a profession and not a passion. Previously people had a profession (non IT related) and would go home in the evenings and at the weekends and engage in their passion (random geekery). These days for many it has reversed. People are not willing to sacrifice their “passion-time” to go to evening events, which is when most user groups are.
2. The people that are still passionate about it tend to be “implementors” (a.k.a. “consultants”)  not users. They for the most part install, configure and walk. This can lead to groups dominated by subjects about implementing or selling the latest and greatest and not making-the-most-of-what-you-have (MTMOWYH) which is what real users care about… getting their job done faster and without it costing too much (both in re-learning time and money).
3. The placement of a number of the larger companies in the Thames Valley thing is a dampener on fun times (think pizza and beer). If you look at the groups that are really thriving in the web dev/web business area they meet in social places around where they are based, in London (e.g. Pub Standards).  Most people have to drive to events in Reading and if you don’t you won’t get home till gone 10 or 11pm for evening events.
4. The IT landscape is huge now. Forming company specific and product specific groups is a tough job. Just look at the products in the Office group, enough to keep anyone busy for a lifetime:
   Desktop Programs: Access, Accounting, Communicator, Excel, FrontPage, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Visio, Word
   Servers: Forms Server, Groove Server, Live Communications Server, PerformancePoint Server, Project Portfolio Server, Project Server, SharePoint Server, SharePoint Server for Search
   It’s the same for any large software company or product category you pick.
5. I’m sure there’s more but that’ll do for now!

After writing this list I thought perhaps I should offer some suggestions as to how address this!

1. Acknowledge that these meet-ups are generally for implementors and find different ways to address the needs of users by going to them and listening till finding a theme that resonates with them.
2. Have more daytime events. The EVO (though someone forgot the Vista part) community launch day where I made the quote to Eileen was daytime. If it’s going to be daytime it has to have explicit value to employers who are going to release their staff. Therefore the right balance of knowledge and fun is vital.
3. Change the learning style. Death by PowerPoint has to be a thing of the past. If you have to show slides co-ordinate amongst all speakers to ensure they don’t all have the same 4 initial slides showing the “introduction to the area”. I’m a big fan of the BarCamp format and I went to the first one here in the UK. Rule number one is: No Spectators, Only Participants. This is a big change for most people though so it has to be done in a gentle manner.
4. Trying to form more sector based groups (rather than product).

I’m only just starting to think about the part about dealing with the issues but I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts in the coming weeks.

It also got me thinking about the parallels in collaboration and team-work. What pointless gestures do we make to try and appear active and lively? The one that immediately came to mind was in the use of carbon copy (cc) in email. We try to include everyone and their uncle that might possibly have a stake in the thing we’re talking about. Instead of just engaging with people to fix a problem or achieve a goal we try to do that and make doubly sure we get credit for it.

[photo courtesy of Lori Tingey]

technorati tags: billgates, gordonbrown, gestures, steveclayton

Why Smarter Messaging?

In the last two businesses I’ve been involved in I’ve tried to get across to customers the concept of “Smarter Conversations”. My last business was actually called Smarter Conversations Ltd (even though the trading name was Bubble) and on my business card I had “Enabling Smarter Conversations”. The concept was inspired by a guy called Hugh McLeod (warning: some bad language) but my variation on it in making it relevant to my field is this:

If I can give you tools and skills that enable you to have the clearest, most up-to-date data when you are engaging with customers, partners and colleagues then you can have smarter conversations.

With my Bubble business this involved creating mobile applications that roaming staff could send and receive data from. With my current role it is giving people secure access to Instant Messaging applications so they can have timely synchronous conversations with each other.

So the reason I settled on “smarter messaging” as opposed to “conversations” was because I hope to be able to extend the application of this concept into all the areas I’m currently involved in and the things I hope to do. Fun times ahead…

technorati tags: smarter, conversations, messaging

In the early days of instant messaging networks it was quite easy to define the different types of systems and ways of accessing them. The two key ways used to be:

• Public: Systems run by large service companies such as MSN, Yahoo! and AOL, connected to via their own client.
• Enterprise: Private systems deployed behind the firewall such as Microsoft Live Communications Server, IBM Lotus Sametime and Jabber

I started to make a rough list of the ways you can now connect:

• Enterprise – LCS/Sametime
• Enterprise with public federation
• Public – MSN, Yahoo, AIM, AIMPro, ICQ, Google Talk, Skype, etc
• Public with federation – MSN to Yahoo!, Google to AIM
• Web Messenger – As provided by public networks
• 3rd Party Web Messenger – Meebo.com etc
• Web Messenger toolkits – Embed it into any site
• Mobile Native Client – MSN etc on Windows Mobile
• Mobile Web Messenger – in mobile browser
• Mobile Enterprise – Like LCS client on Blackberry
• IM over SMS

I know some of these have been around more than a year and I’m sure I’ve missed some off but it really is an impressive list. The challenge that we’re facing right now is how we manage users across the different access modes rather than just shut them down and loose the productivity gains. A challenge for sure!

Depending on who the user is I then list off some of the following reasons:

It can be your “Sent Items” for IM
How many times a day do you go and retrieve something from your sent items in your email program? Most of the newer IM clients have the ability to capture transcripts of your conversations but it’s usually off by default. I’ve also had problems with them moving the location of the stored messages between versions of the client, corruption occurring, forgetting which IM network I was talking to a person on, etc. However, if you have your messages logged by the server and your administrator has enabled access to your personal archives then you can just go to a web page and browse or search your archives.

It protects you against infection from virus’ of varying kinds
One of the main reasons organisations deploy IM security systems is the virus protection. IM is a totally different infection path to email and the attacks are increasingly sophisticated. They can include the virus chatting to you first before sending you a link that sends you off to a web page to get infected. Generally the people on your contact list in IM are usually people you know and trust and so when one of them sends you something you click it blindly.

It protects your contacts against infection from you!
I’ve heard some great stories in the past of very senior IT staff specialising in IM getting infected then passing the infection onto their teams! Can you imagine how embarrassed they were? Your contact lists may include suppliers and clients, would you like to be the one who sent them the virus that killed their system and lost them a whole heap of productivity?

There are plenty more benefits to the users but those mentioned above are usually enough to convince someone it’s not just another “big brother” ploy!

“I thought it was a later version of the NaDa system”.

I’d never seen that great site before (the only bug is a great part). It’s not a joke, I promise… and our clients who are beginning to experiment with probably hope that too!

Here’s the pitch:

Strict – you must follow the current process
Fluid – you can change the process at a moments notice

This collides with the concept of trying to promote process to Small and Medium businesses that don’t currently embrace them in a formal fashion.

Have some process, follow it, test its results, change it, test it again, etc!

Why are you afraid of process?

Is it because it gets in the way of intuition?

I spend a lot of time railing against organizations and teams that fall in love with process at the expense of innovation. This is not a post about that.

It’s about the opposite.

Our culture embraces the intuitive craftsman. We don’t talk about Harlequin Romances or artists who paint by number. Heroism is about writing a novel or making a sale based on what’s deep inside of you… not by following a prescribed pattern.

….

If process makes you nervous, it’s probably because it threatens your reliance on intuition. Get over it. The best processes leverage your intuition and give it room to thrive.

That is a quote from a recent post on Seth Godin’s excellent blog (well worth reading the whole thing)… I love the way this collides with the thoughts I’ve been developing on Thingamy. Process is something that causes most people in small and medium businesses to raise their eyebrows and tut because they believe that “it’ll just mean the boss interfering. In large enterprises an individual’s entire department is often part of a huge orcastrated set of processes to them so their understanding of where they fit in is often hidden from them and wrapped in several suffocating levels of politics.

Think about the situation I’ve been considering for Thingamy… A company who’s value is in creating original entertainment material for distribution through various “channels”. What is their most valuable asset? The “idea”. However, they don’t make their money from the “idea” they make it from the “execution” of it. The ideas though are so important and build the intellectual capital of the company and therefore the capture of them is essential. What I was originally looking for was something to support the development of what I was calling the “ideas bank” but what I see Thingamy’s value is being able to extend beyond the bank and track an idea to its execution and beyond. What this will do in effect is not only please The Management (because they’ll see where the bottlenecks are etc) but also The Workers (because they’ll get credit for the original idea). Coming full circle back to the quote that started this ramble where it talks of being “nervous” about process, where a bunch of creatives who would be nervous or reluctant about it, they will now hopefully see the benefit that is brings by increasing the visibility and viability of their ideas.

Have no fear! Embrace the process!