Scott Prather's The People Generation

What is the goal?

2007-10-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

I often sit in customer meetings thinking to myself, "why are they doing this?". I do this not because I think of myself as so much more enlightened than them, but because I want to understand the motivations for the task(s) at hand. Often times attractive slide decks are placed together to convey such points but they often miss the human factor and are solely focused on some bottom line financial component. What I have uncovered being in the consulting world for the last two years though is that the "why" question is such an iceberg. If you had 8 people in the room, there would be 16 different answers, but the important thing is that more than 1/2 of them would be personal.

I have seen some great consultants in my time in this industry. The good ones know how to get to this and how to pull out all 16 answers. They ask questions such as "how do we make you, specifically, successful". They understand that there are motivations that go way beyond the corporate strategy presentation with every group. They also understand that technology, project and solution success is at risk because of these motivations. I think one of the saddest realizations I had in my recent job was that I got to really see that a particular technologies success or failure really had little to do with how good the technology was. Now granted if the technology was horrid then it failed. However, if selection was clearly better than another it had no bearing if that lesser one was going to make the decision maker more successful. The "no one got fired for buying IBM..errr...Microsoft" is prevalent. It might not be the best decision but it is a safe one.

"What is the goal"? I would say if software companies want to be successful in the long run do the following:

1) Build a safe brand
2) Team with the consultants that are really consulting and not just implementing
3) Teach your own folks to solution sell and get at the root of what is going on.

Anyway, I would also like to remember that there are larger goals out there. I got reminded of that this week when two individuals I would call friends have been nailed with Stage 4 cancers. One of them is still fighting the fight and needs help. Anything you can do, head to http://ottoschutt.com/ and read.

Data Visualization

2007-09-05T02:16:00.000-04:00

There has been a shift in how data is consumed in the last 5 to 8 years. Appropriately so, I believe the consuming data in context and particularly the proper use of process based portals has changed how the typical end-user believes they should be able to find information. Over the next 5 to 8 years I believe the contextual process based mini-portals will become the norm for consumption (some call these mashups). During that time I believe another shift will occur and that is how we view the data that is now gathered in one place. Data Visualization is a term I take a little bit of leeway with. People usually stove pipe data visualization but to me it can mean any image or model that is driven or associated with data. By the way, I like to remind people that this is not a new thing either. The GIS community has been doing this for a decade. The spreadsheet folks have been doing this for longer than that with its charting and mapping capabilities. We were even doing this in Lotus Notes back in the early to mid 90s with hotspot images front-ending a database application.

The reason that I think data visualization is that next wave is for two reasons. The first reason is that for complex processes it is the simplest means for consuming mashed up data. Take a product like OpenView or Tivoli. No one really wants to wade through all of the different log files, patch information, system components, etc… they just want to look at a network topology map and see if the box/line/etc… is green or red. In these types of instances, there is data overload when simply monitoring the exception and quickly understanding what that exception means in context is the most important task. The second reason is that we are getting a huge wave into the workforce of users in the US that are gamers. Gamers are use to data visualization. Go play WoW, EQ2, Half Life, Vanguard, CoH, etc… and you soon get an idea of the vast amount of data that is contained in a world of nothing but visualization. Spend some time in Sims online or Second Life and you see the same model alive and well in a virtual but not game specific community. These users will demand data visualization because they understand the power of it. Being a gamer for so long, I might be biased on this but personally I am deeply excited.

For me I see data visualization as the end to the document/record model we are so trapped in today and instead data could take any form. Think of it like nature in that data is the DNA that makes up the final organism (visualization). The visualization layers will become just as dynamic and will be able to take form based on the smallest component’s sequencing, function and placement. If you want to see someone that gets it, go check out www.bridgeborn.com Their Bridgeworks Engine/Platform shows just a piece of what they are capable of and just a pinhole for where this area is going but man what a sight and hope through that pinhole!!

Multi-Computer

2007-08-08T07:28:00.000-04:00

I watched the new iMac launch yesterday and it left me thinking, "why not". I am working with a University that has just agreed to outfit some of their labs with iMacs. The reason, because it can run Windows seemingly as well as a Dell. This has got me thinking, "Are the iMacs pointing us to the future?"

My father went to work for GE back in the late 60's/early 70's after getting out of the Air Force (I promise this is relevant). One of the perks of the job was that he always got to bring home the latest appliances because that was the section he worked in. I remember when the side-by-side refrigerators came into fashion. There were a lot of factors that pushed it. 1) More and more food had preservatives in them and didn't need to be refrigerated so there was less space needed to store cold food. 2) Families grew smaller and didn't need as much storage. 3) The average house wasn't even close to the square footage as it is today so space mattered. People saw that they could get rid of their old freezer and refrigerator and get a combination that fit in the same amount of space as just one of their old appliances.

So how the heck is this relevant? Well I think it shows a trend that people often apply to only computing technology. That is individuals want less physical things that can do more functions. Look at cell phones, Phone + PDA + Camera + GPS device. Part of the problem in my opinion though is that different OS's are better for different types of activities. I think Vista has proven that for me because I bought the Home Premium and it is still just Windows. I know there are a lot of cool things underneath Vista, but at the end of the day even with my $600 vid card for my on-line gaming fix, it still isn't better than the Wii for gaming. Some of that is hardware but a lot of that is simply OS. The new iMac though showed me that hardware is no longer the factor with a single chip set, multiple OS's can be ran on a device. Wouldn't it be cool to have a single computing device that was good for business applications and great for on-demand media and great for music composition and great for gaming. Wouldn't it be cool to have a cool new smart phone that also was a great mobile gaming device (I am talking DS or DS lite cool not Live Search club cool). Well I think the iMac is showing us that this is and should be possible.

Quick update on the gaming console crow

2007-08-06T08:31:00.000-04:00

Even though I took a shellacking from my friends about the PS3 comments, it is proving to be correct with one twist. Microsoft is gaining the most share, Sony is bombing (so much so they have already lowered their price before the holiday season) and Nintendo is gaining all of Sony's share minus a bit to MS. I suspect to see Nintendo drop their price by the holiday in a surprise move, but not too surprising since they are the only company to make money off of their system. I then see the xBox 360 and PS3 following suit and for Sony yep that will be the second price drop in a year.

It is all about the data

2007-08-06T07:46:00.000-04:00

...but the question is where to start. I can't tell you how many times I go into an account and they have no idea of the data models that are behind their systems or if the models they have are adequate or factual. I would say it is fair to say that most IT organizations view modeling as a nice to have still. It should not then come as a surprise that most applications are still deployed as a stove pipe within the organization. See to truly integrate systems you must have a good understanding of each system. I am not talking about an arbitrary pump of data to fill out a form either when it comes to integration, but I am talking about true data reliance when we finally achieve these service oriented architectures we talk so much about. Here is the most common excuses I hear from IT about modeling when we go into do IT master planning.

1) We have too many systems and too much legacy data
2) Modeling takes more time than it is worth
3) The users won't put in all of the data required so we have bad data
4) Not all systems require it because we are not integrating all systems
5) We have some systems that we cannot customize

I understand and can empathize with individuals that if you have never done it and have a medium size IT infrastructure, the task can be daunting. However, it is not just one large task and can be split up into several bits. Here are the first two that I suggest.

1) Catalog your current models and objects

Objects in the models are things such as employees, customers, locations and orders, for example. Once there is a good grasp of these objects, the group should pick one. I usually start with employees because it is the easiest place for people to grasp what kinds of data they would want to know about an employee or to have a way to uniquely identify them as they move from system to system.

The next two steps are to then determine what will be the "main" system that houses the authoritative data set for this object (Active Directory, an ERP system, a Customer Service system, etc...) and what systems this object appears in. It is not necessarily the case all of the time that there will be a main system, but if possible it make the data integrity easier.

Once the group goes through that exercise they should be able to rinse and repeat for all objects. Once they have all objects they should be able to go back and build out the models for all of the systems. Not always that easy but it gives them a good foundation.

2) Begin to change the user input

I love the "The users won't put in all of the data required so we have bad data" excuse. I tell the groups if a customer filled out an order or a contract but didn't put their name, the company name or a signature would you except it? There is no reason to accept partial data if there is a good business reason why full data needs to be captured.

Some of this behavior is caused by the fact that not all of the information is integrated. For instance, I know as a user if I put in a unique identifier on a form (e.g. e-mail address) there should be no reason why a company shouldn't be able to pull my address from their data banks if I had put it in before. Users will get really tired of filling in long forms and view it as a work detractor instead of something that is helping them.

Take that one object that the group identified above and start to change the input of that object to match the model you want and force the data integrity. If you start off a little bit at a time the users will get use to having to put in data of a certain format without it seeming too overbearing. Gradually introduce the rest of the input for objects until eventually you have a system that logically makes sense and you are ensuring that you are capturing the data to run that system.

Social Networking

2007-07-30T08:13:00.000-04:00

It has been interesting to see how people are reacting this last year to social computing technologies as they become part of the mainstream packages (Lotus Connections & Microsoft MOSS) and as other technologies (SocialText) become real opportunities for enterprise sized organizations. We have been approached by a whole lot more companies/organizations than I ever would have thought (of course my expectations were low <30) wanting to know more about how they could use it and what they could use it for.

The software industry still suffers from marketing self gratifications in this space. What I mean by this is that we come up with words like Wiki, Blog or RSS and post it around like everyone knows what the heck we are talking about. When you ask a non-tech outside they seem to think you are talking about a fruity drink with an umbrella (Wiki), some new form of the creeping crud or something you go 4-wheelin' thru if you are down in KY (Blog), or the latest Rave party drug (RSS). I remember the most hilarious meeting I had been to in a while was one that we brought a vendor to that had blog technology. They pitched it to the customer (someone that has about $600M in capital improvement programs a year) as a tool that "your organization can begin to build communities of interest from". The customer then turned around and said, in all seriousness, "I pay these folks to work not talk about knitting". LOL!

Let me help then a bit. We have been playing around with a lot of social computing tools and solutions lately. My company is about to role out social computing to about 20,000 employees in the next 4-6 months. We have 3 schools, 4 municipalities, 2 defense organizations and about 8 enterprise organizations that are currently going through the evaluation stages and a couple of those are actually now exiting to solution deployment. So what are all of these folks using it for.

1) Talent Retention. You want to keep good talent make them feel like they are part of the company and that their words are heard. When we establish these types of technologies for this solution, we establish a methodology that engages the top management to either participate directly or to ensure their participation in commenting in the community. We all know that tool such as e-mail, the telephone and stop by meetings are horrible ways for people to stay in touch with what others are thinking. However, if you have 10-15% of your staff participating it gives you a good vibe on the community and smart management can make adjustments.

2) Mentoring. We have several industries that the talent pool is retiring at a much faster pace then the new crop is coming through school or that technology can keep up with. That being said, these organization must find a way to capture the knowledge of those users and pass it along to the masses. Things like building classroom curriculum isn't always the most effect. We use these technologies to build a "pod of knowledge" to team people up on tasks but to ensure that the work is a cooperative effort.

3) A One-Way Communication. I know this goes against the concept of "social" computing a bit but I tell you it these are some nice tools if you want to publish updates on processes such as RFI/RFP. There are many type of black hole processes where people are afraid to open the flood gate of communications but with this they can just push out updates that are much easier to do than managing a web site.

I could go on, but that is it for now...

Going to take another stab

2007-07-19T16:55:00.000-04:00

Well I got nailed the first time I tried to do this. I think I had some things set wrong on the blog and thus I created way more traffic for myself then I ever intended. I am ready to give this another go and have switched things around so that users can just post without my scanning the posts first (which by the way caused too many people to send me e-mails instead of just posting on the blog...a dynamic in social computing to blog about later).

My goal in this next go around is to post once a week. I have learned a ton on this area in the last 6 months or so as the consulting group I am with rolls out more and more social networking solutions. One of the big lessons is to be consistant. I think once a week is a schedule that I can keep....hopefully.

Eating some crow or shark

2006-11-07T10:02:00.000-05:00

Well it seems like I was wrong about the Playstation 3. The pre-orders sold out around here in less than 15 minutes and it seems like the latest reservations lists are pretty long. It is insane but I guess this seems to be a product more of the aging gaming population that has $600 to drop versus the disposable income of the teens.

Relying on the advertising model...

2006-10-09T17:41:00.000-04:00

I am starting to really work on a project that I have been fiddeling around with for the last 10 years. There are several assumptions I had going into this endevour about where the revenue would come from. Recently, with the trend going towards advertisement supported free services, I wonder how much will people actually pay for and should I seriously be considering that.

Then it got me thinking. How much ad revenue is there really for the smaller companies, not Google or Yahoo or the ESPN's of the world. What makes companies such as AOL move to this model and assume that ad based revenue is enough to fuel yet another large company? There must be some data that these guys are going off of besides the fact that others have done it? If anyone has seen this please let me know I am quite interested as for the projections.

There are some bigger questions I have begun to research though prior to just jumping in. Does making a service free via ad based revenue dilute any type of user loyality? Does ad based revenue models turn users away? Can you mix a subscription service with an ad based service or do user expect the moment they see ads that the services are free? Any thoughts out there?

Mobile Computing done right

2006-09-29T08:53:00.000-04:00

http://www.mojopac.com/portal/content/hellomojo.jsp

Check these guys out!! This is a great take on the hoteling issues that have plagued us for a while. I have been a big user of VMWare for some time but the down side to that is that it requires an install on the host and the image is large because it is the entire OS. This helps eliviate all of that by a) running directly off of the storage device and b) just taking the apps you want. Pretty slick.

Is $600 gaming consoles = Jumping the Shark?

2006-09-28T20:43:00.000-04:00

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060927/D8KDA5RO9.html

So okay I have bought them all since the Atari 2600. I am officially a gaming nerd and cannot break my addiction, but the vendors might be helping me out. So I do have a XBox, PS2 and Game Cube right now and was planning on upgrading all 3. The problem...$600. At first I thought, well at least with one I will get a BlueRay disc player and the other a HDDV player, but then I thought about it. Okay never mind that is just me.

I know the devices are moving closer and closer to a replacement device for a PC in many homes. I have thought for years that this is the ultimate Trojan horse play for MS to usurp Dell and others while maintaining a good partnership with them. Let's come back to buying behavior though. Mom and Dad are not going to get that larger picture that maybe they won't have to buy the Insperion because their PS3 can do e-Mail, play the mp3s and surf the web. What they are going to do is sit there with their hard earned money and say..."how about that Nintendo Wii for $200". I am not sure I would take a $.07 bet on this one because things have surprised me before in this space. What I would take a $.07 on is that Nintendo gains market share, Microsoft stays the same and Sony is the big loser. MS might be the big surprise just because I think they are the only ones focused on the next gen of gaming (look at the stuff they are doing with Peter "he is the king" Jackson).

If it is about the apps...where are the apps?!?

2006-09-20T14:47:00.000-04:00

So I have run into something very frustrating. For background, I am putting together a collaboration and document management services strategy for my new employer (a large system integrator). I am looking at all of the different platforms that are out there and the solutions that ride on top of them. Our services stretch the gambit of strategic consulting to low level development. I have a strong belief that our customer base (Construction, Public Sector, Utilities and Maqnufacturing) is going to be looking for more CotS based solutions in the future and thus I am trying to find a platform company that has either a) the drive itself or b) the real ISV community to constantly deliver quality solutions. I would like to settle on one or two platforms but from what I am finding that might not be possible.

My problem to date is that I cannot the apps. It seems like everyone is focused on making a great generic platform (i.e. SharePoint, Domino/Notes/Workplace, WebEx Workspace, Adobe Breeze, etc...) and not all of them are created equal. On the other hand there seem to be some decent vertical collaboration solutions (i.e. AutoDesk Constructware/Buzzsaw, Skire, etc...), but then they are built on yet another platform. However, I am left in the dark about whether there is, for instance, a Capital Project Management application for any of the major general collaboration vendors. I have found a couple of lists here or there of partners but then it comes to my second problem which is the companies that seem to be doing this work are 10-15 person shops with annual revenues of $1- 2M. Unfortuantely, that is not substantial enough for me to build a practice around and typically isn't large enough for our typical customer to trust for a long term investment unless we financially get involved usually by escrowing the code and saying that we will support it if Company X goes out of business. That usually leaves me then approaching the customers solution the same way...take the platform and build a custom solution on top of it which gets me further from the CotS + slight technical services + strategic services story I want to tell.

Even with that said I am willing to entertain the smaller ISVs if I can find them. So help me out...where is a good list (not just the "here's everyone that paid their $1,500 to sign up for the partner program" list) that breaks down what industry they are focused on, what their solution is and who I can call to find out more.

Lack of posting != Lack of interest

2006-08-30T19:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry I have a lot of writeups to put in the blog, but haven't been spending a lot of time on the computer lately. Why? Well, Sunday my family lost a really good friend on the Delta flight that crashed here in Lexington. It has just made me a bit unfocused on tech. Every time I sit down to write I think about his family and what they must be going through. This isn't an anti-tech industry rant or "do something with your life" speech but nothing more than a few words to say I will be back shortly hopefully.

When bad people make good technology bad

2006-08-15T07:34:00.000-04:00

Wow! What a last couple of days. I have spent time at about 4 customers in the last 3 days and only one of them would be in a place that I would label as having their act together. I will say this, technology in the wrong hands is as damaging as technology in the right hands is beneficial. I thought I was going to spend a decent amount of time helping folks expand their usage of technology. What I ended up doing was helping them correct their thoughts about their Notes, SharePoint and Documentum installations to tell them that these are all good technologies and it is their fault they aren't working.

See, the natural tendency is when something isn't working internally the companies blame the technology. It can't fight back. Most of the times they don't want to give the developing company the chance to come in and correct because they don't want to look bad. Let's face it though. The collaboration and document management market has matured. Products like Documentum, Livelink, FileNet, SharePoint, Notes, SameTime, Communicator, etc... are all good products. They are all products that if used properly can make a difference in any company. Yes, I do know that there are differences in cost of ownership, functionality and reliability, etc... but it is like arguing the difference between a picture on a Samsung vs LG HDTV to the typical user. Only the trained eye can capture it. The real story is that if a company knows how to work together; the process is well defined; and there aren't any huge legacy issues (i.e. running x486 laptops with 32mb or RAM) most technology will help. Thinking that slapping up a place for users to share documents and do a bit of discussions is collaboration is evident that a lot of folks just still aren't getting it. Likewise, assuming that document management is all about a taxonomy, features like check in/check out and good compliance meta data is off the mark. Companies need to quit completely relying on the technology because it is taking their eye off the fact that they have to focus on the people just as much if not a whole heck of a lot more.

We need more people out there preaching the message of how to deploy collaboration and document management to and through the people instead of what platform to deploy. I think fighting the good fight of one's product is fine and needs to be done, but I also think it is giving excuses to these people that would rather blame tech than themselves as to why their companies aren't adopting a better collaborative or document management environment.
functioning. Alright...sorry....

This could be interesting...probably a failure...but interesting

2006-08-08T07:47:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite brands is at it again. Sony has just announced that they will be shipping a Sony mylo device in September.

If you remember the Sony mylo was a sevice about 5 years ago that fell on its face because of the high service fees and the fact it only worked with the Clie at launch doomed it to failure. This is different though.

This Sony mylo (which stands for My Life On-Line) is a device. You have the touch screen monitor that slides open for a keyboard. Several applications such as e-mail, IM, music player (btw with a 1 gig flash memory built in), video player, photo editor and viewer and VoIP. VoIP you ask? Yep well one of the interesting things about the device is that there is no cellular service for it. It work purely on a WiFi network. I agree with Sony WiFi is becoming prevelant in the US for their target (18-24 year olds) especially around college campuses but I wonder if they aren't 5 years too early.

Three bummers about the device for me.

1) There is no UMD support. I was hoping that they would make the device capable of playing movies to add to its appeal.
2) There is no gaming focus. Yeah I know there PSP is out there but it is overkill for most games on the market for it. The reason the PSP gets knocked (although a decent device) is its size. This could have become a "PSP lite" version to compete more head to head with the Nintendo DS.
3) Lack of partnerships. I saw somewhere that eBay's Skype was planning on being in there somehow but it would have been nice to at least see an iTunes partnership. Apple needs to start making device deals and device dealers need to start making content deals if they want to compete in the long run.

This is going to be interesting

2006-08-03T07:38:00.000-04:00

http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/exchange-2007---a-hardware-manufacturers-wet-dream

Ed has always been great at crunching the numbers and that is some great exposure. I also have to check into see what they have done because previous version of Exchange never used instancing, PAE and AWE so anything over 4gb was irrelevant because of the efficiency. I am guessing they just get some of that for free with the move to the 64 bit platform. I haven't checked the facts in terms of the numbers and if Exchange is going to be only 64 bit only (still a bit confusing because of the 32bit trial) but that aside I think it raises interesting point about the future of communication based hardware/software bundles.

The point basically is that reliability > hardware cost. Now I am not saying that Exchange is reliable nor am I trying to defend Exchange's hardware cost but $.07 on the fact that they made the move to 64bit only for reliability reasons. Take Ed's numbers and say the server hardware number is $70,000 for 6,000 users. What if the server was so reliable that you didn't need redundancy beyond high speed backup or an administrator? Are we moving to the model like the phone servers where people spend $40-50k on the server and buy the $10k service contract but don't have a day to day admin (at least in most medium size businesses)? With most businesses I talk to expecting to see these servers to last for 5-7 years, they are looking at a cost of $20 to $23 per user per year over that period of time with the $10k a year services contract. Chicken scratch!

For small and medium businesses this model actually is better for them because most of them will lease the hardware so no upfront $70k and if they don't have to hire an individual to administrate it bonus! The battle really is going to get down to reliability with these components especially as more and more folks pick up unified messaging. I give the lead right now to Lotus because a) better track record and b) more experience on the unified messaging front but this is where the battle is.

I do miss the day of Hubert telling me that the cc:Mail Post Office could run on a x286 it just had to have an OS that supported file and record locking. :) Simplicity is sometimes the best solution isn't it.

I guess the IBM brand means something after all

2006-08-03T07:33:00.000-04:00

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060803/D8J8TMEG1.html

IBM has always proven and continues to prove that their brand means something. One of many things I have admired about the company is their image and practice of making sure an IBM decision is never a bad decision. I think Lenovo is realizing that a) the US market was falling in favor to Dell faster than then though and b) a ThinkPad with an IBM brand sure means a whole lot more.

What is business doing to foster collaboration

2006-07-31T08:37:00.000-04:00

I was out at a couple of organizations at the end of last week. A common conversation began to spark a question inside of me.

What are we doing to create better collaborators?

There are some great tools out on the market right now that help to develop a good collaborative environment. We are in business state currently that gives the collaboration market the best chance ever. Again though, what are we doing to create better collaborators?

I have seen this trend with e-Mail and other communications components also. We as a corporate industry place technologies in and expect people to use them correctly. I am not talking about finding out where a function is in the right mouse click menu or knowing how to connect to the server when traveling. I am talking about real use. How should someone communicate with e-Mail or IM? How should someone build a team with a collaboration solution? How should someone manage an asset in a content management system?

The last one is interesting because external pressures such as compliance are beginning to spell this out for companies. The sad thing is that for the most part that is the only thing helping the users within the corporation.

I would argue things such as e-Mail have made us worse communicators than before. The terseness of the messages, the ambiguity of the decisions/topics, the needless chit chat, etc... are all examples of how we have de-evolved since having to pick up a phone or have a face to face conversation. Communicating electronically is different and the expectation that someone who can communicate in real life well will be able to communicate electronically well is misguided. Body language, oral pitch, and other physical aspects are all things that go into whether we are good real life communicators. It is a different ball of wax for electronic communication :-) (or should it be =P).

The same is true for collaboration. Just because someone can work on a team in real life does not mean that they can do that electronically. Who teaches users to take advantage of the electronic upsides such as real time status, contextual settings, digital roles, etc... If you have a story of a customer that is doing it right I would love to hear about it (scottprather@msn.com) or post a comment. I am sure it is going on but where I could not tell you.

I got a message now what?

2006-07-26T08:31:00.000-04:00

I got to thinking while reviewing the latest Exchange Beta, "why make it easier to keep things in the Inbox?".

The Inbox is the most unstructured quagmire of information people manage (I would even argue over the OS file system). $.07 bet anyone? The fact that information is mainly intended to come inbound to an Inobx hampers activities such as content management, compliance and a litteny of others.

So...where in the new Exchange, functions such as autoarchiving, searching, routing control, encryption and auditing are important; the most important feature would be easily moving this data from my unstructured Inbox to a more structured application to be managed. We did the genesis of this a long time ago in Notes (e.g. move a message to a calendar entry or task or another db). I also know that the extensions in Notes and Outlook make this possible to program (i.e. we did this at Groove to move messages from Outlook to a Groove space but unfortunately that was taken away with the latest release). The point though is that this needs to be made easier for businesses to implement, should have more emphasis placed on it and should be more out of the box. Give me a generic target on disk where I can register something similar to an XSLT++ that defines a path, transport and data migration to move things from the Inbox to a target. Then allow me to embed that in the message window. Then for goodness sake ship some of them out of the box. Every messaging company has plenty of targets that they could pre-program.

More emphasis should be placed on the Inbox being viewed as a temporary holding spot instead of the eternal dumping ground. When things come in, act upon what needs action and place the information in the right context and then discard or archive what is left. Maybe it is that people get too many messages that makes this behavior unrealistic or maybe it is the fact that they have no other option but to just take the message and file it away.

I remember my mom used to tell me "when you have something in your hand it takes just as much work to put in the right place as the wrong place". Now I didn't buy into that much as a teenager. I only somewhat buy into it as an adult usually because I have to pick it up later anyway and that's the point! After someone opens, reads a message and puts it in a folder do you really think they are going to go back once a week and say "hmmm....what needs to be done with this to ensure compliance?". Someone needs to figure out the Interact/Act model to capture the users attention when they first open a message to say "this needs to be placed in context".

Fire, Ready, Aim!

2006-07-25T11:49:00.000-04:00

I always loved that saying. It was one that was sunk into me by a colleague Barbara Baird of Lotus Organizer fame. No idea what she is doing now but man she had her finger on the pulse of how people really were and how they really acted.

I was recently talking to a Lotus employee about a bunch of stuff and was asked "why don't customers get the power of custom applications". My answer "don't forget people Act then Think versus Think then Act". It is not that customers don't get the power of custom applications it is that they don't think about it first anymore. The more I get out there really working with customers the more I see how true this is.

Customers say, "I want to be in better touch with my customers and partners so I need a CRM package". You have to read into that statement alone. What automatically brings them to conclude the fact that they need a CRM package? Well, someone told them. Next they say well I need to look at SAP or Oracle or Siebel or Saleforce.com (sorry MS Dynamics is not on the tip of the tongue yet). Why? Again because they have been influenced to think that these COTS (consumer off the shelf) based products are the best. So then what really happens. They buy one of these and end up spending thousands of dollars customizing it to have this report or that report or capture this data or that data blah blah blah....you get the picture.

In addition, custom applications have gotten a bad stigma over the past 3 or 4 years (especially in the public sector). CIOs and IT managers are afraid to build a best of breed solution for the most part because they are afraid if it doesn't work then they will get canned. Custom applications have always had the hard issue also of "now who will support it" or "what happens when one component gens itself and breaks the solution". Very few people anymore, sit there and think, "well I need the best workflow engine, the best database and indexing capabilities, the best search performance, the best data capture capabilities...etc...".

The sad truth though is that everyone needs custom applications. Software is about business and in the true sense of form follows function, not all businesses are ran the same. Do you really think Jeff Bezos used a COTS product to manage his shipping without at least customizing it to fit a unique on-line shopping model? To compete we have to be unique. To be unique you need systems that can adapt and react at business speed now.

This war around custom vs COTS is enabled by the advancement in the openness and robustness of the engines today but as always it will be won by the applications. How good is a motor without a car or boat to power? A good friend of mine, Peter O'Kelly, use to say "it's the apps stupid" all the way back in 1993 when we first started working on Lotus Notes together. How right he was. Luckily he didn't bet me $.07 then.

You want to win the war? You have to fight the battle on multiple fronts. Your platform/engine message needs to be targeted at the ISVs not the customers. You have to get them to realize you have some very unique pieces that could allow them to build better COTS products. You then have to help them take that message to the consumer that there are COTS products available on the platform. Either that or get into the COTS business yourself (which I would recommend at least for a certain amount of applications). Then in a high touch sales model convince them that your COTS is good but it is the ease of customization that makes the Solution powerful!

Another IM post

2006-07-24T15:55:00.000-04:00

I have received a ton of e-mails discussing my views on IM and how it really is the new e-Mail (or at least it will become that).

I had another thought this weekend while playing an on-line game. Why is the IM in game not integrated with the IM in real life? I can send tells cross servers so not all conversation is meant for game play so no excuse there. Several of the on-line games are owned by companies that either have ties to or directly manufacture an IM product so no excuses there.

Wouldn't it be cool if parents wanted to get in contact with their kids that they could IM in game? Don't see why not. BTW, if you want to learn to be a good IM'r then play an on-line game. They have the individual, group and gang metaphor down.

Zuna vs iPod

2006-07-24T15:45:00.000-04:00

I have been engulfing myself with Zuna material over that last several months trying to get a clearer picture of actually what MS is planning on shipping. It looks smart with its WiFi connectivity instead of fumbling with cables and its gargantuan hard drive that will make 60 Gigs music players look like an IBM AT soon enough.

That being said the platform that will win will be the one that has the content. Apple has done a great job with iTunes and now the TV shows (something like 150 shows in their format). Microsoft did a good job with the gaming console but not enough to lure games like Metal Gear Solid and such huge titles away from Sony and thus Sony is still winning. Speaking of Sony though let's not mention why the heck they aren't in this battle ( Walkman ).

MS is going to have the better player at least until Apple has a chance to regroup and possibly leapfrog but their success lies in the hands of some Desperate Housewives. However, even Survivors will make money in this House (man!!! I couldn't resist but that is bad).

A start of a trend...hopefully....

2006-07-24T15:40:00.000-04:00

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060724/D8J2GAAOE.html

Richard Hatch, who you will all remember as one of the first reality tv winner (honestly don't know if he was the first or not), got thrown in jail today. I guess he forgot to pay taxes on that $1M he won while doing whatever they do.

One can only hope this is a start of a trend to send all reality participants, creators and supporters to the slammer. Reality TV you have made America dummer!!!

Big news for the mediaholics

2006-07-18T11:55:00.000-04:00

http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=1611

Cingular yesterday announced that it had finally shipped a HSDPA phone. I think this is big news not necessarily to the Desperate House Wives junkies that catch the latest on the rail line to and from work but more so for the infrastructure that is being put in place for the mobile user. Yes we still are a ways away from the never disconnected model. Still too many places in the US that don't have as good of coverage as the major metro areas. However, that being said this is a great technology model.

Engineering firm creates technology ---> Broad appeal and consumption by a large audience (in this case 14-35 year olds) ---> Investment back into the technology to harden it for enterprise usage ---> Back out to the enterprise/public sector to pay for additional services

The one interesting thing I haven't seen a lot in the press around this announcement is the continued dominance that LG is experiencing. Can you say 간다 LG는 간다!!!

When is a message a message?

2006-07-14T11:57:00.000-04:00

I just got done looking at the IBM SameTime 7.5 and the Microsoft Communicator 2007 Betas and am a bit disappointed that neither company has taken advantage of what I see as a big opportunity.

Simply put there is NO difference between e-mail and instant messaging and the first company to realize that is in line to change the model. If you think there is a major difference, ask yourself why e-mail is so easily completely replaced with instant messaging for the younger generation.

There are a couple of boundary functions that each has that has always kept them seperate. E-Mail has always had the asynchronous capabilities along with the archival management (folders, sent, backup, auditing, etc...). IM on the other hand has always had the more real-time aspects of communication such as the ability to transition into a many to many chat instead of those fun back to back e-mail thread you can never follow. IM has also always had precence but we have seen that slipping into all e-mail products out there now, even the web based ones.

There are other differences also but they are at a lower level (e.g. in e-mail you don't need any prior relationship with the user to send them a message but in instant messaging you typically need to be able to discover their contact information prior to sending a message). The ironic thing though is that most instant messaging architectures, or at least any one that has the ability to be federated, is not truely instant. It is a store and forward mechanism much like e-mail anyway.

As for the UI I think it ends up being a mix between the two. I like the lite interface of IM with just my contacts and the list of messages at the bottom. However, I now get about 150-200 im's a day (direct replacement of e-mail) so I could really use an Inbox with some sorting capability.

E-Mail as we know it today will be dead in the next 7-10 years (btw you will find in my blog I will be assertive and I will take any $.07 bet out there ;-)). Users will have either completely switched over to an IM platform because they want a more contextual/less spammish environment or IM will be tossed because it never grew up to include the things like archival, backup and auditing that any kind of Enterprise communication infrastructure needs. I don't think this opens up the messaging market but I do think it will tilt the market either to IBM or Microsoft...whichever gets it first.

Too fast of a moving target...

2006-07-14T11:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.qtzar.com/blogs/qtzar.nsf/d6plinks/DLYH-6RM3DR

I am really looking forward to follow this feature. Hoteling, Roaming User Profiles, or whatever name you want to call the technical solution is sorely needed. It was nice that the developers thought of things like limited registry access, etc.. that typically inhibits users from walking up to any device and loading software.

I still question the usefulness of the entire client since the domino web access continues to get better. Doesn't it make more sense to have a thinner client that really just holds my security credentials for things like digital signing, encryption over the wire and a more secure login? Will anyone really be replicating data to a temporary machine? I might not being seeing the whole picture at the moment.