barryjogorman

Excellent piece in today’s New York Times from Thomas Friedman (previous reference).  Greatly enjoyed his previous book ‘The world is flat‘.

Friedman touches on a three ideas:

• Advances in technology (since The World is Flat in 2004) e.g. twitter, facebook, freelancer.com are threatening white collar rather than blue collar jobs
• Stop talking about outsourcing – really just a question of sourcing
• There is now only good, better and best – and our schools need to catch up

Friedman has it right.  Social networking, mobile technology, free videoconferencing, tools to support collaboration, sites to rate resources – it’s all making for a world where you can assemble the best resources you require to do any task.  Increasingly there will be less room for inferior service.

It’s been a pretty frightening year on the economic front, here in Dublin, Ireland.  Finally, despite all the protestations of the Government the EU and IMF rode into town.  A deal has been done – premised on significant growth it might be doable…if the growth does not materialise – then eventually some debt will have to be written off.

On the technology front – for me personally the smartphone wins out (currently favouring the Android platform): greater access and availability wherever you are (wherever I am).  Seems to me the Cloud has matured into something that is not going away – in fact that looks like it will win out.  I think the objections will be addressed and moved aside. On the semantic web front – lots of activity from various providers of tools/ solutions using semantic technology. Disappointing, given the presence of DERI in Ireland, that we do not see more publicity/ traction within our own smart economy.  And we trail other countries dismally on initiatives to push publication of data (using linked open data standards)  by government departments.

A whole new world

The last few weeks have been challenging on the weather front – in particular on the East Coast.  It would have to be said that our local government/admin/ transport has failed miserably and consistently in addressing the weather challenges.  To see major roads not being cleared each night is pretty depressing – be it shortage of money to pay the overtime, trucks to clear the snow/slush,salt to treat the roads or poor planning/management and execution.  But there is a real cost – most likely including loss of life – because of this repeated failure.

Katie Taylor, Graeme McDowell, Tipperary hurlers, U23 cross country runners and many more – great memories and inspiration in a difficult year and looking forward to challenging years.

There was my short break with my wife in Budapest – what a marvellous city and such hospitable people.  But then we had the fun courtesy of Volcanic Ash – our four day trip home was quite luxurious by comparison with the hardship experienced by others.

Best book I read was the 10th anniversary edition of The Cluetrain Manifesto.  Also often found myself returning to ideas from The Power of Pull.

And Wikileaks has caught the imagination as the year closes out.  I was not very positively disposed to Mr Assange when this began – but the overreaction from certain quarters is not doing much to reinforce my doubts.  I think we all need to reflect a little on this. Some of the ideas referenced by Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody and by Don Tapscott in Macrwikinomics are playing out in front of us.

All in all looking forward to the break – a chance to enjoy some of the best things in Ireland – company, craic, ceol, food, literature, scenery, catching up with the visiting diaspora…and time to do some dreaming.  Because we all need to use our imaginations and our creativity in order to ensure that we do beat our targets next year – be that winning a major, winning a football championship, keeping a job, hiring a new employee, starting a new business, teaching a student, helping someone.

Great piece from Tom Peters highlighting the strengths of Mickey Drexler, CEO of J. Crew.  Peters  picks out so many things that appeal to him in Drexler’s approach – clearly a man who walks the walk and talks the talk.  But what I am drawn to in particular is his respect for younger or more junior people in the organisation:

• Listens attentively regardless of age/seniority
• Obvious in his transparent respect for young employees

As we begin to embrace social networking and the associated collaborative approach a key step for enterprise management  is to embrace the new generation – sometimes referred to as the F generation (in reference to facebook).  These are the people who know and understand these solutions.  Bring them on board  – put them at the centre of the required change.  Have them mentor senior, more experienced managers – mentoring is a tow way process.

Have just been rereading Morten Hansen’s excellent book: “Collaboration”. Hansen concentrates on collaboration within the enterprise. He draws on significant research across a range of large corporates – including well known companies such as Proctor & Gamble, Apple and HP. I have been reviewing his ‘Barriers to Collaboration’ in the context of my own experience across a range of companies.

Not Invented Here
Particularly struck by Hansen’s reference to ‘insular culture’ and ‘status gap’. An example of this often arises where consultants are introduced to assist in some form of business transformation/ BPR – but there is a tendency within certain groups to hold meetings behind closed doors – excluding the consultants. I actually think the status gap is more serious in terms of junior personnel not wanting to open up with senior personnel – because they have experienced a lack of interest/ responsiveness in the past of their suggestions.

Hoarding
In the current climate of economic pressures, cutbacks, rationalisation Hansen’s reference to ‘Being too busy’ certainly rings true. People who are hard-pressed to get their own job done are less willing/ available to assist others. This is a real challenge for management – to provide the environment and opportunities for effective research and collaboration.

Search
It is disappointing that finding people and information seems to be such a challenge. However from my own background in Business Intelligence I think we all know that it is pointless to expect people to contribute data when they do not understand the ultimate use/ benefit of this data. There is any number of technological solutions available – but these require an understanding upfront and commitment to improved processes and technologies.

Transfer
There are real challenges in transferring what Hansen describes as ‘tacit knowledge’. All very well to capture basics of relationships in a CRM system – but the valuable information is often difficult to put down in writing and requires genuine collaboration for its effective transfer. Tacit knowledge transfer takes us into the area of emotional intelligence and ability to intereatc and share ideas.

I’ve been using facebook actively for a couple of years now. Initially saw it as a tool to stay in touch with overseas friends. But since then seems to have become a way to organise events, share photos, promote business expertise, find answers to questions, reconnect with old friends.

Interesting piece published in Forbes by Fred Wilson emphasising the same point – and the threat to google ( and the rest) posed by facebook.

So – looks like end of the road for google Wave. Easy to knock google for this (and other initiatives that have not worked). Seemed like Google were in too much of a hurry to get the incomplete product out in the marketplace. Then seemed like they made some mistakes around security.

At the time I had a concern that in trying to develop a collaboration/ enhanced instant messaging et al tool they were going to build a monster. And I think that was a major part of the problem – user adoption failed because it was not clear which problem google wave was solving.

Anyway the technology is there for others to access and seek to incorporate into other products.

There is a great deal written about web 3.0/ semantic web in terms of knowledge and intelligence.  Much of it relates to computers being able to process data published on the web and ‘understand’ it – either via Natural Language Processing type solutions or through markups such as Resource Definition Framework (RDF).

This
piece of research being conducted by IBM reminds us of the competition – the human brain.

For now I see the real benefit of the semantic web being to give me some assistance in terms of processing the vast amount of data which is available on the web (and within enterprises – under linked open data initiative).  For instance, if in going to a meeting to discuss evolving health & safety issues in the construction industry in Australia, I have a piece of software which can filter/find/ summarise much of the information and data in the public domain then my contribution to the meeting may be more valuable (or my preparation time may be accelerated).  Again, within the context of semantic web, my profile – if I have an interest in such a field – should result in my being prompted with relevant information.  This ties in with Kevin Kelly’s dictum, ‘No personalisation without transparency’.

I was lucky enough to spend four great years in Trinity College Dublin – way back when (1980-1984) – studying for an engineering degree.  A combination of study, growing up, socialising, forming many friendships which survive to now, playing lots of sport.

We did not have lap tops, we did not have mobile phones, we did not have social networks.

In truth much of what we were taught as undergraduates was as well, if not better covered, in various text books.  There were limited opportunities for practicals, tutorials, projects, opportunities to interact with lecturers and/or Phd dtudents.  These opportunities were actually the potential added value over and above the text books.

As I work and live in a web 2.0 and, increasingly, a web 3.0 world I wonder how my children will participate in 3rd level education – should they choose to do so.

The real opportunity I see for current and future undergraduates is collaboration.   It seems to me that undergraduates attending TCD should be involved in online collaboration with undergraduates and people in industry – based across the world.  The technology allows for this.  The challenge is for the universities to become more open and collaborative.

An interesting piece this week by Kevin Maney in Business Week: Next, An internet revolution in higher education. Kevin, with a slightly different perspective, seems to point to a lot of the same ideas and challenges for third level insitutions.

I think the opportunities in education and ‘global development’ for young people now are greater than ever.  I hope that universities can continue to provide a great experience to be shared by people (predominantly young – but with much more integration with ‘mature’ students) – while exploiting the news technologies to broaden the horizons for all.

Been making more use of facebook in the last few weeks.  Hard not to – when 250m people are using it.

Was discussing it with a few different friends.  One said he uses it to keep track of/ stay in touch with people overseas, ie does not see a lot of benefit in using it with people located close by.

I’ve certainly found it useful in terms of renewing acquaintances with people based overseas (e.g. fellow College grads) – and then staying in touch with them.  Interestingly I had two such friends visit Ireland recently and in both cases we failed to catch up, physically.  So my question was: are you pretending you have more friends than you have?  Or has the technology made you so lazy that you don’t make the effort to track someone down physically when they are here on a short vacation?

The truth is that we all continue to live very busy lives.  On a short vacation to the old ‘homeland’ there is not a whole lot of time for all the ‘one on one’ catchups.  But then I was thinking about it – ‘presence’ would probably have made the difference.  We have the technology (google, brightkite, etc) to be aware of someone’s location e.g. if I’m based in the office in the city centre and the overseas visitor happens to be in town then this may be the easist way to catch up for a coffee or whatever – without any mahor diary planning, etc.

To some this will feel like another invasion of privacy – to others a way fo making the technology work to support physical relationships.  And the technology should be good enough for you to control who may be aware of your presence, in which time frame and even in which general location.  All just about possible now.

Would suggest that www.brightkite.com is worth a look.

In a conversation with the managing director (I will call him ‘Tom’) at a client a few weeks ago I felt I was in a time warp. I remember those conversations around: don’t want to give them PC’s because they’ll spend all day on their pc’s, don’t want them to have internet access because they’ll spend all day surfing. Tom was talking about why he didn’t want his staff accessing facebook etc. while in the office. And he was clear: it’s a distraction, keeps them from getting their job done.

A few days later we took time out to have a conversation.

Tom recruits a significant number of graduates each year. All of these people (with some small number of exceptions) are regular users of social networks such as Bebo & Facebook. They generally IM throughout the day. Many of them use twitter. Very few of them buy newspapers (they may read free papers on public transport). They use mobile devices for music, radio, telephone, IM. Many of them have their own blogs.

At senior managemenet level (generally 45-55) things are a little different. They all use mobile phones, most use blackberries to access email when out on the road. Very few use twitter. The majority read a daily newspaper and listen to radio. Very few use IM and almost none have personal blogs.

Social networking and the web is how this younger generation communicate and inform themselves. They have run and organised their lives using technology in a different way. Their attitude to news and information is different – they have an expectation that they can personalise it to themselves – not what is provided in a generic newspaper. They want it to be up to date and available when they want it. Likewise they expect to communicate with each other on an informal and unstructured way – via IM, using presence, etc. All of this works very well for them.

The senior management team is well aware of the technologies and the changes. In fact this group is using all of the technologies – even if moving a little slower. This is explained by (1) coming to it later and (2) being held back because not all their peers are comfortable with it. However through their kids, their work experiences, etc. they are more than familiar with what’s ‘going down’.

I asked Tom what were his criteria in recruitng a graduate. He mentioned: aptitude for the work, ability, ambition, education, likely fit for the organisation, ability to work in teams, social skills, willingness to learn. Not unusual.

My initial comment to Tom was to congratulate him on recruiting some very smart people. These people can helpTom to train and support his senior management team – if Tom encourages and supports this. Tom’s thinking was programmed the other way – the senior management team will train the new recruits. This ‘upladder training’ provides the opportunity to kick start a level of collaboration and team work not previously experienced in Tom’s company. From day 1 there should be a give and take – people sharing ideas and knowledge, learning from each other. But it needs a mindset change.

We then dicussed how Tom sees people learning and innovation in the company. Tom referenced the inhouse training program, the external courses to be attended, professional exams and, most importantly, ‘on the job’ training. I asked him how many of his senior guys participate in web based fora (to answer queries), publish papers on the web, etc. He had no idea and had no expectation that they would do so.

I suggested to Tom that he should survey his staff to determine how active they are on the web – in terms of active participation in relevant groups – including using twitter to follow and interact with other experts across the world. While his initial reaction was one of concern at the thought that his people may be giving out opinions on professional matters on the web he agreed to follow up.

The situation has moved on very quickly in the last two years or so. The idea that Tom would attempt to shut his people off from the rest of the web (or at best limit their access ie censor their activities) is dated and flawed thinking. Tom’s company will succeed or fail on the back of his team. He needs to find every which way possible to encourage and develop team activities and collaboration (hierarchical structures and thinking needs to be managed/ eliminated). And this collaboration cannot be restricted to his own enterprise. He needs his people networking and leveraging thier contacts to drive his enterprise’s capabilities and knowledge.

Tom had already seen the benefit of the web in terms of google search, online advertising, client communications. But that’s only one element of it. He needs to use it to enable and drive collaboration and knowledge management.