Low Tech Crowd Sourcing

It is strange but this week both my world of internet information in the form of blogs, social networks, RSS feeds etc. and my world of work seem to have been dominated by a focus on Enterprise 2.0. It got me really excited about the possibilities in a business organisation.

But is this all something new or is it just good ways of working that have been around before repacked for the 21^st Century?

There are times when we have an idea, vision or thought of what could be done. However we don't quite know the outcome in exact detail. We have a feeling and unclear image of the outcome. It just feels like a good outcome. People call it intuition, application of experience and knowledge or just plain luck. So what to do?

One approach I use in these situations is get together a group of people who have an interest or stake in this area and others who don't but are innovative thinkers. I then put forward my unclear thoughts and open it up to the group of people. Is it mad, does it feel right, what do people think? The group then verify and build on the thought. This can result in my initial unclear outcome image being shot down in flames (and I learn something), becoming a clear outcome, an even better outcome or an outcome I didn't even think about. The group also feel ownership and empowerment as they helped to create the outcome.

This is what I am now going to call low-tech crowd sourcing. I may even patent it and call it LoweTech© Crowd Sourcing after my surname! It is getting a group of people together for a 30 minute discussion on an initial thought (I am a big fan of 30 minute meetings as they are focused and get results) using low tech tools such as the telephone or just meeting face to face. And most importantly it works.

So maybe crowd sourcing is LoweTech© crowd sourcing for the 21^st Century

2010 Predictions

Pretty much everyone is making predictions for 2010 in all walks of life. So I thought I would throw my hat into the ring with some of my predictions for 2010 from the world of IT. Some are consumer based predictions, whilst others are what I class as enterprise based for large organisations.

In no particular order.

1. Bits of Cloud (Fluff) - In 2009 there has been lots of talk about this new silver bullet called Cloud Computing. To me it looks like the old Application Service Provider (ASP) models that were the rage in the early 90's but that is another story. For me Cloud Computing is just the bringing together of lots of different existing technologies and tools and creating new opportunities and value. In 2010 I see some of these technologies taking off and becoming more common rather than Cloud Computing in its purest form. The main one of these is virtualisation. It will become the common default configuration at all levels of an architecture from servers to clients. Gone will be the days of dedicated hardware for a specific task. This will not only be in the computing arena but also the storage arena.

For me there are still some areas around security, information ownership and quality of service that will need to be resolved before public Cloud Computing becomes the norm. There will many private Cloud Computing instances out there. There are even some today that I have been involved in.

2. Touch - I have an iPhone and the interface is a dream. For Christmas I got a Nintendo Wii with a unique and intuitive interface. The kids love it. 2010 will be the year of touch and movement becoming the interfaces of choice. This will be true for consumer based technology products such as phones, televisions and home appliances. In the enterprise we will start to see enterprise based applications start to embrace this new form of interface.

Until we have a faster way of inputing data, which will probably be speech, I don't however see the death of the keyboard. They will be smaller and lighter and maybe projected onto existing surfaces to use. But not yet replaced.

3 - Location, Location, Location - Location based services and augmented reality will take off in 2010. We have so much information available to us these days that we need to ensure that we get the information we want, when we want it, with the minimum of input from ourselves. Location based services will provide that to us. It could be in the form of reviews of restaurants we are looking at in the street, to having immediate travel information and guides when we are standing next to a famous artefact. We can do this now using searches and entering postcodes but in this day of wanting things faster and easier why have the wasted step of us having to know where we are, let technology do that for us. These services can be augmented with additional information on other areas of that may also be of interest helping us to experience new things.

4 - Video - Building on the Touch point how we receive information will start to change in 2010. Text will start to be overtaken by video. Images and video are more easily digested and understood then pages of text and diagrams. 2010 will be the year that video starts to become more common for providing information. The age of the video blog is coming. A good example I like to refer to is a video explanation of what architecture is. This to me gets the point over better than any slide deck or text

5 - The sum of the parts is bigger than each individual piece - 2010 will be the year that we start to see innovation taking off. Not by creating new technology but by packaging up existing technology, services, tools to create new opportunities and products. For example the iPhone doesn't contain any breakthrough technology. It is the way that existing technology has been packaged together to create a new product. This will be the innovation in enterprise IT in 2010. A good overview of this can be found in http://www.cio.com.au/article/330587/no_1_cause_it_failure_complexity

2010 will hopefully see the UK Government open up some of its information as part of Digital Britain providing the perfect opportunity and platform for this to be packaged up innovatively to create new applications for us all to use. What they are I do not know, but that is the beauty of opening up this information.

So that's it. A quick dump from me of predications for 2010. I am already wondering what my review of this will be like in December 2010.

Interested to know what your predications are for 2010

You need to know what you are doing

It sometimes amazes me that the simple things are often forgotten about and people dive into firefighting and ideas generation. They miss the big picture and end up busy being busy.

One of these is the simply having a list of stuff that you are doing and is going on. What is sometimes called a portfolio. What is even more amazing is the difficulty people have in gathering the information to create one.

I have frequently had to create a portfolio of initiatives at the start of a new role. If for the simple area of just getting an understanding what is going on.

My approach has always been to get something that is just good enough in order to get things started. All too often the purists try and create the perfect portfolio that satisfies everyones desires. They ultimately fail to deliver anything and the organisation carries on as before.

My portfolios have gaps and initially have inaccurate information. However the practice of putting it on the table and regularly reviewing it cleans it up over time. It also helps to start to cleanse the areas providing the information for the portfolio, helps to clarify where the data is coming from for it and more importantly where it should come from. All too often you get delivery information from finance and finance information from delivery.

We then have a list of stuff we are doing. It can then be monitored for strategic alignment, delivery, duplication, value delivered etc. It is also something that new stuff can be reviewed against and added to.

So my advice is to create yourself a portfolio of initiatives from whatever you have at the start. Otherwise how will know what you are doing and more importantly they are the right things to be doing?

This is such a simple thing to do and can provide great value

Pinyin - A form of Enterprise Architecture

I am learning Mandarin with my daughter at the moment. Mainly to keep one step ahead of her so that I can help her with her homework. In order for non-Chinese natives to understand the Mandarin language, help with input of Mandarin into Computers a romanization of the Chinese language is used called pinyin

For someone who speaks English pinyin can seem a strange translating language. The reason is that the pronunciation of pinyin is not a one to one translation to English pronunciation. Let me explain.

The character for water in Mandarin is

The pinyin for water is shuĭ

In English this is pronounced shway with the “way” pronounced with a tone that goes down and then up. Click here to here what it sounds like

So what has all this got to do with IT you may say? Well at the weekend I was reading an interesting blog from Peter Kretzman entitled Complexity Isn't Simple: multiple causes of IT failure. There where some interesting debates in the comments regarding requirements analysis. As an aside my view on this is that it is the complexity of requirements and number of requirements that are a major factor in IT failure. Peter mentions how the telephone has evolved over the years from what it was in the 1980's to what it is now. Think the iPhone or Android phone today comapred to what you had in the 1990's. What would have happened if organizations had tried to make the iPhone in the 1990's? Probably a disaster. Anyone remember trying to get e-readers in the 1980's? Remember the Newton? The mobile phone of today has built up over time. At each stage adding a little bit more value. Making sure that additions work and integrate. This is what organizations should do with new ideas. Start small and then build up over time. At each stage adding a little bit more value. Rather than trying to do it all at once. Something that can help you in this endeavour is a set of guiding principles to ensure new bits fit and help the whole. Maybe an Enterprise Architecture? But that is another story.

Back to pinyin. Whilst reading this I thought about how we use Enterprise Architecture to not only articulate a single version of the truth for an organizations future state but also as a means of ensuring that all parts of an organisation speak a common language and understand each other. It is the pinyin of business.

So if Mandarin is the language of the IT organisation. Lots of symbols, which are meaningless to the rest of the organisation. Then if all those who use speak in romanization languages are the non-IT departments of an organisation how do they communicate with each other? Pinyin of course. Mandarin (IT) speakers understand it and are taught it. Non-mandarin (non-IT) speakers can relate it to their language and understand it also. Therefore pinyin is a form of Enterprise Architecture.

Which all relates to some thinking that I have held true for sometime. Enterprise Architecture is nothing new. It is an approach and a way of doing things. It is more important to use the principles and approaches that Enterprise Architecture provides and advocates rather than going around spouting we must do Enterprise Architecture, we need an Enterprise Architecture. Just do the right think and call it whatever is meaningful to your organisation. Find what it's pinyin translation is.

What's in a name - Everything

I recently tweeted on maybe the perception of Enterprise Architecture and Chief Architects would change from being seen as the domain of IT to being seen as the domain of the entire organisation if they were renamed Business Design and Chief Business Designers?

It made me think of situations during my career where a name has set certain perceptions for myself and/or others or confused.

Enterprise Architecture – Isn't this something IT do?

First up is that old favourite Enterprise Architecture. I was once on a journey of moving an organisation from having an Enterprise IT Architecture to having an Enterprise Architecture covering Business, Applications and Technical Architectures. The Enterprise IT Architecture started in the IT organisation, as is quite common, and covered Application and Technical Architecture. This objective was a real challenge as I was driving and influencing this from within the IT department.

Whilst on the “world tour” of communicating, stakeholder managing, explaining and extolling the value of Enterprise Architecture I recall speaking to an executive in the organisation. I asked the question “does this Enterprise Architecture thing make sense in terms of what it is trying to achieve and the value it provides?” Their reply was that they thought it was technical. It had the words Enterprise and Architecture, which they associated with IT.

A valuable lesson I learned from this is to never use the word Enterprise Architecture if you can help it. Communicate the approach, the method and value, provide examples and scenarios and let the organisation call it what they want. It is the outcomes that we should be most interested in achieving. Not what we call things. Using Enterprise Architecture can set a certain perception which can be hard to overcome.

IS, IS/IT, ICT – Oh Computers.

So a name can set a certain perception. It can also create confusion. An area where a name can be confusing, to me at least, is in the usage of IS, IS/IT, ICT, IT, TS. It makes me think that we in IT are sometimes trying to be too clever for our own good. If you speak to the average person in the street outside of IT and say I work in IS, IS/IT or ICT they will wonder what you are talking about. Tell them IS/IT stands for Information Systems/Information Technology they will probably say “Ah you work in IT”. Why over complicate the situation. Just call it IT or maybe even simpler call it Technology. Someone I know who is definitely not in IT just says “Oh you work in computers”. However I think have Business Strategies for Computers, Computer Architectures or Computer Designers maybe going a little too far.

Organisation Names

A final example is in the names of teams and functions that creates confusion and therefore cannot set any perceptions. I have seen some team and function names that have actually required me to spend considerable time working out what they actually do. They haven't altered my perception of the team as I couldn't work out what they did from the name so I couldn't set any. It was just confusing. When I actually found out what they did it all became very clear - they were the IT department!

Simplicity – Influences perception, removes confusion

So simplicity removes confusion and can help in setting perceptions. One organisation I know had an IT function that wanted to be integrated with the rest of the organisation. It's vision was to be integrated so that it could help shape the organisations vision and direction and provide value enabling IT capabilities to support this aim. In essence creating co-determinate strategies.

The function initially started out being called Technology Office. As it moved on the journey to become integrated it renamed itself to Strategy and Architecture, removing Technology. Then it renamed itself to Strategy and Business IT Systems, removing Architecture. It then renamed itself to Future Design. Simple, doesn't mention IT or Architecture at all. It does exactly as it says on the tin - It designs the future. That is my perception anyway.

It made me wonder what others have done with regards to names to help to set certain perceptions and remove confusion?

Why do organizations have an innovation function?

I was at an event this week and where there was lots of talk about needing to be innovative. This phrase sometimes confuses and other times irritates me. People seem to use it as a nirvana for doing things better. It is as though what they have been doing previously was not doing things better or innovative.

To try and understand what others thought of innovation I did a couple of tweets on Twitter on this very subject. What came back was to me a very good definition of innovation

“Not business as usual that adds value”

Now call be old fashioned but isn't that what the human race has been doing since the dawn of time? It is what makes us what we are. The invention of the wheel was innovative, Newton's laws were innovative, the PC was innovative. In fact finding a better way to get to work maybe faster, more economical, less stressful is innovative.

To me innovation is what we all do everyday. Doing things better, smarter or in a more interesting way.

So when organizations say the need to be innovative or embrace innovation it really confuses me. Surely you must have been innovative to get to where you are today? Even if that was copying someone else's idea. That is also innovative.

From a technology perspective you see many organizations that have a function that covers strategy, architecture and innovation. My view is that the art of doing strategy and architecture is innovative so why do you actually need a function dedicated to it?

As I said innovation is part of being human. It is part of life. We are all innovative so why do we need to try and seek it?

It's good to talk

Earlier this week I was lucky enough to travel to London with a colleague. It was 2 hours spent with no distractions from other colleagues, no phone calls or email on our blackberry's (it was an early train and we where in a quiet coach).

It was lucky as we had 2 hours of really productive conversation covering a wide variety of topics. We caught up on movements of people, got some valuable insight and advice on new roles and discussed new approaches to challenges. We resolved a number of issues and got to know a little bit more about each other as individuals.

It was a really productive value adding journey.

It made me wonder if all the social networking, email, instant messaging and 4th generation collaboration tools such as Google Wave are actually the best value adding communication. Don't get me wrong these are all very useful and welcome forms of communication

- Blogs – I write this one, I read others to;

- wikis – I have been looking into setting up our Enterprise Architecture as a wiki and look at wikipedia's popularity;

- email – Which I use everyday;

- Instant Messaging – I am a big fan of this for quick questions and answers across a disparate and virtual community;

But sometimes it is just plain better to talk face to face. If that is not possible on the telephone. For example immersive video conferencing in an organisation is usually extremely popular. I have tried it and it is truly amazing. Is it's popularity due to being able to actually talk to someone “face to face” in real time?

Whilst thinking about this I came across a Harvard Business Review Analytic Service looking in to the importance of business travel in building and maintaining business relationships. It stated that 79% of respondents said that in-person meetings are the most effective way to meet new clients to sell business. 89% agreed that face-to-face meetings are essential for 'sealing the deal'. And almost all (95%) said that face-to-face meetings are a key factor in successfully building and maintaining long-term relationships.

So if you are trying to embed Enterprise Architecture into the heart of business thinking then you may need to do more than quote facts, figures, analysts, produce presentations and send emails. You should sit down and talk to the organisation.

And next time you are on a train search out a colleague, when in the office pick up the phone rather than send an email or just get up and walk to see the person.

After all it is good to talk.