Aligning Technology, Strategy, People & Projects

Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant with an interest in marketing technology, information technology and the merger of IT / Marketing.

URL: http://ericbrown.com

Updated: 1 day 4 hours ago

Foto Friday – Full Moon

10 February 2012 - 4:38pm

Here’s a capture from a few years ago of a Full Moon.

Captured with a Canon 40D and 100-400mm L on a tripod.

See more photos in my flickr photostream and/or my 500px portfolio. If you like my photography, feel free to support my addiction habit by visiting Adorama (affiliate link) to purchase new or used photographic gear. Or, if you are interested in renting gear before buying, try out my favorite camera, lens and gear rental site - Borrowlenses.com (affiliate link) - the folks at Borrowlenses are awesome. All proceeds from clicking the above affiliate links go to more photographs.

EXIF: 1/90 sec, f/11.0, 400mm, ISO 400, 0EV

Time to change the ‘sign’ of IT & Technology

9 February 2012 - 11:21pm

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

I just read a short article on the Enterprise CIO Forum written by Charles Bess titled Landing a few points about cloud and the shifting expectations of a CIO. In the article, Charles talks about a few different things but one sentence really caught my eye. Charles wrote:

Many view IT as a subtractive (a cost cutting activity) as opposed to the additive activity that the business should expect — focused on increasing the value of the enterprise as a whole

I never really thought about it that way…but he’s absolutely correct.

In the past, IT and Technology were some of the first areas to get hit with cost cutting measures. In addition, most CIO’s and IT leaders are extremely focused on ‘cutting costs’ using technology and ‘doing more with less‘.

The focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has led IT groups and CIO’s to become uber-focused on the subtractive areas of IT and technology. We’ve become focused on what we can do to save money and increase efficiency rather than what value can be brought to the organization via technology.

Rather than focus on taking things away…how’s about we start thinking about adding to the organization? Let’s change the default sign of IT from a subtraction sign to an addition sign…and maybe we’ll start changing the attitude toward IT from that of a negative to a positive.

Photo Image: Plus or Minus (+/-) By Tom Raftery on flickr

This post sponsored by the Enterprise CIO Forum and HP.

An Educated Client Is a Better Client

7 February 2012 - 4:00pm

This is a guest post by Elmer Boutin.

I read with great interest Eric’s post of January 31, 2012 entitled Do things when you should … not when you have to. I agree with what he wrote, and it really got me going about something I’ve been mulling over in my head for several weeks: An educated and knowledgeable client is better than an ignorant one – especially if you want to help them do things at the right time.

I have a day job, but I do consult with small businesses and nonprofits on a regular basis. When I started consulting, I would do most of the work and not show anyone how to do for themselves or why I did what I did.

While I understand some clients want and need someone to just do for them, I found I really liked teaching, and those to whom I took the time to explain things responded quite well. After consulting gigs where I taught the client in more of a mentoring-like setting, I found the experience exhilarating. Teaching allowed me to have a positive impact in someone else’s efforts by giving them confidence they could maneuver around marketing technologies.

Even better, those people now had the knowledge to make better and informed decisions about strategy and tactics in their online efforts. This actually makes my work a lot easier.

Recently, I was helping the owners of a restaurant in a touristy part of Texas. They wanted to get some social media going, but had no idea where to start. For our first meeting, I put together a presentation which introduced concepts and gave suggestions on where to begin their efforts. After they digested the information and were ready to proceed, we met again. This time, I sat behind them at their computer as we walked through setting up accounts on social sites, claimed their name and location on those sites and even set up “check in” discounts.

While I know it may have been overwhelming at first, they soon got the idea and by the end of the afternoon they were claiming their spaces and setting up deals without much input from me. We’ll need to meet again to go over more advanced concepts, but I knew I did well when they emailed me the next day with the great news that several customers had already checked in and took advantage of their 10% off deals. That gave me (and I’m sure them, too) a great sense of accomplishment.

By taking a teaching/mentoring approach, my clients have become smarter. They have the confidence to move forward, to work online for their business as well as they do offline. They are learning how to “adapt and overcome” to the constant change of the online landscape.

To get back to Eric’s idea: How do we get clients to do things when they should rather than when they have to? We teach them. If we’re going to expect our clients to make those timely decisions, we have to equip them to do so. We have to give them the background knowledge to be able to look at what’s going on around them and be able to ask the smart questions. We have to develop trust with them and establish that we are the experts in whatever field we consult on – and if we can do that before the first time the client calls, all the better.

“How do I do that?” you may be asking yourself. Here’s your tip on doing something when you should: If you just asked yourself that question, then follow Eric’s (and my) lead, start a web site and start sharing some of your knowledge. Go! Do it now! If you want some advice on how to do it, ask in the comments and I’ll show you where you can get information to get going. Read the post I linked to in the preceding paragraph and see how someone else established credibility in their field to the betterment of their business.

As you take on the role of coach/mentor/teacher, both you and your clients will benefit.

Elmer Boutin is a Marketing Technologist and has worked in web marketing for almost 15 years. His first experience was as a free-lancer doing web sites for local businesses such as car dealerships and an art gallery. Later, he ran an online rental property referral web site aimed at assisting military people find homes before they moved. He’s currently Webmaster at a Texas-based decorative surfaces manufacturer. You can read more articles by Elmer at http://www.crossingmarketingandit.com.

Image Credit: education By Sean MacEntee on flickr

Links for February 5 2012

5 February 2012 - 4:54pm

Facing Reality by David Brock on Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog — Making A Difference
Quote: Facing reality is tough. We may discover things we don’t want to confront. We may not be as strong as we had hoped we were. We may discover we need new skills to improve our ability to compete. It may tell us we’re spending our time with the wrong customers–that we may have to find new customers.
Scars by Jason Cohen on A Smart Bear
Quote: So even if you know your scars, embrace them, and have perfectly tight rationalization of why every decision is the correct one for you, it still might be wrong.
An endless series of difficult but achievable hills by Seth Godin
Quote: The craft of your career comes in picking the right hills. Hills just challenging enough that you can barely make it over. A series of hills becomes a mountain, and a series of mountains is a career.
Report Shows Marketers Less Confident in Measurement of Efforts by Frank Reed on Marketing Pilgrim
Quote: Marketers struggle with proving what they feel in their gut and this will likely be a growing problem rather than a shrinking one. Why? It’s because the marketing rules change constantly while the tools used to measure success often can’t keep pace. Even worse these tools can’t measure some of the more important areas of any marketers’ efforts. Marketers get stuck in between the proverbial rock and a hard place. No wonder most CMO’s last less than two years in a position.
Death by RFP: Don’t let it happen to you by Jeff Cram on The CMS Myth
Quote: … don’t hide behind a procurement office. I realize this is a policy at many organizations, but it’s one that will almost ensure that you get a poorly scoped proposal from vendors who aren’t the best fit. Make the key stakeholders available for conversations
Technology is 90% Psychology by Holly on NTEN
Quote: If you want people to own their jobs, you have to give them the freedom to do it. Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s the best thing to do. When staff don’t have to run an email through four supervisors to answer a public inquiry, you’re more responsive. And being responsive is extremely important nowadays.
On the Utility of Thinking in Terms of Jobs-to-Be-Done By Hutch Carpenter on CloudAve
Quote: The jobs-to-be-done approach is incredibly useful for generating ideas that are relevant and actually have potential. You’re plumbing the depths of what people really feel and what they actually want to accomplish. A powerful head start on innovating.
Listen to Your Community, But Don’t Let Them Tell You What to Do by Jeff Atwood on Coding Horror
Quote: Community feedback is great, but it should never be used as a crutch, a substitute for thinking deeply about what you’re building and why. Always try to identify what the underlying needs are, and come up with a sensible roadmap.
Strategy for Nonstrategic Leaders by John Bell on LeaderLab
Quote: Accept the fact that Strategy takes Courage. Without courage you will always “fold” when the going gets tough.
Synchronicity by Sameer Patel. on Pretzel Logic – Social and Collaborative Business
Quote: To be clear, I’m not advocating that you throw these process systems out. They are your systems of record. I’m saying you need to cut through them with people engagement layers.

Foto Friday – Double-Crested Cormorant

3 February 2012 - 4:51pm

Another photo from the photoarchives.

This is a Double-Crested Cormorant caught at White Rock Lake with a Canon 7D and Canon 500mm f/4 IS USM.

Do things when you should…not when you have to

31 January 2012 - 7:53pm

As a consultant, its my job to help my clients understand their options. Its also my job to help them understand which of those options are best and which should be their focus over the near term (or long term).

Sometimes, I’m paid to provide strategic options and then my client decides to implement those options themselves. Other times, I provide the options and help execute those options.

I prefer those clients that hire me to develop and implement over those that just want a report on what their options are.

Why?

Because – for the most part – those clients that want me to implement the recommended strategic options are the clients that do the things that they need to do when they need to do them.

We’ve all seen organizations who hire consultants, pay a good bit of money for ’strategy’ and then do nothing after the strategic plan is created. What’s worse, we’ve all seen organizations pay for that strategic plan and then wait until they ‘have’ to implement their strategic plan.

When you (or an organization) wait till you have to do something rather than doing something when you can or should, you’ve put yourself in a bad spot.

Waiting till you have to do something forces you to work from a position of weakness rather than one of strength. Doing something when you have to do it causes corners to be cut and shortcuts to be created.

Doing something when you should…or at least when you can…is a much better proposition. Doing something when you should gives you the ability to think things through, build a good plan and execute without pressure. Doing things when you should also allows you to get a couple of false starts under your belt and even fail once or twice…but you should have time to recover.

When i get a call from a client asking if I’m interested in working on a project that has a 3 month deadline and is ‘uber-urgent’, I always ask for background. I want to know why its ‘so urgent’. Is it because they’ve waited to long to initiate the project and are doing it because they ‘have’ to or is it because they want to get a jump on their strategy and do things when they should?

The answer to that always guides my thinking in whether to take the work or not. I’d rather work with the clients that do things when they should.

What about you? Are you doing the important things when you should or only when you have to?

Image Credit: should what? By 416style on flickr

Links for January 29 2012

29 January 2012 - 5:33pm

Bringing Your Strategy to the Front Line by James Allen on Harvard Business Review
Quote: Strategy is less about the new, new thing than it is about actually delivering on the goals you set. A successful strategy must be translated into front-line activities that are delivered well, everywhere, every day.
CIO advice for CFOs by Martha Heller on CFO.com
Quote: The consensus among all the CIOs with whom I’ve spoken is that IT is oriented toward change and finance is all about consistency. Once something is locked down, finance is loath to change it. That may make for sound cost management, but it can be a barrier to innovation.
If Not Now, When? by Whitney Hoffman
Quote: What will you move off your some day list, where your dreams are waiting for the stars and planets to align, and move it onto the front burner, where you have to work to make it happen?
How To Deliver Exceptional Client Service By Jeremy Girard on Smashing Magazine
Quote: Exceptional client service is about going beyond what is realistically expected of you. It is about surprising, and often delighting, customers, turning them into enthusiastic referral sources and lifelong clients who stick with you not only because you do great work at a fair price, but because the value you bring to them goes far beyond just your products.
Knowing the business by Tom Catalini on People & Technology
Quote: Knowing your function, understanding your project’s goals, and delivering on your specific role – all of this is critical. Putting it in the context of a really detailed understanding of the business, however, is the key to real excellence.
Keep the Faith. Demand Proof. Relentlessly by Valeria Maltoni on Conversation Agent
Quote: There are two aspects to doing business — believing in what you’re doing, and verifying that it works for your customers and clients….To succeed, you need to do both, relentlessly.
Give me spark by David on 37signals
Quote: Regardless of how you do it, find people with enough spark to care, fight, and campaign for what they believe in. What pushes you and makes you question your beliefs will make your company that much better.
The Least Important Question in Leadership by David Burkus on LeaderLab
Quote: The answer to the least important question in the world is both – born and made. So let’s stop debating it and start finding those with natural abilities and developing them into great leaders. Let’s also develop those without abilities into better leaders.?log=out

Foto Friday – Great Blue Heron Portrait

27 January 2012 - 5:12pm

Another from the photoarchives. I caught this Great Blue Heron at Bob Woodruff Park in Plano TX last year. Captured with Canon 7D and Canon 500mm f/4 L IS USM.

EXIF: 1/1250sec, f/4.0, 500mm, ISO 1000, +1/3EV

When the story is right, people listen

26 January 2012 - 5:56pm

It been quiet here this week as I’ve been traveling. I spent the week in Chicago talking to clients and refining the story of what I do.

Its fun to talk to new people…especially when they are receptive to the story you are telling and when that story is authentic.

When the story is real and right, people listen. When the story has holes or isn’t backed up by facts and experience, people tend to stop listening – or worse – never start to listen.

I sat through quite a few meetings this week and it was clear after about 30 seconds that the story that we were telling was interesting. We were peppered with questions. We were asked about deliverables, schedules and processes.

Contrast that with other meetings where the story isn’t heard. You spill out your story to blank faces and glazed-over eyes. You try to connect with the people in the room but nothing works. You continue talking but never connect. Why? Well…it could be that you suck at storytelling and presentations…or your story sucks. Or…you are presenting to a room full of mannequins.

How can you know that your story is right? How will you be sure people will listen?

You can’t be sure…but with practice and refinement, you can get close. Ask for feedback from friends, neighbors, colleagues and clients. You’ve also got to take the time to make sure that you story is worth telling.

That said, I think most stories have an audience. One of the hardest things to do is find that audience…but once you do, practice the story. Get the story right and people will listen.

But…be careful to not take advantage of that audience. Make sure you can deliver on that story. Make sure you don’t change the story in mid-stream either. There’s nothing worse than believing in a story (or person) and then finding out half-way toward the destination that it was a big fat lie. Remember…you want to tell a story of truth…not one of fiction.

Once people listen, watch out…because things will start lining up in your favor then. Whether you;re selling SEO services, photography, technology consulting or widgets…get the story right and people will listen.

Image Credit: listen closely By twenty_questions on flickr

Links for January 22 2012

22 January 2012 - 5:00pm

The Danger of Imitation by Kevin Eikenberry
Quote: Observe and learn from others who have been where you are going. But don’t lose yourself on that journey. Who you are is far too important for that.
It’s Always About Leadership by Art Petty on Management Excellence
Quote: If you’ve been given the responsibility and the title, you better be prepared to act selflessly when the time comes. Anyone can float through their days showboating and blowing their own horn. It takes a real leader to step up when the ship hits the rocks. (HT: Wally Bock)
The Business Must Be a Partner in IT Transformation by Steve Romero on Romero Consulting Blog
Quote: IT and the business are partners in their enterprises. When that partnership is not working, neither faction can fix the relationship alone. IT and the business must fix their ‘relationship’ problems together, as opposed to simply transforming IT. Following the couples’ advice above will cause each organization to reflect on their role in the success, or failure, of the relationship. When they do, they will certainly find the need for transformation does not rest solely on IT.
Amplifying the enterprise: the 2012 CIO Agenda by Mark P. McDonald on The Gartner Blog Network
Quote: We need a new way of thinking because the nature of Technology has become greater than the nature of traditional IT. CIOs, IT leaders and others may want to consider how their IT strategy, plans and actions support amplifying performance – turning up the value of technology without creating distortion or negative feedback.
What is the definition of “innovation”? by Jeffrey Phillips on Innovate on Purpose
Quote: Here’s a really simple tip for any firm trying to become more innovative: create your own definition of what innovation should be for your business – and not just for an initiative, but an overarching definition for innovation. Then, ensure you have the commitment to follow through on the definition and that the people responsible for carrying out the definition understand it, and the vision, strategy and goals behind the definition. Otherwise, like a rowboat with only one oar, you’ll find your team constantly circling.
Do You Build the Right Messages for Your Customers? By Frank Eliason on Time to be Frank
Quote: In this new world of @YourService it is important to know the message you are sending to your own employees and Customers. Their interactions are what define your brand. This handwritten memo is an example of this message. Have you seen message like this? As a Customer how do they make you feel?
We need to talk about piracy (but we must stop SOPA first) by danah boyd on apophenia
Quote: As we go deeper into an information age, I think that we need to have serious conversations about what is colloquially termed piracy. We need to distinguish media piracy from software piracy because they’re not the same thing. We need to seriously interrogate fairness and equality, creative production and cultural engagement. And we need to seriously take into consideration why people do what they do. I strongly believe that when people work en masse to route around a system, the system is most likely the thing that needs the fixing, not the people.
Let end-user freedom reign, but at the cost of rogue technology? by: Christina Torode on TotalCIO
Quote: But as CIOs begin to build the next foundations in an age of cloud computing, shared IT services and the consumerization of IT, I wonder whether they are potentially adding a weak foundational layer, at least in terms of controlling rogue technology. Are they adding to the problem as they accommodate the age of people-centric computing?
The Four Personas of the Next-Generation CIO By R “Ray” Wang on BusinessWeek
Quote: Most of today’s CIOs fit squarely in the Chief Infrastructure Officer persona, dedicating their time and resources struggling to keep the lights on. Shifting into the Chief Integration Officer role will be a smooth transition for most of them, but only a few with a business bent will grow into the Chief Innovation Officer role. On the flip side, many business leaders with a technology bent will evolve into the Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Intelligence Officer roles.
Digital Trends: Strategies for Reaching and Influencing Connected Consumers by Brian Solis
Quote: Your job in 2012 is to not embrace new technology with arms wide open, but instead understand it and learn which disruptive technologies separate you from existing and potential customers.

Foto Friday – Killdeer

20 January 2012 - 5:36pm

Here’s a shot of a Killdeer captured at the Village Creek Drying Beds in Arlington TX.

Captured with Canon 7D with Canon 400mm 5.6 L.

EXIF: 1/3200sec, f/5.6, 400mm, 400ISO, 0EV

Watch out for the Gorilla!

17 January 2012 - 4:33pm

I’m currently reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (amazon affiliate link).

In one of the first few chapters, Dr. Kahneman describes the “invisible gorilla test” popularized by psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. The test consists of a team of 3 people dressed in black and a team of 3 people dressed in white passing a basketball to their teammates.

Watch for yourself…and really really focus on counting the passes between the white-shirts. (If you are reading this via RSS and don’t see a video, please click here to view it).

Did you get the number of passes correct? How about the gorilla…did you see the gorilla the first time?

Whether you saw the gorilla while watching the video or not…research shows that about half of the people that watch this video and focus on counting passes, do not see the gorilla. Pretty amazing huh? Half the people don’t see a gorrilla walk through the scene, pound its chest, turn and look at the camera, then stroll off. Half the people.

From this test (and many other tests by other psychologists), we’ve learned that its very easy for us mere humans to get deceived, to miss things and/or just not pay attention that well. The ‘invisible gorilla’ phenomenon isn’t just some theoretical phenomena…Its something that happens in the real world every day. It happens to me and to you everyday.

The invisible gorilla shows up in many workplaces too. With so many people and organizations focused on “doing more with less” (or whatever other buzzworthy terms you want to use here), we tend to miss some of the very important details that might change our outlook and approach towards those things we are so focused on.

Take a step back in your job/life and look for that invisible gorilla. Maybe your gorilla won’t be as easy to see as the one in the video above…but i bet there’s one there…if you look hard enough.

PS: If you want to learn more about The Invisible Gorilla phenomenon, Simons and Chabris have written many papers on the subject and have even released a book titled The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us (amazon affiliate link).

Image Credit: Gorilla By Kris Elshout on flickr

Links for January 15 2012

15 January 2012 - 5:16pm

The Human Marketing Manifesto by Russ Somers on russsomers.com
Quote: I am not a lead, I am a person. A human being with human concerns….I was not ‘generated’ by submitting a lead form. I was generated by my parents many years back after a bottle of wine. I existed long before I clicked ’submit’ to get what was supposed to be a useful eBook, but turned out to be a ten-page stealth ad for your product. (hat tip to Elmer Boutin)
Projecting Leadership in the Age of Change By Todd Rhoad on UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley
Quote: Project managers are quickly becoming the single point of contact for the customer, no matter where they are. They call you with any issue and you take care of it, each and every time. For the customer, every interaction is like reuniting with an old friend and it’s the project manager’s job to make that happen.
Tip for Getting More Organized: Don’t by Michael Schrage on Harvard Business Review
Quote: The essential takeaway is that the new economics of personal productivity mean that the better organized we try to become, the more wasteful and inefficient we become. We’ll likely get more done better if we give less time and thought to organization and greater reflection and care to desired outcomes. Our job today and tomorrow isn’t to organize ourselves better; it’s to get the right technologies that respond to our personal productivity needs. It’s not that we’re becoming too dependent on our technologies to organize us; it’s that we haven’t become dependent enough.
The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change, or Perish by Avinash Kaushik on Occam’s Razor
Quote: The problem, it turns out, is not data. The problem is only partly the data pukers or JavaScript taggers. The real problem is that our management teams lack imagination when it comes to the web, and our marketing executives continue to do TV on Twitter, catalogs on display ads, irrelevant shouting on search, etc.
Order Taker Or Solution Creator? by David Brock on Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog
Quote: I see order takers in all industries, selling all kinds of things–products, services. They could be big ticket items. Order takers worry about their order and are oblivious to what the customer is trying to achieve.
Don’t Think Different, Think About Different Things by Art Markman on Harvard Business Review
Quote: Ultimately, the key to innovation is not to “think different,” but rather, to think about different things.
The Next Wave Of Technology Led Business Gains by Sadagopan S on CloudAve
Quote: In this flat economy and a maturing IT discipline, the common denominator across the board is that enterprise suffer from a serious commoditization curve effect and to create and sustain a competitive advantage through IT would call for looking at getting their core business processes get architected very differently and in a manner that competition may not find it easy to imitate or catch-up. Such core processes would in areas like customer support, supply chain, channel management etc. Here the IT system needs to be more flexible and adaptive for varied forms of collaboration as against a rigid form of communication
Will Your New CIO Be a CMO? By Jim Ericson on Information Management Blogs Article
Quote: So, McLellan says, it’s no surprise that marketing is increasingly going to control tech spending and do its own thing. The questions for her are how much will be done independent of IT, how ready marketing is to take the reins and how fast the shift will occur.

Foto Friday – Addra Gazelle

13 January 2012 - 5:05pm

Another from the photoarchives - An Addra Gazelle at the Fossil Rim WIldlife Center in Glen Rose TX.

Captured with Canon 7D and Canon 400mm 5.6 L.

EXIF: 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100, 400mm, 0EV

Are you building an “order taker” or “solution maker” environment?

12 January 2012 - 7:36pm

Dave Brock just published a post that resonated with me. The title of the post – Order Taker or Solution Creator – hits home in the IT world.

In the article, Dave describes what he calls ‘order takers’ and ‘solution creators’. The order taker does a good job of working with clients to deliver a widget but does very little to ensure that the widget actually will solve the clients’ long term problems. Nothing wrong with order takers mind you…they can be very reliable and in some instances, order takers are perfect.

But other times, its better to be a solution maker/creator. In his article, Dave describes the solution creator as:

They’re idea people, they’re results people–not just for themselves but for the customer. They help their customers envision a new future. They help their customers think about their business differently. They help their customer change and improve.

Emphasis mine.

He also writes:

When they engage the customer they talk about what the customer is trying to achieve. They don’t spend a lot of time on what their solution does, it’s features or capabilities. They know it’s not about the product but what the customer is trying to achieve. Instead they focus on outcomes and results the customer will achieve. They quantify these results, so the customer can clearly understand the impact it will have on their business.

Emphasis mine.

Historically, the IT group has been an order taker. They have existed to do what they are asked to do…and for the most part, we’ve been good at being order takers.

Need a new server? Check….that’ll be $$$.

Need a new application? Check…that’ll be $$$$.

Need your email backed up? Check…that’ll be $.

In recent years, some organizations have begun trying to transform the IT group into something more than an order taker. Some CIO’s and IT groups have even taken the initiative to try to transform themselves into something more than order takers.

Some have been successful. Many haven’t. Most that have succeeded in this transformation have understood that the status quo will not work going forward. The IT of yesterday will not work for the organization of tomorrow. Business is moving faster and faster every day and the order taker and gatekeeper mentality of yesterday’s IT will leave many IT professionals behind if they don’t change.

I wrote an article a few months ago titled Splitting IT – Operations and Innovation that talks about the need for IT to change or have change forced upon us. In that post I wrote:

Operational IT will focus on the tactics necessary to keep the lights on and servers running. Strategic IT / Business Technology will focus on the strategy use of technology for the organization. Both groups will co-mingle and work together of course…but the teams will have different goals and different types of people working within each.

Notice the difference between Operational and Strategic IT? One difference is that one is an order taker while the other is a solution creator. Operational IT will remain the order takers and the newly formed Strategic IT / Business Technology team will be the solution creators.

So…CIO’s & IT Leaders…are you transforming your teams into solution creators or are you happy being order takers? IT Pro’s…what about you? Are you happy in the operational world of IT or are you chomping at the bit to help your ‘customers’ create solutions?

PS: A few other posts about similar topics that I’ve published are Driving transformation with IT starts with transforming IT, Not What, but How – Connecting IT and the Business and I own the technology, you own the content for examples. If you haven’t read them yet, I’d love to have you add them to your ‘to read’ list

Image Credit: The Order-Taker By mynameisharsha on flickr

Links for Jan 8 2012

8 January 2012 - 9:52pm

To Know, But Not to Understand by Valeria Maltoni on Conversation Agent
Quote: We rely, in other words, on a random accumulation of localised knowledge about people, their backgrounds and various behavioural signals. What if we could pool all those circles of wisdom together and extract a common currency for evaluating everyone’s levels of expertise, social resonance and, above all, such critical attributes as trustworthiness? Well, that race is now on.
Know-how and know-why versus know-what by JP Rangaswami on confused of calcutta
Quote: Knowing how to get to an answer is often more important than knowing the answer. And knowing why is the foundation for remembering the how.
Some Thoughts on Writer’s Block by Kas Thomas on assertTrue( )
Quote: Give yourself permission to take unusual entry points into the discussion. Give yourself permission to start in the middle, or at the end. Sometimes, you can get good traction by simply listing your concluding points. What are the essential takeaways that you want to be able to deliver? Write them down quickly. Entry points will suggest themselves.
Can your IT outsourcing contract coexist with the cloud? by Scott Bils on GigaOm’s Cloud Computing News
Quote: In the next generation IT outsourcing world, service providers are going to look very different from what you find in today’s marketplace. There will be more of them, their capabilities will be different, and the value propositions they offer will need to be accounted for in how you evaluate your choices. Management and governance will follow new models, and metrics will be fundamentally different.
Louis C.K.’s lesson for marketers: Honesty is the best strategy by By Jessica Lee on GigaOm
Quote: The thing is — Louis C.K.’s online marketing campaign wasn’t really a campaign. It was a public agreement that he made with his audience. He promised to create and release an honest product, and the audience promised to continue supporting his future projects. The consumers didn’t just buy a DRM-free download of Louis C.K.’s standup special — they bought into a trusted relationship with the comedian.
The Power of Pause by Ana Dutra on Harvard Business Review
Quote: At a higher level, as leaders, pausing and reflecting enables us to ask what our role really is, how to more effectively empower others to be the best at the roles they are supposed to play and, therefore, what we should really get involved with. Pause and reflection create space for us and for others — everybody becomes more effective and can grow.

Foto Friday – Duck at Sunset

6 January 2012 - 4:00pm

Another from the photoarchives – This is one of the first photos I took with my Canon 1D Mark III last year. I went out at sunset to test out the low light capabilities . Captured this duck at the pond…turned out nicely.

Captured with Canon 1D Mark III, Canon 400mm 5.6 L with Canon 1.4x extender handheld.

EXIF: 1/200 sec, f/8.0, 560mm, 800ISO, 0EV

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I learned Python…and much more

5 January 2012 - 5:00pm

I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head buried in programming languages.

I’ve been needing to re-write some scripts for data analysis for my research. I initially wrote some scripts in R but found that R is particularly slow when it comes to this type of analysis (more accurately I should say that my implementation of these analysis techniques is slow).

So..I started looking for a more economical way to do this analysis. I’m using PHP to do some of the up-front data collection so my logical choice was to dust off my PHP skills and build some analysis scripts using PHP.

So I got out my PHP books and started coding. After a few days, I had a pretty impressive set of scripts that would take my collected data, run a bayes classification filter on that data for sentiment and then summarize that data. I was proud of myself…until I realized that the implementation of my classification algorithm would be difficult to justify in an academic setting….or at least that I’d have to spend a lot of time defending and justifying it at a later date. This was also one of the reasons that I wanted to re-write the R scripts.

So…I revisited my approach. Was there anything written in PHP that was well received in the academic world? Of course not.

One approach that is used by many researchers in text classification and sentiment analysis is to use the Python language and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) – and there are plenty of academic articles citing the NLTK…so that helps me with defending my algorithms in my dissertation work.

Now…I’ve never looked at Python. I couldn’t have written a “Hello World” program in python. But…it needed to be done, so I found some resources on the web and dove in. Over the course of a few hours I wrote my analysis and summary scripts in python….and was absolutely amazed at how quick this language is. My buddy Jeff is probably getting tired of me telling him how great python is … but oh well…he’ll keep hearing it

I was able to get the time that my analysis takes down from 8 to 9 hours in R to about 1.5 hours in python. Talk about a time saver! Now…most of that time savings is probably due to new approaches to the analysis rather than just a pure python vs R speed issue….but the re-writing forced me to rethink my approach.

Why tell you about my newfound skillz (I’m told you have to use ‘z’ in this usage of the word)?

Part of me wanted to brag a bit

But, more importantly, learning a new programming language isn’t necessarily about the language itself…its about the discovery process. For me, learning Python forced me to rethink my approaches to the data analysis I was working on…and the outcome is a faster analysis with potentially more accurate results as well as a more defensible algorithm. Learning a new language forced me to think through my approach. It forced me to think about the inputs and outputs.

When is the last time to you took a step back and rethought your approach? You don’t need to learn Python to do it…just take a step back from your day-to-day grind and really look at what you are doing. Is it working for you? Is it working for your team and/or organization?

If the answer isn’t an unequivocal ‘yes’, then maybe you need to rethink your script(s) and look for a new approach.

Recommended Books for the CIO / IT leader for 2012

3 January 2012 - 4:00pm

Wow…2011 went by fast didn’t it?

In Dec 2010, I put together a list of Recommended Books for the CIO / IT leader for 2011. That list was a good list with many CIO/IT related books as well as many non-IT related books.

When I sat down to think about a list of books for 2012, my first inclination was to mix it up again this year with some CIO/IT related books + some non-IT books. But then…I realized 2 things: 1.) There aren’t that many CIO/IT leadership books on the market and 2.) most CIO’s don’t need help being told how to be a CIO the in traditional sense. CIO’s today (and tomorrow) need to understand what the rest of the business is doing and how they are working.

With my main focus in my recent consulting being in the areas of helping IT groups work better with Marketing, PR and Communications teams/groups, I thought I’d put together a list with a wide-range of topics that would be good for IT professionals and CIO’s to read this year. Topics include IT, content, marketing, PR, leadership and business in general.

All links below are amazon affiliate links.

It’s Not About You: A Little Story About What Matters Most in Business by Bob Burg

Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization by Olivier Blanchard

Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman

Real-Time Marketing and PR, Revised: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now by David Meerman Scott

The Role of Technology in Today’s Marketplace: Leading Technology Executives on Adapting to Changing Business Needs, Harnessing Innovation, and Increasing Organizational Efficiency (Multiple Authors)

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink

Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors by Patrick Lencioni

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard P. Rumelt

The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan

The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, Clayton M. Christensen

Humanize: How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World by Jamie Notter, Maddie Grant

The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen by Andy Boynton, Bill Fischer, William Bole (contributor)

Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

Image Credit: 2012_happy_new_year-widew By Ludie Cochrane on flickr

Links for Jan 1 2012

1 January 2012 - 6:07pm

Happy New Year!

You Don’t Live in the World You Were Born Into by Mark Cuban on blog maverick
Quote: “If you are looking where everyone else is for the next big thing, you are looking in the wrong place”
Stop whining and start hiring remote workers by David Heinemeier Hansson on 37signals
Quote: Every day I read a new article about some company whining about how hard it is to hire technical staff. Invariably it turns out that they’re only looking for people within a commuters distance of their office…..stop whining, spend a day to get up to speed on remote working practices, and hire outside of your commuter zone
The chance of a lifetime by Seth Godin
Quote: You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It’s never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. The best thing is that it only takes a moment — just one second — to decide.
Big Data: It’s Not How Big It Is, It’s How You Use It by JP Rangaswami on confused of calcutta
Quote: Big Data becomes useful when it leads to action
Who Needs Process? by Ted Dziuba
Quote: Software development methodology is organizational Valtrex. Sure, it treats a symptom, but the only cure for the underlying disease is to never have contracted it in the first place. This is not to say that process and methodology are bad. They are means to an end. But the ability of your team to execute on a goal is inversely proportional to the amount of process you have in place. It’s not a direct correlation, though. The underlying cause is that the variance of developer skill on your team is too high, which means your team can’t execute well, and you need process to wrangle the laggards.
2011 – reflections and thoughts by Mark P. McDonald on the Gartner Blog Network
Quote: For IT, 2011 was a year to re-imagine technology’s role in the enterprise – a role that I believe increasingly means going beyond IT. The implications of “TECHNOOGY > IT” are just emerging across customers, markets and enterprises. More about that latter, but the fundamentals and the core value proposition of technology and IT are changing.

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