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Charles Bess has worked in the Information Technology industry for more than 27 years supporting a variety of large clients and industries. Starting as a semiconductor yield analysis engineer for General Motors, Charlie has performed a variety of formal and technical leadership roles throughout EDS. He is a licensed professional engineer and in 2002 was recognized as a Fellow within EDS for his focus on value delivery and innovation. In addition to these activities, Charlie has also worked as a public speaker, advisor to SMUs MBA program and supported engineering and computer science activities at Purdue University and University of North Texas. He’s been blogging on technology related topics since early 2003.
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What is your core business?
One thing that people in business need to be asking themselves is "What is the core business?" People working in IT may need to ask it more often than most, since they can be a bit removed from revenue generation. Business value generation has always been the goal of IT - even if we sometimes lose sight of that fact.
In these dynamic days, organizations can shift how they generate value. Companies that used to be viewed as manufactures can suddenly be making most of their money through finance (e.g., leasing), or outsource all their manufacturing and focus on marketing or design. Chris Zook has written a trio of books about core business value generation. In them he states "nine out of 10 companies that had sustained profitable growth for a decade had focused on their core businesses, rather than following a siren's song toward diversification", but that one in three "completely transformed their core businesses, some even reinventing themselves completely." What's core today may not be in the future.
IT organizations need to be at least aware, if not involved in the corporate strategy so that they can enable the future, as opposed to just respond to it. Bob Evans also had an article on this subject in InformationWeek. In it he pointed to some questions that Bob Evans posed for any IT professionals:
"1) In 12 months, what business will your customers what you to be in?
"2) In 24 months, what business will your customers demand you be in?
"3) Is your company nimble and agile enough to move at a pace that will let you change to meet the evolving requirements of those customers?"
For an IT organization, that also means we need to look at the investment spend and how it enables the organization to hit those objectives. If the investment approach does not incorporate this thinking, "IT doesn't matter". There is no doubt IT organizations need to keep their eye on the current business, but not lose sight of the end business goal.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Always bet on the Machine – the fate of software development
If you look back forty years ago, there were hundreds of thousands of telephone operators in the US working for AT&T alone. Now the function has been almost totally automated. Before the 1950s, "computer" was a job code (usually doing actuarial work), not a device that would be recognized by most individuals.
More recently, we've seen the shift from shirts and shoes being made by hand, to today, where they are made by machines. Even more critical and precise, activities like eye surgery and Prostatectomy are being turned over to robotics.
I believe there are changes taking place in the IT space that will push the envelope of what people can perform without assistance. Some of these are:
The move to multi-core and specialized processors (the age of abundance in computing). It is very difficult for people to write parallel code. There is quite a bit of work taking place in this area. Just as robotics help "good" surgeons do "great" work, the average programmer can use automated assistance in the assembly of great programs.
The move of the edge of the enterprise out into more finely grained data elements will require more and more interfaces to be created. Automated techniques will amplify the capabilities of the available resources to meet those new interface needs.
Modeling and simulation will increase the confidence in the experiments and changes to business processes. With the use of techniques like genetic algorithms, they'll even aid in optimizing the performance of business models. Just like in the NASA antenna design competition, they'll likely make adjustments we'd never dream of.
Although there is a Luddite tendency in us all, we must realize that betting on the machine over the long haul is a sure thing. I've blogged before (a few years back) about the ever increasing capabilities of computers and the inevitable outcome.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Employees of the next generation enterprise…
I've mentioned the way different generations use computers before. Tom Hill pointed me to this article on the Military's recognition of the situation. There is a great deal of useful information for corporations in this article. Since the topic seems to be showing up at more conferences it's definitely being recognized that it is not something that we can assume will just be addressed automatically. There's been lots of talk about workplace generation wars and at least people are thinking about it.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Mentors, Gatekeepers and Technology delivery of value for social networks
Recently there have been some articles about the valuation of LinkedIn and it outpacing Facebook. I was talking with an MBA candidate (that I mentor) about social networks. We were discussing the size and value of his Facebook network vs. mine in LinkedIn. He mentioned the concept of gatekeepers, which was a new term for something most of us probably know about but not actively think about.
He was asked in his MBA program about his social/work network, and he realized it deficiencies. I'll walk through an example of the discussion as it relates to me. I have >200 people in my LinkedIn network. I am fairly sure I've met at least 80% of them. I accept just about everyone from EDS, SMU or Purdue who asks to be in my network, whether I've met them or not, so that's how a few get in that I've never met. He asked: "How many would you go to if you needed to borrow some money?" (or some other really meaningful show of support - use your imagination). It turns out it would be very few. Those individuals are really my core network. The rest are resources I may draw upon, but not rely on.
One of the goals for an individual in the workforce should be to cultivate that core network, and essentially become a gatekeeper for that group. If each of those people has a group they really trust, you have greater diversity of support from the extended network that can address your problems. That seems to have been the original philosophy of LinkedIn. Clearly with some folks out there with >1000 1st level connections in LinkedIn, it's gone fairly far from that close knit group perspective.
What I find interesting is the injection of technology using techniques like Knowledge Network (which Microsoft experimented with and looks like it will be in a future version of SharePoint). This tool moves part the gatekeeper function to a computer system that watches what you're working on or interested in and matches you to others within the company, sending email like "You should talk to Joe, he is working on xxx."
These techniques can be critical for a technical services company, since we bring in large numbers of new employees (transition). These folks will normally be remote from other EDS groups, so developing their network will be difficult. Yet the whole foundation for the relationship between the service provider and their previous employer is based on those same employees drawing upon the greater corporate resources. If they do the same thing, in the same way, it's a recipe for disaster.
There is also the need to understand what differentiated this new workforce before it is paved over with a "corporate standard". Their unique nature could be an innovation that improves performance elsewhere, but that's a whole other issue. This balance of planting and harvesting of ideas is important to the outsourcing industry.
Network development skills are critical to technologists as well as business leaders in making the most of their corporation and partners.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
What’s SharePoint anyway?
I was in a discussion with some folks today who were expressing concerns about the limitations in SharePoint (as it comes out of the box). They wanted to do things that were possible, just not native with SharePoint (meaning coding would be involved). There were a bit confused about the limitations about what's possible and what's available, since SharePoint has products that are a framework for creating composite applications and can use capabilities like Silverlight, workflow and mashup tools like Popfly.
There was also an interesting effort trying to categorize MOSS as a web 2.0 collaboration tool or some other "application" category. I will not get into the gory detailed discussion that SharePoint is a category of tools itself (e.g., MOSS, WSS). Using the term SharePoint without a qualifier of what SharePoint product you're talking about is just confusing.
I finally said that "almost everything from Microsoft is really a toolkit. What they provide with MOSS (or any of the Office products for that matter) is a set of examples of what you could do. The rest is up to you." Your mileage may vary...
That is why there is such an active third party market around all the Microsoft tools. If you (as a developer) want to work at it, you can make it do almost anything you can image. A similar concept is true for open source tools, just at a finer grained level.
I've just not seen a good open source tool with similar capabilities to SharePoint.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Network Usage Doubling every two years
CISCO released a white paper titled Cisco Visual Networking Index - Forecast and Methodology, 2007-2012 that states:
"In 2012, the total annual volume of IP traffic will reach half a zettabyte. At 44 exabytes per month, the annual run rate of traffic will be 522 exabytes per year. A zettabyte, or 1,000 exabytes, will be the new milestone to look for beyond 2012.
IP traffic will nearly double every two years through 2012. Total IP traffic will increase by a factor of six from 2007 to 2012. Driven by high-definition video and high-speed broadband penetration, consumer IP traffic will bolster the overall IP growth rate so that it sustains a steady growth rate through 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 percent.
Last year was a year of phenomenal growth in IP and Internet traffic. Total IP traffic grew 55 percent during 2007, and is estimated to grow by 63 percent in 2008. Internet traffic grew 46 percent in 2007, and is estimated to increase 51 percent in 2008.
Traffic from all applications grew in volume in 2007, but the traffic mix shifted considerably. Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks are now carrying 600 petabytes per month more than they did this time last year, which means there is the equivalent of an additional 150 million DVDs crossing the network each month, for a total monthly volume of over 500 million DVD equivalents, or two exabytes. Despite this growth, P2P as a percentage of consumer Internet traffic dropped to 51 percent at the end of 2007, down from 60 percent the year before. The decline in traffic-share is due primarily to the increasing share of video traffic. A secondary factor in the decline is a trend toward web-based file sharing in place of P2P file sharing in some regions."
I've written before about exponential change and some of the negative implications (here and here). This report is focused on the consumer market, and there are some additional burdens that will come from the commercial market as well. The use of sensors and the additional data that they'll be transferring wasn't mentioned in the article, but I supposed it will be minimal when you compare it to video.
In any case, it appears that organizations' assumptions about network needs will need to be scrutinized, since addressing this issue has a long lead-time.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Is my Wii stalking me?
When the Wii fit came out last month, I broke down and bought one. I've been using it about every other day for the last month and some interesting interactions have begun to take place:
- It started asking me about why I missed a workout for a day or two.
- After I actually lost a little weight, it asked my daughter if she noticed the change.
- Yesterday, it asked me if I'd seen my daughter recently, since she hasn't been spending enough time with it.
It all starts to seem like a desperate and lonely cry for attention. I'm beginning to wonder what other strange behaviors I'll be seeing. The more I play with it, the more capabilities it unlocks so I'll keep coming back. Hopefully it doesn't want more out of this relationship than I can give.
I've blogged before about the use of context and "smart" computing. It can be a bit surprising when a device starts using context (weight, time of day, date...) to try and modify behavior.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Why is it so hard to internalize Agile Development techniques for some people
Phil Jackson, Bill Phifer and I wrote a white paper a while back titled Agile-Iterative Development and the Cone of Uncertainty, where we discussed the issues of project management and minimizing risk. In that paper we stated:
The Cone of Uncertainty for a project describes the uncertainty estimating software development project cost, effort and duration, throughout the lifecycle of a project. The degree of uncertainty is very large at the beginning of the project, which is often when decisions are made about project pricing and contracts. For some projects, this uncertainty can last until much later in the development process, even after working code is available.
The diagram above is also ‘best case' and ‘ideal' in two ways:
The diagram does not show the fact that if an estimate is produced at the outset which is greatly below the actual needed project duration, then the timeframe for all project milestones will shift outward; it will take longer than estimated to perform product definition, identify requirements, etc. At the outset of the project, there is substantial uncertainty about the duration and the timing of events during the project.
The diagram also shows how uncertainty would be reduced in an ideal waterfall project lifecycle, where requirements are understood and finalized early in the schedule (before user design is complete, etc.). However, we all know that the requirements are rarely understood at this early stage, especially for large, complex, novel systems. Quite often, requirements are clarified or new requirements are identified, late in projects, typically only after users are able to interact with a functioning version of the system. We've all run into the "I'll know it when I see It" phenomenon. The one development exception should be in the case of SOA, where the services should be well understood and test cases created before coding beings.
Within EDS we've known since at least the early 90s that waterfall techniques are much higher risk than an iterative approach. Yet it's very difficult to get managers (project or otherwise) to internalize iterative development. It may be because it is difficult to create effective contracting mechanisms, or a reason could be something I saw in article Jim Highsmith from Cutter wrote that stated:
"The perception remains, however, that projects are, or should be, on track early and "off track" late. Agile projects flip that perception since they are often off track early and on track late. This flip is disconcerting because it is different from prior experience. Even though rationally it seems better to uncover problems earlier, the variation from historical norms is still disconcerting, and it takes time to adjust ones thinking. There is an old project management adage that "problems get worse with age," which may be true, but many managers view early problem identification as a "problem" by labeling the project team/manager as making excuses or not "getting with the program."
With well designed agile techniques, you should be trying to focus on the unknowns or long lead time items early, essentially trying to bring problems to light as soon as possible. Looking for projects with little or no issues or risks is likely a pointer to projects without effective project management and leadership oversight. You can use this indicator to coach the team on how to actually mitigate risk.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Open Ontology Repository – a step closer to Semantic web?
In April, the National Institute of Standards and Technology was one of the sponsors of an Ontology Summit.
The theme was "Towards an Open Ontology Repository".
They've created a Wiki for the Summit as well as a summary of what took place. This is of interest because developing an Open Ontology Repository (OOR) is key to semantic technologies.
"The purpose of an Open Ontology Repository is to provide an architecture and an infrastructure that supports a) the creation, sharing, searching, and management of ontologies, and b) linkage to database and XML Schema structured data and documents. Complementary goals include fostering the ontology community, the identification and promotion of best practices, and the provision of services relevant to ontologies and instance stores."
If tools can be created to index and reference information using a standard OOR, it will reduce ambiguity in the use of information. This will allow information to be located, searched, categorized, and exchanged with a more accurate understanding of its context and meaning, moving us closer to a semantic web and reasoning systems.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
The Toyota Production System for Software
Recently, an IEEE Spectrum podcast featured a Q&A session with Clayton Christensen, the author of the Innovator's Dilemma. Even though this book is over 10 years old, it still is thought provoking.
In the interview, Clayton discusses how some of his work and work of his previous students is being used to reduce costs and capital expenditure in the semiconductor manufacturing space. He mentions how the use of standard design libraries will decrease the value placed on design, and increase the value of effectively run semiconductor fabs that can run small volumes with a reduced lead-time.
There are 4 principles:
Rule 1: All work shall be highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, and outcome.
Rule 2: Every customer-supplier connection must be direct, and there must be an unambiguous yes-or-no way to send requests and receive responses.
Rule 3: The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct.
Rule 4: Any improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method, under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest possible level in the organization.
It made me wonder about the effect of applying these principles to the software services industry, especially when we move into an age of virtual machines, industry standard frameworks and Service oriented architectures using model based development. It seems like these approaches would work in this domain as well. The business implications may be similar too.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
When is personalization of technology going too far?
I received a TomTom GPS device last year and finally spent the weekend playing with it. Like many devices, I could change the startup display to show family members... My wife was happy with that.
When I customized the voice for the device to have my voice instead of one of the canned ones that was too much! She said it felt too much like "big brother". I was being a backseat driver, without even being in the car. Commands like "turn right in 500 yards" and other directions felt more like incessant nagging than help when delivered in the voice of a "loved one".
When organizations look at using opportunistic computing, they need to understand the amount of "help" the organization is willing to stand before they turn it off. It may not even be the amount, but the method (like it was in this case) that needs to be tuned. Just because you can do something, it does not mean you should do it.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Cloud Computing Forecast
In Network World magazine there was an article that predicted a cloudy future for cloud computing. They listed a number of problems:
- Data privacy - The article talked about the country border issues for some types of information. Although that's a constraint, I don't know that it is really what I'd call a problem. The people who create those services need to understand the applicable laws. What may be interesting is the liability if there is a violation. Is it the group that created the software, the group that runs the computer or the group that has the virtualized storage? They could be different and, I'm not sure that the laws have caught up with this reality.
- Security - The security concern has been addressed by outsourcing entities forever. I don't believe this is new territory related to cloud computing.
- Licensing - Not sure how much of an issue this would be either. You're going to be able to put commercial software on just any cloud out there. You are going to put it on a system that can run that software legally, in many cases a service affiliated with the software creator. My concern would be more about the integration issues between systems. A Tower of Babel condition could develop where the various services require different information and the translation and transport issues become a distraction from the actual business value generation. An enterprise architecture should address this kind of concern and this would not be coming from the Cloud/SaaS provider.
- Applications - It is true that not all applications can make the transition to a Cloud. I've mentioned before that I believe a great deal of the cloud capabilities will be doing new types of work, not traditional application functions.
- Interoperability - I'd have rephrased this concern as lock in. Organizations typically have concerns about getting locked into a service provider and having no way out. I'm not sure the Cloud and SaaS providers have figured this issue out. They may think of it as a feature not a liability.
- Compliance - This is also an area the outsourcing market has addressed for years. The question that the SaaS and cloud folks need to address is: How can they support the individual industries needs?
- SLAs - The Network World article talked about the concern about missing an SLA. I'd have focused more on the issue of end-to-end SLAs. No company cares about the fact that their data is peculating through the data center just fine if they can't get at it. This new market needs to address the end-to-end issue.
- Network monitoring - this relates to #7, but rather than network monitoring I'd have focused more on business value monitoring. After all the reason these systems are in place is to generate value for the business.
I think their list is fairly comprehensive. The one area I didn't really see is the conflict between customization and standardization. The larger the client the more special that feel they are.
We're in an age where everyone wants it all. People want to share their information and yet have it secure. We want mobile as well as fixed access. We want low cost and high quality. The future is full of contradictions and that is why we're entering a time where the service innovation will shine.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Event Driven Management and Opportunistic Computing
A while back I wrote a blog entry on Opportunistic Computing, what an organization can do with cloud computing that they wouldn't have done before. I just read an entry on the Smart Enough Systems blog that looks at some similar issues but from the perspective of proactive use of IT to increase the value of the business. He wrote that the characteristics of an organization using Event Driven Management are:
- Negative Response Time
- Simulation
- Best Next Action
- Predictive supply chain
- Explicit Decisions
- Event-based and process-centric
These are also the kind of compute-intensive activities that would be difficult to perform without being able to tap into a pool of relatively unlimited computing resources.
We're both saying that the kinds of computing that will take latency out and increase value are here today, just not widely implemented.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Gartner list of 10 most disruptive technologies for IT
I always look for articles like this to see what I've missed. This article about Gartner's list echoes many of the posts that have taken place on this blog recently. I was a bit disappointed, since I was hoping for some new areas to discuss. ;-)
They were:
10. Semantic Technologies
9. Augmented Reality
8. Context-Aware Computing
7. Ubiquitous Computing
6. User Interface
5. Mashups
4. Cloud Computing
3. Enterprise Social Software
2. Virtualization
1. Multicore and Hybrid Servers
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Sensors the Foot Soldier of a Revolution
I was looking at the Dallas Morning News this morning a saw a story "Sensors may Revolutionize Everyday Life". I've mentioned before about how sensors will start to be in just about everything. I just found it interesting to be in a main stream media paper on a Sunday morning.
I was talking with some folks last week about cloud computing and how sensors are going to change how computing is used. When we have the huge amounts of information coming in that the sensors will provide, we're going to have to display it in a way that people can consume. After all people can't work with petabytes of information flowing in on a daily basis.
I did find it interesting that Nano -Technology wasn't mentioned once during the article, since sensors are a major research area for nano. I would be interesting for the reporter to do a follow-up pulling in some Nano activities from places like UT Dallas.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Is IT becoming extinct? No, it’s just evolving.
I read Michael Krigsman's blog entry titled "Is IT becoming extinct?", and had to wonder what his definition of IT really was?? If he views IT as a technology focused organization that is separate from the core business, I'd probably agree, but if we're talking about IT being the use of information and knowledge to maximize value delivery, than he couldn't be farther from the truth. Vinnie wrote a response to Michael's entry in his blog as well.
What is true is the enterprise use of information and knowledge is changing. We're having greater degrees of collaboration and customized use of information, similar to the changes that came from the introduction of the personal computer. We're moving through a stage focused on virtualization to one with much greater use of SaaS and cloud computing techniques. We're moving to a deeper understanding of the intersection of enterprise as well as personal context. With all the new compute cycles being made available, we're going to use them in ways that were never possible before.
Michael's arguments about services becoming a commodity are true, as long as we're talking about commodity services. My perspective is that fewer compute cycles are going to be spent on commodity services in the future, when compared with what organizations will use on understanding context and simulating impact of changes. I doubt that anyone should view the skills needed to accomplish those tasks as low value. They are definitely IT, but just a different IT than what we're talking about today.
Social media is definitely going to have an impact. For the larger organization, the IT organization will be deeply involved in this. Collaborative environments are moving to SaaS approaches at a faster rate than the core business systems, but if you start to integrate those collaboration systems into the enterprise processes, moving to a new level of value generation and latency reduction, the commodity solutions are not up to the task. The vendors of these services are likely to remain unwilling to support the level of customization and SLAs required for the foreseeable future. We'll have to see what level of integration they will support going forward, since SOA should allow that to take place. Other business solutions are also going down the SaaS path, but if the consuming organization views tight integration as a differentiator, a commodity solution may not suffice.
There are numerous other arguments in his article, and it is important for each organization to review and determine what impact they would have. In most cases though, it will be the IT organization that does the review. They need to actively decide where to spend their resources. For some, SaaS and other techniques will provide significant value and the pendulum will swing and hopefully reach equilibrium at some point that meets the organizations needs. What there is no problem agreeing with is: those IT organization not focused on delivering ever increasing business value ("caretakers") and actively making decisions about their future will be extinct, since someone will step in and make decision for them or their company.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
FCC nets $19.6 billion for 700 MHz auction
Since there have been a number of entries on this blog about the spectrum action (this, this and this), there had to be at least one more on the fact that the auction is over for the 700 MHz spectrum. Although they are not announcing the winner yet, there are some results available. With a quick review, it looks like the reserves were met. It looks like the FCC held on to 8, judging by the locales, they must be the ones least profitable.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
What’s time for anyway??
I remember hearing the story once of a mother who was taking her daughter to the zoo. They were rushing from place to place and the little girl was frustrated by the harried pace and her inability to enjoy the experience. She asked her mom "Why can't we look at everything?" The mother stated "We don't have time for that." The girl's response was "What's time for anyway???"
I was talking with Ed Kettler (another EDS Fellow) about the use of simulation and business decision making. We were talking about the need to take latency out of decision making and the driving force in business to doing things better, faster, cheaper. Both Ed and I expressed some frustration with those who view simulation as too ethereal and a waste of time. It's becoming part of every level of business, particularly for those deploying SOA. We need to plan for it. I mentioned some efforts around workflow simulation the other day in this blog.
Simulation is one technique that can speed time up. For example, changing a business workflow model, then simulate yesterday's production volume on it and see the impact. Simulation can also slow time down and identify bottlenecks or anomalies and focus an individual's efforts on diagnosis and improvement.
There is continuous effort to place finer grained metering and implement sensors in the business environment, and whole new possibilities to use all the computational power available to us.
James Taylor pointed out in Smart (Enough) Systems that many of the systems in production can be made smarter and provide the information needed to facilitate a decision making process. These don't have to be strategic decisions, since operational decisions are important, too. Those who understand how to use time differently will have an advantage.
Thoreau said "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." and now is the time to learn to fish.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Reviewing The IT Value Stack
I was reviewing The IT Value Stack the other day and in the process exchanged a few emails with Ade McCormack the author.
Although he does a great job describing the issues of value generation within IT the way it is structured today. There were some differences of perspective that I have to bring out:
- Ade's discussion of outsourcing appears to be fairly harsh. He does not understand the real value of outsourcing. It is not about replacing workers, but about diversifying risk and contracting for efficiency. His whole premise seems to be that an in house team is always the right answer. I'd say that is a high risk proposition. As the industry moves into a more assembly based value creation approach rather than a hand crafted one, the need to have experts (for a short duration) in high value segments should increase. Outsourcers had better be able to apply those resources seamlessly and more effectively than any in house team could ever do. The changes in the IT industry will demand this ability to tap into a more diversified resource pool.
- Even though Ade talks about the business value being based on the use of IT, he keeps pounding away that IT is separate and must be "entwined". I'd have bought that argument in the mid 90s when most middle management had little understanding of computers, but that does not hold up today. When he and I exchanged a note about how the "typing pool" has disappeared, I suggest the same thing is happening with "long tail" application development, through the use of mashups and other similar techniques. He does talk about the CIO being the evangelist or enabler, but it was a bit weak for me. IT's days as a separate entity inside the corp. are numbered. Everyone needs to take a hard look at the territory they want to claim for their corporation and prepare the IT organization to make it happen. In Ade's book there is a good tactical framework to do this, and it appears to be a valid means to an end. It's just the end state that I'm afraid could have been more thoroughly explained.
- One other area that wasn't brought out in the book that I'd like to hear Ade's perspective on is: Cloud Computing. Most of the folks who are working in cloud computing can spell "cost" fairly well, but don't understand "value" and what the organizations will require to use it as an integral part of their business. We'll see how many lessons are going to be learned in that space before there are some changes in the market.
I do believe there was a great deal of useful material in the book and it should make the reader sit back and contemplate their ability to adapt and adopt the concepts, since in any shift like this the leader must ensure that there are followers.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Virtual Presence and Green IT
For centuries the workers of the world have had to locate within commuting distance of their work. It was necessary because their work could hardly travel to where they lived. Not anymore. The paradigm of moving work to people rather than moving people to work is being adopted more and more by progressive companies who understand that there are benefits that devolve both to the enterprise as well as to employees.
For the employee working at a remote location, telework provides for a choice in lifestyle, living where they want to live, as well as reduction in time (and energy) spent commuting. According to the US census, the average worker spends more than 100 hours a year commuting. During this time they consume approximately 150 gallons of gasoline, which in these days of $3 per gallon of gas is about $500 of after tax income.
For the enterprise, telework allows for greater diversity in the organization, drawing upon individuals from many cultures and perspectives regardless of location. Diversity of perspective usually allows for more ideas in a shorter period of time - a more innovative and productive environment. It also provides the opportunity to reduce costs on office space and other fixed costs. Virtual presence enables easier movement of work between locations based upon time zones. As new work locations start their day, they can be brought into the enterprise processes unnoticed by the end user. Jet Blue has been known for using this technique for its customer support.
One of the areas the IT industry is focusing on is Unified Communications. This involves the use of Voice-over IP technologies (VoIP) to provide transparent access to individuals over voice, messaging and video. In the past the data and voice networks were managed and accessed separately. We are moving into an age where information delivery is taking place over the same mechanism regardless of format, based on standards like Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).SIP can be used to create two-party, multiparty, or multicast sessions that include Internet telephone calls, multimedia distribution, and multimedia conferences and is the basis for most VoIP products and services.
Unified communications is becoming the de facto source for information about the context of the individual: where they are located, what role they're playing, what they've worked on in the past, as well as their availability. The focus will with employee identity at the core. Once an organization makes the transition to the approach it will enable:
- Better access to experts - Pools of expertise can be defined within the enterprise and that pool can be addressed directly. Anyone within that pool can respond as they are available. This will reduce the constraints upon the individual. This pooling approach will also allow for the distribution of work in automated workflows.
- Reduced response time to events - When an event takes place where a decision needs to be made or assistance given, the enterprise can draw upon the context information to send it to the people who are actually available to respond. Escalation techniques can be defined so that response time can be defined and controlled more effectively than ad-hoc relationship based approaches.
- Reduced travel costs - As organizations begin to develop a common understanding of how to access an individual, it will not matter if the person is in the same building, on the same continent or working at home. They are represented in the enterprise in a simple and consistent way that can be accessed reliably.
- Accelerated project delivery - Knowing how to find individuals or groups with equivalent capabilities removes latency from projects. Being able to find the status of the people on the project and pull together a conference call on the fly and reach a consensus quickly will improve the agility of organizations and reduce time to market.
- Greater control over IP - In order to facilitate the information flow for the environment described, more sophisticated controls will be required and everyone will benefit.
When combined with workflow techniques that capture the context of the enterprise and role based security, the work environment can be made responsive while still environmentally conscious. All of this will enable an enterprise to reduce the latency in the decision making process and accelerate value generation.
One additional element of "Virtually There" merits mention - if alternative work arrangements become prevalent in a location, the infrastructure necessary to support the community can be undersized to that which would normally need to be in place. Fewer roads = more vegetation to process CO2, less solar absorption, less energy needed to make the concrete that makes the roads, etc. etc. etc. Moving work to people rather than moving people to work has benefits on many levels.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Location awareness -- the tip of the iceberg
Last week I was talking with Vinnie Mirchandani about the impact of all the sensor information coming into the enterprise in the near future. What the effect will be on ERP systems...
This week I saw an article in information week about the same subject. As sensor use enters into the enterprise, they'll provide much more context of the enterprise. Efforts like unified communications provide more information about the context of the individual. This will enable a next generation of the enterprise.
We're going to see the need for smarter systems, just to enable the decision making process. When we're talking about terabytes of data per hour flowing into large enterprises, people just don't work with that volume of information.
Geographic information can provide a key role in assisting with the contextual intersection between the employee and the enterprise, limiting the flow of information to only those who can do something about it. Since more phones will have GPS capabilities, the balance between personal privacy and corporate information overload is a battle that is about to commence.
For the public, there is already a great deal of discussion about correlating information across all the other sensors in the environment enabling a real life recorder capability. In the UK they talk about having >4 Million CCTV cameras. Many of these now have additional sensors like infrared or built in contextual knowledge looking for illegal behavior. When you add in sensors, the target for London will be millions of sensors per person by 2050.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Working with big companies
In the past few weeks, there has been a great deal of discussion about what Microsoft or Yahoo will do. It made me think about a blog entry I'd see a while back about the inexplicable behavior of large companies. The entry is well worth reading and uses a Moby Dick metaphor to describe guidelines for a smaller company trying to work with large companies:
- don't do startups that require deals with big companies to make them successful
- never assume that a deal with a big company is closed until the ink hits the paper and/or the cash hits the company bank account
- be extremely patient
- beware bad deals
- never, ever assume a big company will do the obvious thing
- be aware that big companies care a lot more about what other big companies are doing than what any startup is doing
- if doing deals with big companies is going to be a key part of your strategy, be sure to hire a real pro who has done it before
- don't get obsessed
In the outsourcing business, these guidelines hold true as well.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Technical Leadership (part 2) - Communication
After the blog entry the other day, I had a couple people ask me about the role of communications.
One of the issues I've always encountered with technical leadership is the ability communicate technical information to the leaders and followers (the audience). I've always had the problem myself of assuming they're looking at the problem from my perspective. This seems to be a trap that many people fall into. Let's face it, they are not; hey view the problem from their own perspective.
Conveying context is critical, particularly when sending a note to executives, where you want to influence and have them perceive you as having a story they're interested in, your writing style needs to adjust. They are not interested in the details, that's why you're there. If they understood the material the way you do, you'd be working somewhere else. Make communications short and direct. If you can't get it on one page or you can't get the presentation points across in 5 slides, make sure you really know what the audience wants. If it is to an audience of your peers, it is quite a different presentation than to the board of a publicly held company.
For technologist in particular, be careful with acronyms (especially those that are clear from your own contextual perspective). When there is a contextual mismatch, all communications breaks down. If there is too much work for the reader, they'll view it as overwhelming, not derive your points and loose interest.
I'm not saying I can always follow my own advice, but the main purpose of any message is to influence others and the first thing you need to do is get them hooked on what you have to say. You can't brow beat them into submission using a writing style that you prefer. Instead you need to think about how they can and will consume it. I've had this very conversation with a couple of folks recently. Just because the writer is detail oriented doesn't mean that's what the audience needs or wants to hear, in order to make their decision to support the effort. Changing the writing style will be uncomfortable, but "just get over it". That's why they call it work. ;-)
I'm not an expert or even a good example. There are whole books and professions that focus on this area. Having said that though, everyone though who wants to be a technical leader needs to focus on getting their point across.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Technical Leadership
Back in the 80s, I read a book titled Becoming a Technical Leader by Gerald Weinberg (I just noticed that he has a blog on his web page). This book is one I recommend to anyone who is thinking about technical leadership vs. formal leadership. Technical leadership does not seem to be something that is covered effectively by the formal training at any university I've ever seen. Similarly, universities don't really cover the move to formal business leadership either, yet you'll end up in one camp or the other throughout your career.
When talking about technical leadership Jerry states: "Leadership is the process of creating an environment in which people become empowered."
Technical leadership is something that may appear natural, but actually takes a great deal of practice and research. In order to be a leader, you need to have enough context about what is going on to have a vision and then convey it to others. You have to develop enough influence so that others (individual performers and formal leaders) care what you have to say. Technical leadership is more about leading a process than leading people directly. I easily spend 10-14 hours a week researching technical topics, and still feel that is grossly inadequate.
In order to be a technical leader, you need to develop a network of people who will listen to what you have to say and follow. After all a leader without followers is not a leader. Blogging may be one way to do this, but there are many others. The most effective one that works for me is just answering other folk's questions. If enough people feel they owe you, you have some influence; I guess that would be "The Godfather" school of technical leadership. A leader needs to be productive through others and part of that is connecting others together.
Tom Hill, one of the other fellows in EDS, spoke some wise words about technical leadership, they were "Don't discourage them". Meaning: when folks you are dealing with have some wild idea that you really don't understand or you don't think will work, support them, bounce concepts off them, cajole them, but don't ever discourage them. When people are empowered, they feel free to act, ask hard questions and be creative.
Having said that though, a leader does need to have a definition of quality. I've said for years that you demonstrate your definition of quality to others by showing "Quality is what you'll put up with". A technical leader must be able to convey when the results being generated are not up to their standard. Usually this is done through suggestions, and examples. Technical leaders need to have a quiver full of alternatives that they can shoot into the heart of technical activities to make them stronger, not weaker (sorry it's almost Valentine's Day and I had to get a cupid metaphor in there. ;-)
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
AI - meant for tasks we don't have patience for?
In a recent issue of the futurist there is a set of interviews titled The AI Chaser. This article discussed a number of subtle ways that robotic capabilities are being introduced. I find it interesting that a many of the things discussed or illustrated (e.g., the robotic eaves trough cleaner) are being accepted into people’s lives without any thought about the underlying technology.
The article asks some thought leaders about their perspective on AI and robotic technology on the human condition. Most of them have a very positive view, but there is an edge to most of the visions where there is a loss of or monopolization of technology control. Maybe it is just the recent Sarah Conner Chronicles that is bringing this issue to mind. ;-)
At least for the cases where a country or business, supply and demand issues will enable those who have an advantage to exercise it. Today, it seems that once a technology is known, it is cloned or even improved by someone else in a very short period, so having someone with a long term advantage may not really be too much of a concern.
One of the topics I’ve blogged about before was brought up in the article:
“the advent of AI could allow us to push aside a lot of the tasks that we sometimes don't have the patience for, tasks that are too rigorous or too arduous.”
This perspective is definitely one that most business could use to their advantage.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
The paradox of IT – Innovator vs. risk manager
One of the interesting issues in the modern Information Technology space is the conflict between those who have access to new technologies & ideas on how to use them and those who are focused on operational excellence and keeping things running to perfection. It can be easy for the corporate information technology function to fall into a role similar to corporate treasury or legal and focus on protecting the status quo. Some say that the majority of IT organizations are in this mode. Protecting the current environment is important to business success, but should it be the core role of IT?
All the operational processes like ITIL concentrate on the organization knowing what’s in the environment and managing changes to it. They reduce unnecessary variation. Unfortunately, since managing change is hard, these processes can also stifle change when used improperly. Rigor can be confused with rigidity. These processes should enable the channeling of innovation and the alignment of the business and technology.
Individuals within the IT organization should have greater access and insight into the business implications and value of new technology. Look at any report on the CES conference and there is no shortage of ideas on implications of technology on organizations. As the goals of the business are incorporated into the IT planning activity, this insight can be put to good use.
One of the ways to make this mental transition is to understand the value delivered to the organization by activities like technology planning and the initiatives it defines. Are the corporation’s business initiatives and the technology initiatives aligned and supporting each other? Since businesses change, we should expect a certain level of technological change to support it. As technologies churn (with the release of new versions…) new capabilities are available and those should support new business activities as well.
What is the role of the business organizations in IT governance? If their expectations are to keep the systems running and don’t bother me with technological change --IT probably doesn’t really matter. Finding out what is the basis of that perspective should be important to any IT organization.
I was talking with some folks from another company the other day and they described an Innovation program they were starting up. When I asked some basic questions about the alignment between the business and the IT innovation activities, they said it was “important and part of their culture”.( I always get a little worried when I hear words like that – it’s kind of like when a realtor says a house is “well maintained”.) But when I asked about the metrics and how the leadership was involved in managing the innovation churn, they said the leaders were not really involved and the project reported relatively far down in the leadership chain. That sounds like the road to on-going frustration, not innovation.
There are opportunity costs to stay still. We must actively choose the problems we want to live with.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
Information security and Green IT conflicting over enterprise mindshare in 2008?
Privacy International just released its privacy protection rankings by country. It’s interesting that almost every country with widespread Internet usage is marked as low on the list. It made me wonder if there is a similar assessment of commercial (or criminal) use of personal information – this assessment was focused on government use. At least in my mind, identity theft is more top of mind than government surveillance.
One of the findings was that there is an overall worsening of privacy protection. I don’t think that’s a big surprise to anyone, as Scott McNealy once said -- “Privacy is dead, deal with it” and that was before the year 2000. That level of acceptance of inevitability just seems unacceptable. With SaaS and large service providers become more prevalent and aggregating information from numerous sources, their privacy practices need to be greater understood. The current fiasco on Facebook with Scoble is an interesting example of trying to control acceptable use.
Addressing this maybe an industry trend that enterprises need to focus greater efforts in 2008 and not just in healthcare. Almost every IT organization aggregates information and needs to control it somehow, since “We live in a time when most people don’t trust big companies”.
Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog
What will engineering be like in 2020????
Every six months Purdue sends out a magazine to its engineering alumni called Engineering impact. One of the articles this month focused on Remaking Engineering Education. It echoed some of the concerns I’ve had for a while -- As head down engineering functions move to low cost locations, there are still engineering jobs needed locally, but they require more of a renaissance person than just someone who knows how to design technical solutions.
When the head of Purdue’s Electrical and Computer Engineering school was in Dallas, I mentioned my concerns that as software development shifts |
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