Category Archives: Non-fiction

Wikinomics

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I just finished reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, and it’s a book (and cocreated playbook/unwritten chapter) I recommend.

If you want to peek into my notes (er, stream of raw thoughts), please feel free to follow along:

  • Wikinomics embodies four powerful new ideas: openness (i.e. candor, transparency (disclosure of pertinent information), freedom, flexibility, expansiveness, engagement and access), peering (i.e. horizontal, not hierarchical; leveraging self-organization; egalitarianism is the general rule for motivation), sharing (i.e. expanding markets to create new opportunities), and acting globally (i.e. removing insulation and insular thinking; thinking and acting globally–no more think globally and act locally).
  • “This new way or organizing [mass collaboration, aka peer production] will eventually displace the traditional corporate structures as the economy’s primary engine of wealth creation.”
  • Given mass collaboration, what lessons, if any, apply from mass production?
  • “When employees are living in a hierarchical structure there’s a lot of fear. People two or three layers above resist the rules being changed. And with all that fear most people do nothing. They let the hierarchy rule.” -Kal Patel, EVP Strategy, Best Buy
  • Is cooperation treated as a synonym for counter-operation? If not generally, in any specific situations? If so, why? What does this say about your business culture?
  • “The pace of change and evolving demands of customers are such that firms can no longer depend on internal capabilities to meet external needs.” That is, mitigate limited time and limited creativity by going/becoming open.
  • Value chains in terms of participation, results and rewards are seeing their ecosystems flatten. It’s about participation, not control–rivers more than chains (i.e. building trust > controlling; steer/guide/influence > control; “engage and cocreate” versus “plan and push”). Facilitate (embrace) natural convergence.
  • “Conventional wisdom says companies innovate, differentiate, and compete by doing certain things right: by having superior human capital; protecting their intellectual property fiercely; focusing on customers; thinking globally but acting locally; and by executing well (i.e. having good management and controls). But the new business world is rendering each of these principles in sufficient, and in some cases, completely inappropriate.”
  • “The new Web is about verbs, not nouns.” -Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext Assuming this is true, think about grammar–what are the Web’s adverbs and adjectives?
  • Net Generation (Net Gen, aka “web natives”) norms are speed, freedom, openness, innovation, mobility, authenticity and playfulness. Net Gen’ers search for flexibility, identity, ownership, authenticity, and continuous learning. Design for them.
  • With respect to the Net Generation, what you ascribe value to may not be what someone else ascribes value to. Offer choice and respect it. Build trust. For example, with respect to open source software, take the time and pay attention to its culture and processes (e.g. norms, clock speeds, level of technical exchange, responsiveness). Adapt accordingly.
  • It’s about thinking differently. Therefore, attack fundamental assumptions–question everything. Sitting on the fence…belongs to isolation. Only the connected will survive (e.g. web immigrants with web natives, and vice versa).
  • Embracing open source should be strategic, not tactical. “Embracing open source means embracing new mental models and new ways of conceptualizing value creation.” Don’t lose sight of where the value comes from, create new value to harvest it, and earn your harvest, too!
  • Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself continues to make more and more sense…
  • “Smart companies will treat the world as their R&D department and use ideagoras to seek out ideas, innovations, and uniquely qualified minds on a global basis.”
  • What things outside can be acquired? What things inside can be licensed? Apply fresh perspective (e.g. is XYZ a scalable asset or trade secret?).
  • Shift away from “everything invented here” toward “nothing invented here.” Take back NIH as a sign of health, not cancer.
  • Threadless.com is a good example of leadership to me.
  • To paraphrase Jim Griffin, “You can hold more in an open hand than you can in a closed fist.”
  • Success breeds complacency. Beware also cultural inertia, complex legacies, political wrangling, etc.
  • “Open up your platforms to increase the speed, scope, and success of innovation. Choose not to open up and you risk ceding the game to more nimble platform orchestrators. The question every business leader in every sector should be asking is: How do I make my organization a platform for participation? How, when, and where do I open up my business? And how do I attract an energetic group of people to share the innovation load?”
  • Good enough: adequate to participate or to enable participation–versus over-engineered
  • All innovation is ultimately cumulative.
  • In the past I’ve talked about work a fair bit between points and vectors, where a vector is more valuable in that it conveys direction and magnitude (e.g. where a particular architecture is intended to be taken and how far it can capably do so). My mental picture is growing, though, to account for not just internal vectors but external vectors, too. By accounting for unforeseen drivers and markets through collaboration and openness, direction can be adapted, for example, to achieve results of greater magnitude.
            Point vs. vector vs. vectors
  • “The companies that figure out how to harness the power of open platforms while providing adequate incentives to all stakeholders are poised to reap great rewards.”
  • Commoditize the technology of others while monetizing it yourself (e.g. search – Alexa (Amazon) versus Google, Yahoo, MSFT–soon Wikia may do likewise to all of the above, ECM – Alfresco versus IBM, EMC, Oracle, MSFT, and RDBMS – MySQL versus Oracle, MSFT, IBM).
  • Is this about a culture of generosity or a smoke screen for exploitation? Consider again, Om Malik’s blog post. Avoid commoditization of your time.
  • Customer cocreation is underexploited generally. View customers as central change agents.
  • “Always strive to be the best at what your customers value most and partner for everything else.” Recall Geoff Moore (Dealing with Darwin) and maintain vigilance over core versus non-core (context)–constantly evaluate core competencies (e.g. user experience) in light of customer feedback.
  • “We are shifting from closed and hierarchical workplaces with rigid employment relationships to increasingly self-organized, distributed, and collaborative human capital networks that draw knowledge and resources from inside and outside the firm.”
  • “Work has become more cognitively complex, more team-based and collaborative, more dependent on social skills, more time pressured, more reliant on technological competence, more mobile, and less dependent on geography.”
  • Stability is dead.

Update 8/11/2007: Wikinomics provides an example of how Best Buy’s Geek Squad agents are already doing this–if you’re willing to consider “an approach to customer service” as a form of architecture.

Update 12/1/2008: For more of my book reviews and to see what else is in my book library (i.e. just the business-related or software-related non-fiction therein), please visit my Books page.

Mind Set!

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I just finished reading John Naisbitt‘s Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the Future. (You can download a PDF of its table of contents, prologue and introduction here.) I can certainly recommend this book, and it has piqued my interest in one of his earlier books, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives–a sum of local analyses can lead to a “megatrend.”

The author describes a mindset in terms of how we receive information. A mindset impacts one’s perception and one’s reality–perception of reality can be self-fulfilling when deliberate enough. In particular, Mind Set! is focused on “mindsets that are deliberately developed for a purpose.”

What purposes do I have in mind? What mindsets are required of me to achieve them?

Mind Set!

Part one (of two) is focused on the following eleven mindsets:

  1. While many things change, most things remain constant
  2. The future is embedded in the present
  3. Focus on the score of the game
  4. Understanding how powerful it is not to have to be right
  5. See the future as a picture puzzle
  6. Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know you’re in it
  7. Resistance to change falls if benefits are real
  8. Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly
  9. You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities
  10. Don’t add unless you subtract
  11. Don’t forget the ecology of technology

(#1) “Most change is not in what we do, but how we do it.” Mr. Naisbitt is adamant that business is more about constancy than it is about change. He advises to differentiate between the following concerns: basics and embellishment, rules and techniques, trends and fads, and breakthroughs and refinements.

(#2) “We find the seeds of the future on the ground, and not in the width of the sky.” Mr. Naisbitt also cautions: “Basic change is the result of a confluence of forces, rarely because of just one force (especially when it is against the recited wisdom).” Consider the term “news hole” and the impact of print media going away and being replaced by digital/online media (e.g. InfoWorld). Is the size of the “hole” fundamentally changing? What new disciplines are required in light of these changes? “While it is crucial to be well instructed, it is not the amount of information we collect but how consciously we receive it.” Be verifying and selective where source of information are concerned. Optimize signal-to-noise ratio. Maximize value for time spent and attention given.

(#3) “In business, politics, or private life, the gap between words and facts widens when personal pride is involved. Often it’s not the promises made but the problems hidden. In the fight for performance, the power of having to be right often takes over. Don’t be misled; check the score of the game.” Rhetoric does not beget performance. Simplification to increase transparency wards off the camouflage of complexity.

(#4) “Having to be right becomes a barrier to learning and understanding. It keeps you away from growing, for there is no growth without changing, correcting, and questioning yourself.” One would be wise to emulate Albert Einstein who was more focused on what than who.

(#5) To assemble the puzzle, value intuition over calculation; so, develop your intuition (e.g. ability to correctly time slice). Make the proper connections, and pick ripe fruits.

(#6) “Even the most talented leaders need the parade to put an idea into practice. If we have the parade too far behind and run ahead with our vision, we will be running empty miles.”

(#7) “Do not underestimate people. When they resist change–change you think they ought to readily embrace–you have either failed to make benefits transparent or there are good reasons to resist. In that case, instead of lamenting the resistance, look for their reasons for resisting.”

(#8) “Expectations always travel at higher speeds [than results].” Follow the path of least resistance (e.g. flood with ideas to see which “break out,” where and how, too).

(#9) “You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities.” To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, if you don’t find the circumstances you want, create them. So, rather than hunkering down and solving problems (i.e. dealing with yesterday), set sail and create opportunities (i.e. mine the future by understanding its embedding in the present). You’ll need a prepared mind, a strong will and an affinity for (or at least a high tolerance for) repetition (and therefore patience, too).

(#10) Pay attention to the principle of forced choice in a closed system. Produce and retrieve consumable levels of information (i.e. don’t be wasteful). Be selective to avoid paralysis (e.g. the number of books in my library, the number of magazines and feeds I subscribe to, etc.). Strike manageable levels, focusing on relevance and quality of sources. “Our goal should not be to create cemeteries of information, but cradles of knowledge and inspiration.”

(#11) “The more technological our world becomes, the more we need our artists and poets.” As Mr. Naisbitt explains, the artist and creative among us are especially equipped to help society accommodate technology and to help culture evolve through meaningful embrace (e.g. imagination). Regardless of your artistic bent or mine, we can all consider the consequences of our relationship with technology by asking the following questions raised by the author:

  • What will be enhanced?
  • What will be diminished?
  • What will be replaced?
  • What new opportunities does it represent?

Mind Set!

Part two of this book involves the presentation of a set of puzzles assembled using a particular combination of the mindsets presented in part one.

The first puzzle announces: “A visual culture is taking over the world.” This take-over appears to come at the cost of literacy and the written word. Collaterally, verbal and communication skills decline, leading to less informed, less active and less independent minded individuals. In the end, human imagination suffers.

However, to communicate these days one has to project an immersive experience. More importantly, I would argue, one must develop one’s own integrity and authenticity, and consistently serve that up to his or her audience. Where content, data and information is concerned, visualization techniques that promote people as much or more than, for example, documents are increasingly important. One cannot afford to imagine their colleagues attending to their ideas. Rather must be able to qualitatively and quantitatively visualize all-important collaboration around them and progress about them. For example, when I seed an idea, who most consistently contributes to its germination?

The second puzzle articulates how we’re moving from nation-states to economic domains, not multinational corporations. Mr. Naisbitt advises the reader to study the economic activity of a domain (e.g. all products and services for enterprise content management) as the way to know the score of the game. He suggests that behavior in economic domains shall:

  • Cause countries to enhance their identities by becoming more culturally nationalistic.
  • Cause companies to be defined by their confederations and networks of entrepreneurs.
  • Cause a mass customization of talent where individual talent is fitted to needs–globally. That is Free Agent Nation but on a global scale.

The global trading system is regrouping at a higher level; therefore, our number one economic priority must be education and training. It also sounds like a fantastic opportunity for a new breed of talent agencies to rise up and connect “players” and “teams.”

The next two puzzles dealt with China and Europe, respectively. I’m convinced that I need to visit China–reading and research alone are insufficient for me to appreciate its ramifications on my work and livelihood. I’m also convinced that if I ever start a company with global aspirations, I’ll insist on an Asian Pacific sales and marketing strategy before one focused on the European Union–recall the author’s “Mutually Assured Destruction” criticism of the EU (e.g. central planning and individual freedom cannot coexist).

The fifth and final puzzle addresses the present innovation reservoir borne out of revolutions from the 1980′s and 1990′s. Mr. Naisbitt submits that such a period of discontinuous changes begets a longer period of continuous changes–an evolutionary era of great opportunity and a period that builds on a ground already prepared.

Mind Set!

I’ve already changed how I go about my research and how I gauge the value in contributing sources based on reading Mind Set! I’m committed more than ever to reading more of the thought-through and less of the off-the-cuff (e.g. with respect to the printed word (roughly): books > research papers > magazines > blogs).

This book has tempered my thinking and my expectations. Hopefully both are more realistic in light of applying and learning to apply several of the mindsets Mr. Naisbitt details.

Mind Set!

Update 8/10/2007 (via The Journal of the EDS Agility Alliance): “We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” -John Naisbitt, in his 1982 book Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives

Update 12/1/2008: For more of my book reviews and to see what else is in my book library (i.e. just the business-related or software-related non-fiction therein), please visit my Books page.

The Starbucks Experience

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I just finished reading The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary by Joseph A. Michelli. I originally picked up this book given its sub-title and recurring thoughts about content management. Is CM mundane, everyday, even boring? Is it just ordinary? If it is, why is that?

Some things are meant to be in the background. They silently assist; they just work; they draw no attention to themselves per se. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they cannot also be extraordinary (e.g. principle #3: surprise and delight).

Likewise, customer experience is determined more by the people develop, market and otherwise represent the product, good or service in question. Certainly that is true of Starbucks, and I believe it’s true of any software enterprise. So, this read was an opportunity for me to step outside my own hand-crafted experience, if you will, and contrast it with a highly successful experience and approach.

Dr. Michelli distills the Starbucks Experience into five key business principles as follows:

  1. Make it your own
  2. Everything matters
  3. Surprise and delight
  4. Embrace resistance
  5. Leave your mark

Throughout the book, the author provides several questions to consider under the heading “Create Your Own Experience.” While discussing “make it your own,” Dr. Michelli asks the following question: “What can you do to invest more of yourself and to get others to invest more of themselves in the process of interpersonal connection and discovery?” As a connector and collaborator, I thrive when I’m debating the merits of an architecture, listening to how customers leverage the products I build, mentoring colleagues, etc. I’m puzzled when there isn’t a natural buzz on the floor at work–why don’t others want to connect and collaborate to the same degree? (Shouldn’t everyone in the content management industry have an active blog? :-) )

Starbucks’ Green Apron Book with its “Five Ways of Being” serves as a counter-balance to such questions: be welcoming, be genuine, be considerate, be knowledgeable and be involved. Rather than focusing on others, I should focus first on myself–how can I connect, discover and respond? True passion demands involvement.

Throughout the book, the author provides several observations to consider under the heading “Ideas to Sip On.” While discussing “everything matters,” Dr. Michelli makes the following observation: “Details affect the emotional connection (the ‘felt sense’) that others have with you.” Do I actively and fully listen to concerns? Do I act more than I speak? Am I on a soul quest or just following a mental ascent?

“Whether it’s brewing coffee, designing software, or mopping floors, a commitment to Surprise and Delight literally transforms the very nature of work. Employment stops being about the words written in job descriptions and expands to including offering unexpected experiences.” -Joseph A. Michelli

It’s important to anticipate the needs of colleagues and customers alike and to surprise those served by the business, and I agree with the author that leadership sets the tone herein. Fortunately “leader” isn’t a formal title reserved for a few either. Leader is an attribute available to you and I, and it’s individually and personally realized. For example, some lead by serving; others lead by making a stand.

“Embrace Resistance” was a chapter that underscored the importance of trust in collaboration for me. It’s common for me to seek out others, perhaps fellow architects or product managers, for example, to become effective proxies for my vision and roadmap where a particular product or project is concerned. Have I effectively conveyed my passion to him or her? Have they been able to “play it back” to me (in high-def mode even)?

I can certainly inform Starbucks that their partnership with the local Albertsons grocery store (in-store Starbucks) is failing them when it comes to the production of customer delight. Not only are my wife and I often surprised by the non-welcoming, somewhat aloof staff but the service is predictably sub-par. This is surely not the Cracker Jack-like result Starbucks invests in and expects.

My point in this recollection is that embracing resistance may involve indirect resistance, too. Someone on my behalf may inadvertently (or perhaps even intentionally) create resistance–to a product, to a feature, to an idea, etc. It’s my job to seek this out, too, engage and respond accordingly after understand legitimate issues and possible recourse.

In closing, I appreciate the author’s chapter of exhortation (i.e. personal application) in “A Final Word,” and I return back to the world of content management and to you my readership. How can I surprise and delight more effectively? Am I delivering predictable, positive experiences personally and through the products I bring to market? Where is there a resistance to use content management software in your business and workflow? What works well for you and what isn’t working as expected? How can I leave a deeper and longer lasting mark on my workplace and on my industry?

I’d love to hear from you. Thanks in advance for taking the time…

Update 12/1/2008: For more of my book reviews and to see what else is in my book library (i.e. just the business-related or software-related non-fiction therein), please visit my Books page.

From Java to Ruby

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As author Bruce Tate says in his work, “[From Java to Ruby: Things Every Manager Should Know (Pragmatic Programmers)] is about moving minds … about risks worth taking.” As I mentioned before, this book was the latest influence in a series of influences that has caused me to develop personal competence with Ruby.

When Bruce talks up front about calling his own significant investment in Java into question–eventually retooling his consulting practice–his candor resonated with me. He wasn’t just talking about Ruby; he was walking the talk in a business-changing manner. As I began this read (completed in the same day), I came to it with a similar sense of skepticism (e.g. about touted productivity gains). That this was shared by the author was refreshingly real.

Thus far in my career one could say that I’ve played it somewhat safe where languages and frameworks are concerned. I develop in both Java and .NET (C#)–typically thinking about programming problems in C#. These communities are large, well-established and active. With the advent of blogs, there is no shortage of seasoned, sound advice to read.

I’ve established thought leadership in both communities, too, by working on expert groups, advisory boards and councils, and through professional recognition for work accomplished. This has come both through years of hard work and also in relationship with others in community–who you know and what you know has certainly proven to be true in my career.

Prior to C# and Java (as well as XML, XML Schema and XHTML), my language of choice was C++, which I still find occasion to leverage. Before C++ (and the transition to object orientation) I developed in C and FORTRAN. My first programming was in Pascal on a Commodore 64. :-) I’ve also dabbled in JavaScript, PHP (mostly to tweak my WordPress setup), and Perl (scripting only).

At this point in time, I have no idea where Ruby will take me and have no plans to drop C# or Java any time soon. I see enough promise in Ruby that the time has come for me to invest some time and energy toward its proper use now.

I choose to focus on the following statements in From Java to Ruby: Things Every Manager Should Know (Pragmatic Programmers):

  • Popular decisions may be safe but that doesn’t guarantee their correctness.
  • As Dave Thomas exhorted Amazon.com, learn how to program better by learning alternative languages such as Ruby.
  • “Value productivity more and inertia less.” Familiarity can breed productivity but it can also breed complacency and even contempt.
  • Unproductive >> cost ineffective >> vulnerable
  • “All things being equal, the more productive language is much less risky…Risk increases with time. Think of time as the perfect medium for disease. Time lets problems fester and grow. Longer cycles increase doubt and decrease morale. When you take too long, you overspend and open the window for scope creep, forcing even more cost overruns and new requirements. Time also opens windows for competition. All of these diseases take time to grow.”

Ruby gives me some pause (e.g. [1], [2]) though too:

  • Ruby has no specification. Its (C-based) implementation is its specification. Charles Nutter of the JRuby project has started a spec-oriented wiki, RubySpec, but it’s too early to tell if this will indeed become a spec or not.
  • Certainly JRuby represents another implementation of Ruby to consider as does RubyCLR et al. Given past history concerning Microsoft and Java, though, I find it ironic and am somewhat anxious to see Tim Bray of Sun say (emphasis mine), “[Sun would] like to ensure that the Ruby programming language, in its JRuby form, is available to the community of Java developers.”
  • Current lack of advanced XML support (e.g. Schemas, Namespaces)
  • Current lack of full WS-* support (e.g. Rails prefers REST as Rails is generally biased toward simplicity)
  • Performance issues that occur more naturally in dynamic languages than static ones

So, I continue my Ruby adventure with eyes wide open.

Update 12/1/2008: For more of my book reviews and to see what else is in my book library (i.e. just the business-related or software-related non-fiction therein), please visit my Books page.

Words that follow

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The title of my previous post was inspired by Edward Tufte’s latest book of the same title, which I read shortly after its publication and before my daughter’s arrival into the world. Beautiful Evidence carries on in the high tradition of his previous work and I recommend it to anyone who produces or consumes information and wants to do so more effectively and concisely.

Two remarks by Tufte really stuck in my mind from reading his book as follows:

Making a presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity. The use of corrupt manipulations and blatant rhetorical ploys in a report or presentation — outright lying, flagwaving, personal attacks, setting up phony alternatives, misdirection, jargon-mongering, evading key issues, feigning disinterested objectivity, willful misunderstanding of other points of view — suggests that the presenter lacks both credibility and evidence. To maintain standards of quality, relevance, and integrity for evidence, consumers of presentations should insist that presenters be held intellectually and ethically responsible for what they show and tell. Thus consuming a presentation is also an intellectual and moral activity.

When a precise, narrowly focused technical idea becomes metaphor and sprawls globally, its credibility must be earned afresh locally by means of specific evidence demonstrating the relevance and explanatory power of the idea in its new application. It is not enough for presenters to make ever-bolder puns, as meaning drifts into duplicity. Something has to be explained.

Tufte’s second remark refers to his contention that puns enable overreaching–previously bright ideas sprawl, grow mushy, and collapse into vague metaphors when extended outside their original domain.

Speaking of evidence-based, not theory-driven, conclusions, Beautiful Evidence captures Tufte’s evidence invention, Sparklines–”intense, simple, wordlike graphics.” More on sparklines later…

Update 8/29/2006: Via the 37signals feed comes another Tufte quote of note: “If your words aren’t truthful, the finest optically letter-spaced typography won’t help. And if your images aren’t on point, making them dance in color in three dimensions won’t help…If you look after truth and goodness, beauty looks after herself.” -Edward Tufte

Update 12/1/2008: For more of my book reviews and to see what else is in my book library (i.e. just the business-related or software-related non-fiction therein), please visit my Books page.