I hope that you enjoy a safe and warm holiday season. There is so much to be thankful for, so many to be merry with and plenty of hope for the coming new year!

Update 10/28/2010: Adobe successfully completes its acquisition of Day Software. Day will operate as a new product line within Adobe’s Digital Enterprise Solutions Business Unit, joining Acrobat, Connect and LiveCycle. Welcome to all my new teammates!

Adobe has just announced a definitive agreement stipulating its intent to acquire Day Software. This acquisition will bolster Adobe’s leadership in Customer Experience Management, bringing Day’s industry-leading Web Content Management, Digital Asset Management and Social Collaboration applications, better known collectively as CQ, and Web scale content application infrastructure (CRX) together with Adobe’s LiveCycle, Connect and other enterprise software offerings–not to mention Adobe’s Flash Platform and industry-leading tools for creative professionals.

There is plenty to talk about in terms of how deeply aligned this acquisition is architecturally, technically and in terms of shared vision, and I plan to use this space to go into more of these details over time (e.g. synergies between Day’s targeting and optimization and Adobe Omniture‘s capabilities). However, I’m equally excited by the people involved here.

I’m looking forward to shortly being able to call folks like David Nuescheler, Kevin Cochrane and Roy T. Fielding not just industry colleagues but fellow Adobe employees. Welcome to Adobe, Day Software!

For more on Adobe’s approach to superior customer experience, I encourage you to subscribe to experiencedelivers.com and/or follow @AdobeCEM.

Update 7/28/2010: The Web is all a-buzz about this acquisition, and I would say it’s with good reason. Simply put: customer experience wins and therefore customers win, which means that businesses embracing Adobe CEM increase their own profitability.

Since my brief post above, Adobe has posted a press release and FAQ about the acquisition. Rob Tarkoff, SVP and GM of Adobe’s Digital Enterprise Solutions Business Unit (or DESBU) has also posted his thoughts, offering some key takeaways to consider from this acquisition.

This week has been Adobe Community Action Week for Adobe employees globally. On Monday, I mentioned that I was looking forward to my particular action choice: RAFT. Today I had the privilege of serving local teachers with members of my team (LiveCycle) along with others from Adobe by investing time and energy into RAFT (Resource Area for Teachers).

RAFT provides thousands of Bay Area teachers and community groups with a wide range of interactive learning materials, enhancing math, science, technology and art programs. Materials are surplus items donated by over 1,000 local businesses and range from cardboard tubes to computers!

My Mom was a middle-school teacher for 16 years; so I know firsthand how great an impact teachers have on the lives of their students, yet how underappreciated teachers often are in broader society. So, it felt especially good to “give back” to such important individuals in the local community.

There were about 50 volunteers altogether and together, in just a few hours, we were able to make a significant contribution in the assembly of various kits that will be used by local teachers (e.g. glove-a-phone packs, sticker packs, etc.).

I was drawn, along with my project-teammates, to the adhesive paper station. Basically our task was to unroll, about 12 feet at a time, lengths of two foot wide adhesive backed white butcher paper, rolled up and rubber-banded for individual application by teachers. A full roll of this paper weighs about 350 pounds, and we proved this by finishing the better part of one roll and starting on a second, new roll before our time ran out. The photo above captures the state of the receiving bin for these individual rolls before we started with our contribution.

There were roughly four distinct tasks involved, although some of us on the team (ahem) were a bit more creative about “tasks.” Unrolling was easily the most strenuous; cutting; re-rolling and rubber-banding; binning.

It may not seem like much, but when you compare the previous two images with the first bin capture, above, I’d say that we accomplished a fair bit of work. It’s fun to think about all the classroom projects that were enabled in the process, too!

Acts of service are always more rewarding to those who serve, and today’s experience at RAFT was no exception.

If you’re a teacher and can make your way to Sunnyvale, you should really check out RAFT. If you’re a parent of a student whose teacher can get to RAFT, consider giving a RAFT gift card. If you want to make an impact on Bay Area teachers, volunteer your time and energy at RAFT. You’ll be glad that you did!

During the MAX 2009 conference, Duane Nickull was interviewed by DZone on the subject of RIA architectures. As an architect, I appreciated Duane’s comments about the responsibility of architects, versus developers, where RIAs are concerned (e.g. focusing on and valuing interaction design and user experience, distilling key business requirements by working closely with those the RIA will serve, being mindful of the framing process-oriented context, etc.).

In particular, don’t frustrate users resonates with me (e.g. it’s a non-technical answer to “what is an RIA?” (or “reeyah”). Duane’s Revenue Canada example (or not “getting” this) is a good one. It just so happens that I encountered my own today…

First, two exhibits off Twitter:

• A – I try to help shine a light on a community voice
• B – (less than six hours later) subject vendor asks for community input

Don’t get me wrong, more vendors need to be reaching out and engaging with their communities in deep and meaningful ways. So, I’m not suggesting that creating a forum for community discussion is bad. However…

What if, instead, the forum was seeded (pre-launch) by a reasonable distillation of those who’ve already voiced their concerns, like Pie? The Web is there to be culled–”listened to” if you will–you just need to mine it.

As Duane and his co-authors talk about in Web 2.0 Architectures, more and more of us are living declaratively. Certainly this is true when it comes to providing candid feedback and standing behind things we believe in (e.g. vendors we want to succeed…and those we don’t).

So, an alternative forum post could have listed Pie’s identity management feedback alongside the feedback of others–fully annotated with community profiles, source links, etc. Of course, those supporting the forum could proactively reach out to folks like Pie to confirm that discovered feedback is appropriate for syndication and could enable contributors to easily follow the conversation moving forward–ideally in the medium of their choice (e.g. email, feed, etc.).

Update 12/29/2009: Of course, Pie, being the strong advocate he is, reached out again and updated the forum post himself.

If you’re at the Adobe MAX conference this week, then you already know: Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 2 has launched.

And judging by the attendance at the pre-conference session on LiveCycle, there’s significant interest in building user-centric applications in the enterprise–exactly what LiveCycle ES2 is designed to unleash!

As you will see on the main LiveCycle site, ES2 is all about:

• Delivering intuitive user experiences
• Streamlining business processes

• Effectively managing communications

Given my work on smart client architectures, I have to say that I’m particularly excited about the potential in LiveCycle Mosaic.

Mosaic provides a compelling framework that brings together aspects of business and collaboration to drive richer context pivoting. The task (goal) at hand is more richly represented at all times, allowing the user to pivot more effectively and efficiently and leading to better outcomes more rapidly.

Mosaic is not merely about aggregation as is portal technology. Rather, Mosaic is about intuitive, contextual composition that puts the focus back on the user’s task rather than all the supporting systems underneath. Users can access their mosaics either in their browser or on the desktop (via AIR support). Catalogs of mosaic application assets like tiles can be shared to encourage reuse and to simplify future composition.

LiveCycle Mosaic should be a boon for user-centric, content-enabled applications development.

By the way, if you’re not at MAX (like me), you can still participate online. For example, view the top three sessions from each day at MAX on demand. (Today’s keynote stream was five-by-five at my desk!) Check out the MAX Companion, too, while you’re there. October 11 will see all the MAX content posted online, too!

Cheers!

Update 11/25/2009: Please read the “what’s new in ES2” document. I also recommend that newly revised LiveCycle Developer Center (aka DevNet site).

Last month I read In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing and am finally posting my thoughts on this book by Matthew May.

First of all, it’s a well-written book that applies its message to itself.

I’m glad that I found it after my previous read, since it covers similar ground in places as does Subject To Change but ends up exploring different vistas, too. As a matter of fact, I can relate the contents of this book to several previous reads, and In Pursuit of Elegance has refined my thinking drawn from past reading through deeper correlation and, well, elegance.

“To find elegance, you must appreciate, embrace, and then travel beyond complexity.” The pursuit of elegance is more like chess than checkers. Elegance is “far side,” not “near side,” simplicity; it is at once symmetrical, seductive, subtractive and sustainable.

Concerning this book’s refining effect, take the somewhat popular subject of kaizen–a principle and a practice of “change for the better.” A student of kaizen creates a standard, follows it, and finds a better way. A student of kaizen understands that there are two types of work: value-adding and non-value-adding. In the pursuit of value-adding work, one must be wary of muri (overload), mura (inconsistency), and muda (waste).

Up to this point, I focused more on muda (waste) as a concern, drawing from lessons learned in The Machine That Changed the World while contemplating software factories. However, May writes: “Muda is the easiest to target because it is generally more visible. But muri and mura are often the more evil of the sins, as they can be the actual cause of all muda.” Yes, of course!

Taiichi Ohno, Toyota engineering pioneer and the man behind kaizen, taught his colleagues that new thoughts and better ideas do not come out of the blue, they come from a true understanding of the process. [Aside: Developing and applying empathy is an important theme in Subject To Change.] Writes May: “By requiring keen observation before action, by demanding that one look beyond the obvious surface symptoms to better see the deeper causes, by never giving answers and only asking questions, Ohno taught people to stop and think.”

Make decisions that are based on observation, not assumption (or necessarily inference alone). Therefore, actively form your mental model through firsthand observation (empathy) to ask “What is possible?;” don’t passively succumb to the “ladder of inference” and prematurely ask “What should be done?”

Since reading Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, I’ve been looking forward to Malcolm Gladwell‘s next book. Outliers: The Story of Success didn’t disappoint, and I recommend reading it yourself.

As the book’s title suggests, Gladwell’s text is about success and outliers; however, he engages the reader from the get-go by starting with a definition of outlier expressly to follow-up by quickly suggesting a concrete redefinition of what is truly an outlier and what determines success. Gladwell challenges the reader to think in less-conventional terms (e.g. thinking about health in terms of community–beyond just the individual): “…there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success.”

Outliers has two parts, focused on opportunity and legacy, respectively. Part one emphasizes “from-ness” (i.e. from where (e.g. birthplace), from when (e.g. time, era, norms), from how (e.g. culture, legacy), etc.). In doing so, part one indicates by one example after another why merely personal explanations of success don’t work.

     Where are you from?

Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of the those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play–and by ‘we’ I mean society–in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.

Gladwell states, “Achievement is talent plus preparation.” He then goes on to uncover patterns of achievement and underachievement as well as patterns of encouragement and discouragement. He focuses on the work ethic of those who are purposeful, single-minded, intentional–who achieve success by working much, much harder.

• Adversity presenting itself as opportunity
• Developing skills amidst obscurity
• Meaningful – complexity, autonomy and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work
• “Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.”

For example, the “10,000 hour rule” is discussed (i.e. its typically takes 10K hours of deliberate practice to develop true expertise and world-class mastery). The point of the discussion is not to admire those who earn such mastery as much as it is to understand the kinds of obstacles most of us encounter in the pursuit of such commitment. Furthermore, it concerns the creation of (more) equal opportunities for practicing in order to reach greater common potential: “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

     Are you regularly practicing what your core profession requires
     (e.g. modeling, design, coding, testing, writing)?

“Success arises out of a steady accumulation of advantages.”
“Extraordinary achievement is less about talent than it is about opportunity.”
     Talent: intellect, “general intelligence,” innate ability
     Opportunity: imagination, savvy, “practical intelligence,” surrounding
     community, family background, demographics, virtues and values
     (e.g. frugality, initiative, sacrifice)

“General intelligence” and “practical intelligence” are orthogonal (i.e. presence of one doesn’t imply the presence of the other); therefore, keep clear and separate (i.e. don’t confuse one for the other).

Part two, moves from opportunity to legacy and starts by focusing on cultural legacies (e.g. a culture of honor, where reputation is of foremost concern). The focus becomes about teamwork and communication (e.g. “mitigated speech”). For example, understanding cultural legacy as a way to effectively combat mitigation (i.e. developing clearer and more assertive communication where both transmitter and receiver are not a afraid to speak up or to speak straight).

To bring cultural legacy into better focus, Gladwell leverages the Cultural Dimensions work of Geert Hofstede (e.g. IDV – Individualism (i.e. what Gladwell refers to as the individualism-collectivism scale), UAI – Uncertainty Avoidance Index, PDI – Power Distance Index). For example, the United States has the highest IDV score and the fifth-lowest PDI score.

Mitigated speech and high PDI influence communication, especially when the person speaking (transmitter) and the person listening (receiver) have different orientation. In Western cultures, communication tends to be transmitter-oriented (i.e. speaker is responsible to communicate ideas clearly and unambiguously). However, in Asian cultures, communication tends to be receiver-oriented (i.e. listener is responsible to make sense of what is being said). For this reason, I believe that communication is both my responsibility and also a two-way discipline (i.e. if you don’t understand something speak up–I’m trying my best to be clear). It’s why I prefer more interactive sessions at conferences, etc.

As a mathematician by training, I was fascinated to learn that, as human beings, we store digits in a memory loop that runs for about two seconds. When you compare the fairly transparent Asian number system with the highly irregular number system in English, it starts to become clearer how English-speaking (English-thinking) student accumulate a disadvantage. Stowe Boyd goes into more detail of Gladwell’s treatment of this cultural legacy. (I need to start thinking si instead of four, qi instead of seven, etc. )

Cultural legacy suggests to me that it would be naive to apply an American timeline to the future development of, for example, China. Rice paddies aren’t fields of corn or wheat (i.e. skill-oriented versus mechanically-oriented farming tradition). So why should it take the Chinese the same amount of time to “modernize” as it did take Americans?

You’ve likely heard or seen the business cliché “Your attitude determines your altitude.” Well, Outliers posits that success is not much about ability as it is about attitude. That is, success is a function of persistence, doggedness and willingness to work hard. Success is more about out-learning than it is about being smarter. School works, but there just isn’t enough of it (e.g. 180 days versus 243 days–American versus Japanese school year). Or said another way, school isn’t the problem as much as summer vacation may be.

In closing:

• “Outliers are those who have been given opportunities–and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”
• Success is a gift.
• “To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success–the fortunate birth date and the happy accidents of history–with a society that provides opportunities for all.”

P.S. I recently began a major revision of my Books page. You can now more easily see other book reviews I’ve posted herein. Soon you’ll be able to see what else is in my book library (i.e. just the business-related or software-related non-fiction therein). Why? Well, if you’re nearby and you see something of interest, please ask to borrow books of interest. If you’re not (i.e. regardless of your location to me), I’m hoping that opening up my library will help to solicit feedback as to what the especially good reads are (and why). I typically have multiple books queued up to read; so, knowing what should be top-of-list from my readers would be welcome feedback. Cheers…

Update 12/26/2008: Today I was able to get to watching the second part of Charlie Rose’s show on performance where, after interviewing Malcolm Gladwell in the first half, he interviewed the author of Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Geoff Colvin. Mr. Colvin referenced the little known body of scientific work concerning deliberate practice, much like Mr. Gladwell drew upon it in Outliers. I appreciated Mr. Colvin’s belief, based on conversation with this scientific community, that the research frontier here is parenting.

Kids are the best. This evening at the dinner table my six year old son offered an outstanding definition for imagination without actually saying the word:

“When you close your eyes, you can see pictures. When you open your eyes, they go poof.”

To this I might add that vision is the ability to see the pictures with your eyes open.

Continuing from the first half of my day two notes…

Steve Santini (internal EMC link), CTO, Bank of America Securities spoke next as the day’s featured guest speaker. Steve shared his perspective on how how Bank of America (BofA), as a very large company, organizes itself for successful innovation; the bank’s vision for the future of information; and the Center for Future Banking. Notes from this session:

• Per Steve’s acknowledgment, this presentation itself is innovation, since normally BofA has avoided such engagements so as not to appear to be making an endorsement. To those at BofA who made the call to allow Steve to present during this conference, a hearty “Thank You!”
• BofA is a company that is always in transition (e.g. due to M&A activity), and it has a well-defined process to handle transitions such as merging IT data centers (i.e. concept of a “lean” – e.g. if I could do X or Y, I lean toward X). A first lean is about gut feel. A second lean is about details, and a third lean is about execution.
• BofA has to innovate in order to deliver products that meet ever-changing lifestyles.
• First, create the room and the structure for innovation to grow.

Next, the conference focused on university research and heard updates from several EMC-sponsored efforts as follows:

1. Fudan University Ph.D candidate from Parallel Processing Institute, Haibo Chen, presented “Inside and Outside Protection of Cloud Services through Daoli Trusted Infrastructure.” More (EMC internal) details on this presentation are here.
2. University of Washington doctoral student in Computer Science & Engineering, Evan Welbourne, presented “RFID Data Management for Pervasive Computing Applications.” More (EMC internal) details on this presentation are here. Evan is the graduate student lead of the RFID Ecosystem project.
3. University of Michigan Professor Peter Honeyman, research professor, scientific director, Center for Information Technology Integration (CITI), challenged the conference audience to look to parallel computing for storage innovation. During session Q&A (in response to modern OS deficiencies where massive throughput is concerned): “you solve the problem you have…CITI is addressing new problems…”

The final segment of the conference was the announcement of showcase judging results and awarding the winners, which are outlined here.

This was a great conference both in terms of content and in terms of networking with fellow EMC colleagues. It was invigorating, and I’m already looking forward to next year’s event.

Update 10/27/2008: Cornelia Davis posted a nice blog on her conference experience here.

Continuing from the good start on day 1 (10/21/2008), the second and final day of the conference (10/22/2008) began with a world tour of EMC’s Centers of Excellence in China, India, Russia and Ireland. It was great to see a large remote gathering at each site via live video feed. The leadership of each center discussed how they innovate current EMC products and research the next generation of offerings. There was plenty of energy apparent in each team. Notes from this session:

• India is the largest and most tenured CoE, and this year its innovation showcase submissions alone outnumbered all submissions last year (i.e. the first year of the showcase).
• China is a much younger CoE, yet it already represents a significant percentage of innovations submitted this year. Where will the China CoE be at the same point in its history? Or Russia? Or elsewhere?
• The CoE concept has the advantage of multiple products being developed under the same roof (e.g. benefits of co-location collaboration, etc.).
• The “Great Wall” in the China CoE is a large, lengthy wall that acts as a whiteboard dedicated to capturing innovation.
• As we do in CMA, the China CoE has site-wide wiki and collaboration is encouraged.
• I’m a fan of Charles Fan, head of the China CoE, and it was a pleasure to meet and talk with him in person. Consider, for example, his perspective on hiring talent (with which I agree): It’s all about building EMC’s brand. A very selective hiring process–one that targets the best of the best–means that few are hired into EMC; however, many more candidates and applicants are exposed to what EMC is all about. Furthermore, many of those not hired become employees of EMC’s customers.

Next, there was a panel discussion about driving innovation within several EMC business units (i.e. which processes and programs work and which don’t). Doc D’Errico was an effective moderator of Rich Napolitano, Amnon Naamad and Mark Sorensen. Notes from this session (raw):

• Convergence – process/workflow
• Technologists maturing into business people
• Rid complexity (!…and reduce engineering cost); simplify to enable technology adoption by customers
• Tyranny of the installed base–the innovator’s dilemma
• Quarter-based drivers versus long-term strategy
• Critical transition for a successful startup: making the move from idea to value proposition; therefore, pay attention to wider industry and look for such events
• Practice of “R&D grants”: receipt of one rewards recipient with 1 day/week to pursue idea (e.g. 10 people in a 2000-person organization)
• (Music to my ears…) First architect; then implement.
• Not being able to measure is no reason not to start. Start!
• Forrest floor…big trees block out the light; develop others by allowing light hit the “sapplings”
• Encourage risk-taking (don’t reward failure)
• Mark captured Rich’s “army of innovators” remark, which I fully align myself to (versus an ivory innovation tower approach)

More to come in a follow-up post…some of which I see already captured here…

First of all, I echo what Mark posted about the refreshment that comes from talking with people face-to-face that I typically communicate with less personally (e.g. IM, email, wiki, blog, etc.).

Being at the conference in person also allowed me to meet several folks for the first time.

Right before lunch, I spent some time talking with Kartik and Steve about various ways to bring different parts of the EMC business together for real customer impact (e.g. around archiving–not just reacting to today’s concerns but helping customers articulate their vision toward long-term return on information such as may be found in a presidential library or elsewhere “100 year problems” may exist).

This year the conference went virtual, with over 1000 participants around the globe. (Last year was just a physical event with roughly 400 attendees). This is a welcome development.

The conference itself kicked off by Harry You welcoming this physical-and-virtual audience and fielding questions. In short, I really like Harry. He is a strong advocate for technology and technologists, and he is both warm and plain spoken.

Next, Jeff Nick addressed the topic of “Innovation at EMC: One Year Later.” Jeff did so by talking about seven new C’s: concepts, connections, communities, career track, customer interactions, communications and course. Within this seven-C framework, Jeff emphasized a disruptive, collective approach to innovation rather than one living only in ivory towers.

He provided compelling evidence of the inclusive, viral nature of innovation at EMC, especially taking place in our Centers of Excellence (CoE) around the world. Internally, we have EMC ONE, which provides an easy-to-use platform for group collaboration (e.g. communities and wikis) and individual editorial (e.g. blogging). EMC ONE was preceded by an internal wiki pilot in the corporate CTO office and has since influenced the corporation’s public web properties (e.g. EDN).

The model Jeff described works; it has been proven already within EMC. However, it doesn’t scale…yet. (To those of my colleagues at EMC: think about this next year holds.)

Jeff closed by stating the following three things that matter:

• EMC puts the ‘I’ back into IT. Information doesn’t commoditize; technology does. Therefore, focus on the derivation of value from information.
• EMC leads the way in inclusive innovation. EMC’s talent pool–its people–is its least commoditizable asset. Therefore, leverage it; don’t go around it.
• EMC inspires, empowers and honors its technical community. The conference thus far certainly reinforces this priority and commitment.

The day’s guest speaker was Alan Marcus, Director, Head of IT and Telecommunications Industries, World Economic Forum. Alan spoke on “The Geography of Innovation” (or as he suggested, the economy of innovation). His presentation was both interesting and meaty (i.e. I need to re-read his presentation, which was packed with engaging visuals, charts and anecdotes).

Here are some of the rough notes I took during Alan’s talk:

• Patents are a terrible measure of innovation, but no one has come up with a better alternative.
• For the first time, there are four generations of workers in today’s workforce–each wanting very different sets of things.
• Collaboration is a tough problem where innovation is concerned (e.g. openness vs. IP risks).
• Closed, open, mass–these types of collaboration remind me of interaction design and observation of user-system interaction (e.g. the value of understanding mass behavior as well as the innovation produced by the mass). That is, I believe that you must be engaged in the process–perhaps more so in a mass context.
• WEF Innovation Heat Map
• Understand the implications of comparative advantage
• Out-innovate yourself, or someone else will!
• Innovation is about a core aspiration. Structures form and structures fall (e.g. middle management moving to use LinkedIn, then moving to use Facebook, then moving to…). Structure serves aspirations.

Following Alan’s presentation, conference attendees were invited to attend the innovation showcase, which featured the final 30 submissions diligently reviewed and selected from among the 984 total ideas submitted from 19 countries world-wide (414 India; 205 US; 169 Ireland; 97 China; …). The team or individual behind each final submission stood by a large poster conveying (visualizing) the idea’s essence. What a great set of ideas! Furthermore, the passion behind each idea was clearly on display, too. I had a chance to meet and share ideas with Dr. Jidong Cheng from EMC Research China, and I look forward to our future collaborations.

To wrap up this post, here are some additional notes I took during the day:

• Inspiration doesn’t guarantee impact. Therefore, will to make innovation presented during this year’s conference more impactful.
• Innovation investment is all the more critical in a down-turn (e.g. current, prevailing economic conditions).
• Connecting ideas and communities is the essence of EMC’s innovation conference.
• Integration isn’t just about technology or technical integration. I will continue to maintain that SOA is least about technology; it’s more to do with organization and behavior (thinking and acting).
• I got to thinking about Cloud/SaaS/PaaS as a way to pool together smaller business/tenants into larger “unions” to yield better cost (TCO). For example, consider such behavior for health insurance or even phone company discounts offered to employees of larger corporations. The implications of the economies of scale makes me think…
• Nearing intersection of personal and professional information management
• Pain typically precedes change/action/transition (e.g. cost of IT…hosted solutions)
• Enterprise space can learn from consumer space, and vice versa–what are the key lessons/observations?

More to report in a follow-up post…

Although the video quality is poor compared to the HD-like video onsite, I still think the message behind this “what is enterprise content management about” video from EMC is quite effective, especially for those that don’t want techno-jargon (i.e. my parents).

Not to forget that today is Earth Day, I’m reminded of being exposed to Chris Jordan‘s photographic art during a flight I took, I think, last year. His images stuck with me, and several seem very fitting to draw your attention to today:

• Plastic Cups, 2008 (60×90″, depicts one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours): fit image, partial zoom and actual print detail
• Plastic Bottles, 2007 (60×120″, depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes): fit image, partial zoom and actual print detail
• Toothpicks, 2007 (60×99″, depicts 8 million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs): fit image
• Cell Phones, 2007 (60×100″, depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day): fit image, partial zoom and actual print detail
• Paper Bags, 2007 (60×80″, depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour): fit image, partial zoom and actual print detail
• Plastic Bags, 2007 (60×72″, depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds.): fit image, partial zoom and actual print detail

Of course, there are many more works by Mr. Jordan, and I encourage you to experience them–at least online, if not in person.

Scott Berkun’s The Myths of Innovation is a refreshingly unpretentious read–one that I accomplished straightaway in an afternoon (off).

Here are my takeaways–all quotes are Scott’s unless explicitly noted otherwise:

• Innovation as an accumulation of smaller insights…connecting pieces…realizing picture (puzzle); therefore, take action to enable insights to occur more freely.
• Work passionately and take breaks to let the mind wander and the allow the subconscious to work on our behalf.
• Epiphany as an occasional bonus of working on tough problems
• “It is an achievement to find a great idea, but it is a greater one to successfully use it to improve the world.”
• “The secret tragedy of innovators is that their desire to improve the world is rarely matched by support from the people they hope to help.”
• “The greater the potential of an idea, the harder it is to find anyone willing to try it.”
• “Innovative idea are rarely rejected on their merits; they’re rejected because of how they make people feel.”
• Is your desire to find new ideas to conquer greater than your desire to protect the success you already have?
• “Wise innovators–driven by passion more than ego–initiate partnerships, collaborations, and humble studies of the past, raising their odds against the timeless challenges of innovation.”
• Imagination > Knowledge > Information

• I’ve put knowledge above information for some time know, but Albert Einstein’s belief that “imagination is more important than knowledge” (stated on page 83) captured my attention.
• How can content-centric applications do a better job of capturing the user’s imagination, let alone increate the knowledge derivative?

• Actually commit reminds me of something U2 bassist Adam Clayton said while being interviewed on the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb DVD. His comments are captured here, although I recall them to be slightly different on the DVD.
• A group of people, a team or a band, has to commit before any real business can take place. Too often I see groups form for one reason or another without mutual commitment, and typically it’s just a matter of time until they disband, leaving some frustrated and others numb.

• “What problems does this innovation solve? Whose problems are they?”
• “What problems does this innovation create? Whose problems are they?”

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.

I just finished reading Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, and it’s caused me to reevaluate the potential impact of ideas as related to content, its management and the value derived from both.

While I will post more specific thoughts on Blue Ocean Strategy shortly, I thought it worth quoting the authors’ challenge of two conventional strategy practices: focusing on existing customers and driving for finer segmentation to accommodate buyer differences:

To maximize the size of their blue oceans, companies need to take a reverse course. Instead of concentrating on customers, they need to look at noncustomers. And instead of focusing on customer differences, they need to build on powerful commonalities in what buyers value. That allows companies to reach beyond existing demand to unlock a new mass of customers that did not exist before.

Do you struggle to maintain content, whether it be documents, pictures, videos, etc. at home or at work, yet you don’t see the point of a content management system? What makes you a noncustomer?

Given ECM or content management in general, what do you value? Say it’s time. How could adopting ECM save you time or multiply your time to focus on other priorities? If you’ve already adopted ECM, how could your system demonstrate it values your time more? Where is your system costing you time rather than valuing it?

Is ECM so unique as to only apply to an enterprise–whatever that means? If you have ECM deployed at work, what do you wish you could leverage at home? Is working with content outside the enterprise all that different from features and functionality you’ve come to rely on at work? What differences, if any, are perceived, not real? Why?

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.

I just finished watching Charlie Rose’s interview of Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos on PBS. Most of the conversation focused on Kindle: Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device, an amazing new device that embodies a vision to improve the act of reading. Kindle was the chosen product name specifically because it means to start a fire. The creative fires surrounding authoring, publishing and reading are certainly stoked by the arrival of this device.

Charlie Rose has got to be one of the best connected persons in the world.

Part of his paradigm–appropriate given his profession–is that questions are important. So, Charlie asked Jeff what question the Kindle seeks to answer. Jeff replied something as follows: “How can the act of reading be improved? How can a the essence of a book be improved?”

Q: What is the most important aspect of a book? A: It disappears. That is, when you start to read a long form, well written text, you enter the world of the author. Paper and ink fade away; the book disappears.

Jeff went on to say that you “can’t ‘out book’ a book.” There are aspects of books that cannot be improved upon. So Kindle doesn’t attempt to outshine such qualities of books but rather focuses on what physical books cannot do.

Nearly 90,000 books today can be delivered to Kindle, which can store up to 200 books, yet weighs less than the average book at slightly more than 10 ounces. I probably own more books than I can pack into a Kindle, but I assure you that I can’t carry my personal library either!

Jeff expects devices like Kindle to become platforms for experimentation, and he very quickly remarked that most experiments will fail. However, experimentation benefits everyone by uncovering the unforeseen challenges, creating new choices, lowering access barriers, etc.

I appreciate that Kindle has been under development for the past three years. Kindle represents a bet by Amazon’s leadership that all of the required technology would be commercially available in time for today’s public launch (e.g. the paper-like display, 10 years in the lab). It’s a fine example of calculating risk-taking as well as, what appears to be the reasonable expectation of a rewarding commercial future.

Although I’m posting this today, I originally sent the following thoughts via email on 7/3/2002 to my GM at the time–subject “Preface for our 1-1 about future architecture (.NET & J2EE) – some (hopefully) thought-provoking analogies.” The email in its entirety (and unedited) follows.

At the time I sent my remarks I wouldn’t have thought that it would be until roughly five years later that SOA enablement would become initial reality in the form of EMC Documentum Foundation Services.

Hi [GM].

I thought that I’d precede our discussion on this topic with some analogies that I see developing for business around “service-oriented architectures” like the one I described for DCTM in its future.

Do you visit Starbucks regularly? How about the movie theater? Sporting events?

Imagine if these vendors told you that you had to pony up a year or more’s worth of mocha/latte purchase, movie or game tickets (plus concessions) before you could enter the premises; however, if you did so, you’d be able to enter regularly thereafter without additional cost. But please be advised, if you bought the matinee package, you could only see matinees; if you purchased tall lattes, venti mochas or Frappuccino® are out of the question. Would you still pay your money to Starbucks, etc?

Some folks might, under these terms, but MSFT and others are betting that more enterprises are more inclined to pay for what they need (or even what they don’t), if they pay smaller amounts for more discrete, value-added services. The days of MSFT being able to annually charge its customers $400~500 for the next Office application suite upgrade are drawing to a close. Office .NET is a realization of this by MSFT.

Consider the modern phone with its support for caller ID, call waiting, etc.

Pacific Bell (SBC) allows its customers to choose to pay-as-you-use or to pay a flat monthly rate for unlimited usage of such features. The customer has the phone, but the phone company has the centralized service. The phone is only as good as its service.

MSFT, for example, is positioning Windows in all its various forms (PC, PDA, XBox, WebTV and soon the Tablet PC) as the software equivalent of the modern phone—fully capable of hosting rich services from multiple enterprises. .NET is akin to SBC phone lines—tying together desktops with servers, delivering software services on demand just like your local utilities. MSFT talks about “software as a service.” The computing platform (e.g. PC) will be defined by the services it supports and presents.

Clearly, DCTM is in a strong position to become the service provider for enterprise content management. We have an opportunity to draw additional revenue through exploiting our capabilities within service-based environments and through service-aware clients—“smart clients” as MSFT calls them.

Hopefully these analogies will be though-provoking over the long weekend. I look forward to picking up our discussion this coming Monday afternoon.

-Craig

Of course here in late 2007, there is still the whole matter of Software-as-a-Services (SaaS) to address in EMC’s Content Management & Archiving (CMA) division.

Today I had the privilege of talking about EMC Documentum Foundation Services (DFS) to roughly a 100 or so customers, partners and integrators at Momentum Europe 2007, held at Grimaldi Forum, Monaco. As promised, my slides are here, and the demo client in both Java and .NET (C#) can be downloaded via Zip archive here.

Before my session during the day’s keynote, the winners of the D6 Web Services Challenge were announced. As an internal judge, I was quite impressed by the breadth of submissions and how little time it took to develop them using DFS. The winners are as follows:

• 1st Place – Incident Management System: Armedia
  This Windows Mobile 6 application simulates a field employee using a handheld device to capture notes in the field, and import them to Documentum. It allows for the mobile device camera to directly import images to Documentum, plus importing of images from an external service, in this instance Flickr. This application was built in only 10 days by a team of three individuals.
• 2nd Place – 5MD gTop: Rob Cleghorn, Alexandre Alvares, Andrew McAllister, James Maughan, and Simon Green
  This five man team is so named due to the five days they dedicated to their effort to build a highly functional Web based user interface to Documentum leveraging Google Web Toolkit. In the words of one judge: “A clear example of the power of the new Rich Internet Application (RIA) and SOA programming model in action.”
• 3rd Place – PDF Publishing and Search: Alan Greendyk
  This single person entry leverages the power of Flex programming and Adobe LiveCycle Data Services to illustrate a publishing application pushing content into Documentum, with an extended search capability to fetch content from the Documentum repository.

The press release for this announcement is here. There should be more details about the winning entries up on EDN soon, too.

Congratulations to Armedia, the team from BNP Paribas (Cleghorn et al), and Alan Greendyk from Wachovia!

Time to brag about my brother again…

The new campus for the Mission Valley Regional Occupation Program is ready for its grand opening next month! Brent Randall was the senior designer and project architect on project from Loving & Campos Architects.

This looks like a great space in which to prepare for business, medical and technical careers!

To appreciate more of what this project produced for MVROP, please visit photographer Jay Graham online:

• http://jaygraham.com/lca_mission_valley/content/index.html
• http://jaygraham.com/lca_mission_valley_2/content/index.html

You can also see more of the conceptual work by visiting LCA online.

Phil Windley blogged about his user-centric reputation talk about AOL in Virginia today. “User-centric reputation” set off a cascade of thoughts, which are highlighted here (i.e. beware stream of consciousness)…

Recently the above catch phrase (i.e. Switchfoot song/lyric from Nothing Is Sound) came to mind while I was thinking again about content management and the role of people. That is, content proves authorship, and a fair bit of authoring is still a human-based endeavor.

Yet, much of information analytics within content management is focused on the results of authoring–the content–and its about-ness. This is an asset-centric or information-centric view to analytics embodied in clustering, classifying, tagging, summarizing, transcribing, translating, etc. There is value in this form of analysis; however, it simply creates more information–more content–while tending to cap the visibility of original authors and potential collaborators. I mean, folks are still out there, but I have to work to find them, to recall them, to (re-)engage with them.

Why aren’t there more systems that promote people first–treat people as the pre-eminent metadata? That is, why isn’t ECM more user-centric? Why doesn’t it promote reputation more effectively?

Information (+collaboration/behavioral) analytics can just as easily assume a contextual view centered upon people. It can help me understand potential collaborators in light of my current task or role or community affiliation. It can inform me of the “emotion” of a digital workspace (e.g. present a panel color or icon to flag a “heated” discussion currently underway–one that I may wish to avoid to run headlong into straightaway). It can go beyond mere presence display to mood display based on recent content-related activities by colleagues. It can help set my expectations for collaborative outcomes based on related process knowledge, social context and reputation.

Back to Phil’s blog and referenced presentation. Slide 50 talks about reputation in relation to trust, reciprocity and social benefit, in the context of social platforms like Facebook. I’ve recreated and redlined his graphic to emphasize business value where promotion of people and reputation is concerned (e.g. reduced time-to-innovation):

More on this topic to come, I suspect…

Paul Graham’s essay last month, “Stuff,” really resonates with me. I strongly encourage you to take a few minutes and go read it. Good, isn’t it?!

Stuff appears to be a key contributing factor to the commoditization–er, evaporation–of my time. In fact, I can effectively replace “stuff” with “information” in Paul’s essay and feel equally downtrodden. I’m overwhelmed with information, probably just like you are.

To paraphrase and personalize some of Paul’s points:

• Information has gotten a lot cheaper, but my attitude toward it hasn’t changed correspondingly. I overvalue information.
• Once I’ve accumulated a certain amount of information, it starts to own me rather than the other way around.
• A cluttered room [or computer file system or feed aggregator or ...] is literally exhausting.
• Another way to resist acquiring information is to think of the overall cost of owning [or even just managing] it. The purchase price [or initial download, even free] is just the beginning. I’m going to have to think about the thing for years–perhaps even for the rest of your life. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Some give more than they take. Those are the only things worth having.

I’m known to be a packrat, which has certainly saved me and others in the past. However, the burden that comes with this mountain of information (stuff) is wearing. Techniques I’ve described before end up involved more about paying in time lost than in real value gained (i.e. organization for no apparent long-term benefit).

Earlier this week I was meeting with several EMC colleagues to discuss the whole REST/POX/SOAP/RPC/SOA/ROA(/DOA) thing. During this candid discussion–a good subject for another post–someone remarked, and I’m paraphrasing, “Forget about organization; focus on good search. Organization is an intractable problem, and one that no one is willing to pay for to solve properly.” This gave me pause…so, how do I leverage search on the web and on my desktop? Has search truly replaced navigation for me? If not, why?

Back to Paul’s essay and the realization that I may overvalue information, I got to thinking about physical books, digital books and links to books online. Paper is pleasant to hold and read, but it can burn and consumes shelf space. PDFs are fine on a big display, but they require software to read (albeit free) and additional electronic storage themselves–not to mention that they’re fixed/frozen, not dynamic/living, in nature. Links consume far less storage then documents on my hard drive–even nothing when placed into del.icio.us–but they can break or become useful when my ISP decides to disappear. When I go offline, how do I access a particular document given only a link? When I’m away from my computer, PDA, smart phone, etc. how do I read my softcopy document? When I’m away from my home library and a nearby book seller, how do I thumb through a certain chapter for that particular key phrase or figure?

Given all my questions, I need something empirical to help me to change my ways. Ironically, it seems like more data could help my information overload.

The kind of data I’m currently envisioning represents the number of browse, read and write related actions upon sets of electronic documents. For example, if I navigate to a folder that contains two documents but do nothing more, then each document gets a +1 in the browse column. If I navigate here again and open one of the documents, both documents get another +1 for browse and the opened document gets a +1 in the read column, too. If I edit the open document and save my changes, then that document also receives a +1 in the write column.

I say “columns” to represent this metadata due to my leverage of a useful Windows Explorer add-in (i.e. shell namespace extension), Folder Size for Windows, which presents a new Folder Size column within the main file system navigator:

On the other hand, I’m not sure that adding three columns of numbers would be terribly useful.

Fortunately there are lots of ways to project this kind of information. I circulated Visual Literacy’s A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods amongst my colleagues at work back in May and it garnered a fair bit of praise and admiration. More recently, Jeff Atwood blogged more generally about catalogs of data visualization. For example, maybe I could apply Crazy Egg‘s ”heat map” concept.

Perhaps I’m simply over-engineering the whole thing.

Taking a step back and returning to Paul’s essay, the following paragraph may represent the simplest way to my information tranquility:

A friend of mine cured herself of a clothes buying habit by asking herself before she bought anything “Am I going to wear this all the time?” If she couldn’t convince herself that something she was thinking of buying would become one of those few things she wore all the time, she wouldn’t buy it. I think that would work for any kind of purchase. Before you buy anything, ask yourself: will this be something I use constantly? Or is it just something nice? Or worse still, a mere bargain?

I’ve successfully applied this practice to physical books and music CD’s–I’m a sucker for both–but I’ve got a long way to go where general downloading and filing is concerned.

Update 8/24/2007: Not that TreeMaps are necessarily ideal, but I ran across a TreeMap-based disk drive content visualization software for Windows and MacOS recently: SequoiaView (Windows) and Disk Inventory X (MacOS).

A few months back I posted my review of The Starbucks Experience. At the time I raised a concern to Starbucks: when you “outsource your experience” to someone else (e.g. to grocery stores such as Safeway or Albertsons), you run the risk of damaging your brand. The people running the Starbucks kiosk are employees of the grocery chain, not Starbucks. They don’t buy into the brand from an experience stand point, and apparently are not encouraged (e.g. via incentives) to do so by their employer (or indirectly by Starbucks).

Well, I recently had an awkward moment at a “true” Starbucks location. However, the customer service I received was quite positive. You see, I was without cash and without my wallet–except I came to realize this only after placing my order. The barista simply asked for my name so that she could correlate my transaction with my return, credit card in hand. Trust was emphasized: “I know you’ll come back. No worries.” Impressions like this are long-lasting.

Thanks, Starbucks and especially to the kind barista on Santa Rita Road!

Update 8/2/2007: I see that Marc Farley picked up this post. Who knew of the connection between Starbucks and iSCSI.

While I’m on the subject of MVP’s, I have to mention my brother. Brent is the epitome of community service to me–always generous with his time and talents.

Over the years, my brother has made it a priority to give back globally when it comes to the application of his licensed architectural skills. (There’s a running joke between the two of us about who is really an architect, since he builds buildings and I build…well, I built this.) Case in point is one of the featured projects on the eMI home page: a training center and dormitory in Camaragibe, Brazil.

In the spirit of “think globally, act locally,” Brent hosted my son at his place yesterday for an afternoon of building and swimming.

Not a bad result, especially when you consider that it went from a paper sketch to an assembled, painted result in only two and a half hours.

Kudos to you, bro!

This morning I received official word from Microsoft that I will continue for another year (7/1-6/30) as a “Visual Developer – Solutions Architect” MVP. I am grateful to receive this community involvement-based recognition, and I look forward to the coming year’s worth of interactions (e.g. Acropolis, Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5 with WCF, WF, etc., Windows Server 2008, and so on). As I said before, this award is about community service; so, please let me know how I can help you, my reader. Cheers!

Some of you noticed that not too long ago I changed my site layout and theme. Among the stylistic changes were new header graphics. “What exactly am I looking at?” you might be wondering. Well, I’m a fan of Dr. Seuss (e.g. see this). I’m also a fan of John Mayer, thanks to my brother and DirecTV’s free playback of his Continuum launch concert in New York’s Webster Hall.

When I listen to Continuum’s first track, “Waiting on the World to Change,” it reminds me of both The Waiting Place in Dr. Seuss’es Oh, the Places You’ll Go! and the irony of the Lorax taking his leave of the Once-ler in Dr. Seuss’es The Lorax.

So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
It’s hard to beat the system
When we’re standing at a distance
So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

The new header graphics mostly showcase the Truffula Trees from The Lorax: “And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.” It’s my subtle reminder to be engaged rather than waiting for someone or something else to act. Recall the words of the Once-ler:

Now that you’re here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.

(Here’s another subtle reminder I display in my office.)

I recently came across the following quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.“

Considering how the passing of the sun, for example, causes a tree’s shadow to change shape (and finally disappear), the President’s statement gives me pause. How much time do I devote to “shadow observation” rather than observing the tree itself? How much time do I attend to my “personal tree” instead of worrying about shadows currently cast by it (i.e. others’ perceptions)?

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.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange appears to be in good hands under the leadership of CEO Meyer (Sandy) Frucher. I say this because of reading CIO Magazine’s interview with Mr. Frucher.

When asked what his biggest IT-related lessons learned, Mr. Frucher responded:

The biggest lesson is never to underfund it because it’s much harder to catch up. Number two is do not rely on anything you build to be a long-term solution, because the world will change and there are forces that will make you change your strategies and your technologies to comply on a moment’s notice. The third lesson is what makes the other two lessons so important: The world is changing at speeds much greater than anybody could ever have anticipated, and therefore, you can never rest on your laurels. The expression that people frequently use is, If only I could get there, but “there” just keeps moving, so you need to be prepared.

(Emphasis is mine.)

I also agree with Mr. Frucher’s perspective on failure–as an often necessary prerequisite to success in business (and, I would argue, in life).

• From “Corporate Culture in Internet Time” (Q1 2000 issue of strategy+business): “Cultures aren’t designed. They simmer; they fester; they brew continually, evolving their particular temperament as people learn what kind of behavior works or doesn’t work in the particular company. The most critical factor in building a culture is the behavior of corporate leaders, who set examples for everyone else (by what they do, not what they say).” -Art Kleiner
• “They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus“ (Q4 2000 issue of strategy+business): ”Innovation excites cynicism; obviously, some innovations deserve it. Yet the rewards for invention, allied to persistence (the formula for innovation), may be substantial.” -Harold Evans

As part of my recent content pile herding I was reminded of “The Clear Leader” from the March 2005 issue of Fast Company magazine. Two quotes by Marcus Buckingham (with Bill Breen) come to mind:

• “Effective leaders don’t have to be passionate or charming or brilliant. What they must be is clear–clarity is the essence of great leadership.”
• “Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.”

(Emphasis is mine.)