thingamy

information age? nah...

Reading a piece in Wired News this morning - "Logical and precise, left-brain thinking gave us the Information Age. Now comes the Conceptual Age".
As such a good one, but I react to the statement that we are in / have been in the Information Age.

Ok, it's all about semantics and definition, but hear me out:

As hunter-gatherers started planting seeds I suspect they still kept on moving around (heh, what do I know, but think about it...) until they eventually found that the new technology enabled them to build a permanent abode. In my head, when they changed their life, that's when we moved into the Agrarian Age. Not the introduction of the technology as such.

When the first machines were introduced they inevitably replaced horse and human muscle, but the-way-thing-were-done remained the same. Even on the outset of automobile production the first ones were basically converted coach building shops, a few machines replacing manpower, but still same layout, same processes, same thinking, same life more or less.
For me the watershed was in 1913 when Henry Ford opened his Highland Park plant and the technology was used for what-it-was-worth - production time per car went from 70 to seven hours in six months. Methodology changed. Process changed, life changed, society changed. For me that was the start of the Industrial Age.

What about IT now? Some of it is used in new ways, but mostly in areas where there were no ways before. In the instances where methods and old ways were well established not much have happened.
In an organisation the structure, the methods, the ways-of-doing things are still Industrial - more or less. Actually, IT, the software, still mimics the same-old-ways, supporting the same, not much of making use of it for what-it's-worth. Would installing a CRM system increase your output tenfold? Change society? Nah, not that, not yet.

That is why I say the Information Age has not yet begun. Humbly.

(software) service oriented architecture, why again?

In today's Financial Times IT report  there is an interesting article (subscription only) about SOA and how it can help enterprises in using IT better.

SOA is described as "a method of building IT systems that relies not on big, integrated programs but on small, modular components".

Gartner research fellow Daryl Plummer even says:

SOAs are going to happen. You can’t say: ‘We won’t do that.’ It is inevitable.

I beg to differ.

SOA is smart, it is good, it is the only thing to do - as long as you accept two things as inevitable:

1) Organisational hierarchies is a given, and
2) logic and information must stay inseparable.

But if you see organisational hierarchies as a model of the real world, then you may be able to say "what if there is a better model?".

<product plug>
And there is. A real simple, logical and natural one - flows.
A business is a flow. Starting with a customer having a need, through loops, branches, Monday morning meetings, sales trips, donut procurement, documentation, production and whatnot all the way to a fulfilled and happy customer.
Model the software that runs the business on the flows, forget hierarchies, vertical delimiters and finite processes.

Then split the logic from information and apply logic to the raw date where and when needed. Change presentation of data without touching raw data, avoid complex rules and de-manipualtion of data.

Then you can get something immensely simpler, faster, more flexible, cheaper - basically something that would make the whole notion of SOA superfluous in a second.

But who am I to say, we only make that software.
</plug>

classrooms and other venues

Stumbled over a theme close to my heart - "Most classroom learning sucks" posted by Kathy Sierra at Headrush.
Not only did it appeal to my parenting side and to the "ahh, remember those days in school" of a former troublemaker in school (me), it triggered a headrush (duh) of dual modes applicable to more than two different educational approaches.

Perhaps the issue raised by Kathy is more than a classroom issue, something that applies to everything we do and face in our daily life?

Let me suggest a few choices:

Learning vs. Teaching
Connect vs. Gather
Converse vs. Preach
Pull vs. Push
Be or to Have (Thanks to Eric Fromm)
Act vs. React
Attract vs. Seduce

Teaching being teacher preaching,  pushing knowledge and the poor recipient gathering, having and reacting to knowledge. All right side of the opposites.

Learning being connect with and pull knowledge, be and act - and converse with the teacher, who BTW has one task - prepare the environment. All left side.

Have to admit, I think the left choices are closer to humans, makes us happier, better, smarter, prettier.

But what about us, the grown-ups, outside the classroom? Are we oriented towards the right side or the left?

Ask somebody "who are you?" or "tell me about yourself". Does it not prompt a "I'm the vice president of..."?  A title is nice to have, but what might you be?

Tell your friends at the next party that you just came in from a spot of running/cycling. Is the next question "how many K's did you run?" or is it "was it nice?"
Bet it'll be about how many miles you have logged, not so much about how it was being there.

Being male I have to admit to laziness, hormones, and the prospect of being seduced, but attraction makes me more at ease, happier and makes my day. Or week. Or month. Or life.

Is the organisational hierarchy at your job designed for pull or push? Hmm, strategy, orders, directions tends to come from the top... does it make you happy?

Is your organisation connecting to customers or gathering them? Does your sales manager talk about sales numbers and how to increase number of customers or does he talk about how he/the company connects to the customers and how that can be strengthened? Wonder what customer would be the content one, the number or the connected and included?

Did I mention advertising? Or selling? Or the classic PowerPoint presentation? Or...

Maybe it's time to act outside the classroom, not only react to the classroom?

corporate communication, communication?

This blog is is a kind-of-business-blog, in the sense that I blog my thoughts, and in business I try to implement those same thoughts.
We're making what others may term as enterprise software, but I'd rather stick to run-your-business software - cause that is what it does.
One of my favourite tasks is to keep an eye open to what's in the pipeline of run-the-business software (usually called ERP, CRM, Accounting systems, Supply chain management, BPM and whatnot). For that I often check out what the good and famous VC's have been investing in lately.

Take a highly respected firm like Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and check out the links to their Enterprise Software & Service portfolio companies. Note the prevailing "a leading provider" and "standards-based, loosely-coupled, event-driven architecture easily extends the reach of enterprise application integration solutions" speak.

If you get a clear and precise vision of what any of those guys are doing - please drop me a line.  I'm sure that they do something worthwhile, but for some reason the words elude me.
Ditto if you feel a tingle of excitement when you read their sites. I go completely blank. But maybe it's me.
Anyway. I probably do the same, delivering a whole set of incomprehensible business-product blah blah when asked.

Struggling the other day with the product description for a freethinking friend, he suddenly asked for a description in the same terms as I would describe cycling (we both love cycling)!

Good idea, so we went: "Cycling is pure, only you and the perfectly tuned carbon/titanium machine out there rolling effortless along the deserted roads and rolling hills. And you race for any hilltop, not to say when you're out with your cycling buddies, every signpost is a potential finish line. And in the peloton you depend on the others, you are together even if you race, a common journey..."

For me, some words simply clicked. I could use them to describe the different aspect of our software! Self indulging of course, but a mile more fun than using scalable, transforming and other misused words all over.
So I did.

[UPDATE] So I did it again, used the idea - with a twist - and redid the whole site in the simplest form possible, fewest words possible etc. etc. [/update]

I would be immensely thankful if you would bother to take a peek and gimme an honest kick in the butt:  Did I get lost cycling? Or was the sound of head scratching overwhelming? Or worse, it was a boring read.
Then I promise to rethink - again.

vision, mission, schmission

This is a true story. Nothing big, I was just reminded about it when reading David Weinberger's Oh why cahn't the marketers ... learn ... to ... speak over at Worthwhile.

Ten years ago I was on the board of a start-up games developer. This was early geek times with average age of just under 20 for our first 26 employees, rising to 21 a year later and 60 employees. Actually our first Xmas party was preceded by a 'parents day' which suited me nice as the mothers were more my age...

The board of directors had to act as... ehh... directors, so we sat down and hammered out a  'Vision', a 'Mission'. Then another one, then... and so forth. Fast forward and a few years later we had 'professional investors' on board and the 'Vision' thing appeared on the agenda again.

This is the PowerPoint thingy I prepared (company name slightly altered):

First slide (our original Mission statement, founders only version):

        FUNGAME’s main objective is to be a leading player in the Interactive
        Games Industry by  combining:
        best product quality
        best technology
        widest distribution
        highest profit margin
        added value to products, marketing and distribution process.

My fellow directors nodded knowingly...

Second slide (or Mission Statement MK 2, this with employees involved when made):

        FUNGAME will at all times with no regard to short term gain strive for
        excellence in its products. Individual and corporate effort will provide
        our customer with the best experiences, visuals, music, and leading
        edge technology, developing new genres and creating all time
        best sellers.

More nodding, the meeting was going well...

Third slide (me being a tad cheeky):

        FUNGAME will produce the highest quality products, using empowered
        team dynamics in a Total Quality paradigm until we become the
        industry leader.

More nodding, although I saw the first frown. Some said "I think I can remember that one, mmm.."

Fourth slide (pushing it... using Dilbert's excellent Mission generator):

        We have committed to synergistically disseminate scalable
        meta-services while continuing to assertively leverage existing
        excellent infrastructures.

Now suspicion crept in, uneasy shuffling in chairs... so I quickly clicked for the

fifth slide (explanation!):

        A mission statement is a "long awkward sentence that demonstrates
        management inability to think clearly".
        (Definition by Dilbert)

Bedlam, some laughing, some getting annoyed, so I just pressed on with the

sixth slide (nailing it):

        Why not something simple?

        We will have all the wealth in the world while everybody else dies in
        the gutter wishing they were us.

The holdouts started smiling, and the agenda item was over. No discussion, not a mention in the minutes, last Mission Statement discussion on that board of directors ever... my mission ended.

marketing, managing, hierarchies - all wrong, all waste

Must say I enjoyed Hugh Macleod's Hughtrain that can be downloaded from another excellent site, Changethis.

Hugh, being a man of advertising, is suggesting that something is not quite right in how advertising  is done - at least the way I read it. And his many observations are excellent, frickin' amazing if I dare use his expression.

Still, I'm missing something. Why not say it, that marketing as we know it is plain wrong (including advertising of course).
And while he's at it (he works in a classic organisation does he not?) why not add that organisational hierarchies and current management theories are off too. Way off.

It certainly could explain the lack of real-and-major results from the gazillions spent in management schools, think tanks, advertising firms, on management handbooks, different Sigmas and what not over the last hundred years. Any dramatic changes to how we operate? Any wee little results? Check Dilbert for answers.

Let me give ye the shoemaker factor:

Any business or organisation have two basic tasks: interact with the customer, and make the product.
Take your great-great-grandfather's shoemaker. He could discuss shoe needs and leather types with about ten clients a week, and with help of a couple of chaps actually deliver ten pairs a week. Nice balance between his two tasks. Excellent.

Then he was 'industrialised' as in installing a few machines that enabled him to produce a couple of hundred pairs a week. But his client-interaction was not up to that task.
He had to rely on a newfangled and growing business of distribution, advertising, selling (push now) and so forth. Business growing, so did his organisation, hierarchical of course.
He was given the 'production technology' but nobody gave him the 'interaction technology'.

So makeshift solutions were invented, revived and refined to get back a certain air of balance. Marketing, distribution, retail, inventories, selling, push, push - and yes, management.
All makeshift solutions. Empty beer crates on top of each other.

And, tata, we now have the much needed 'interaction technology' aka IT!
But the makeshift solutions will not budge. Hmm.

Now another factor comes into play, the good old 'truth'. If we're used to something, if the mere thought of changing it makes us shiver then make current methods into a 'truth'. "We need marketing!", "Management is a given, cannot live without that!", repeat and nod, repeat and nod. Will not have any doubt about our positions, our lives, our beliefs.
What does the IT do then, or rather the software industry? It sell solutions to problems, it shores up (= solution) the wobbly (= problem) 'truths' and cements the status quo (strengthens solution).
Frickin' stupid that is. (Thanks to Hugh for teaching me proper English.)

So, why not dabble with the thought of change?
Windmill operators and most of the shoemakers are gone, and their great-grandchildren are copywriters, vice presidents, sales clerks and consultants. What about their children?

enterprise software is a numbers game, a losing one

Software, apps, are still built the same way as they started out in the good old days of single-batch-processing. Having information and logic inseparable. Spend a day with PowerPoint and see that .ppt file be useless for all other programs. Want US GAAP applied to your P&L, have some accountants sweat over the UK GAAP manipulated figures for months.

Good for the armies of IT consultants and many a 'middleware' supplier, bad for the user. IBM says that "40% of everything enterprise customers spend on IT goes for just making the stuff work together".
And, according to an article by Larry Dignan:

General Motors has cut its mission-critical applications from 7,000 in 1996 to just over 3,000 today. Hewlett-Packard intends to slash its enterprise resource planning systems from 21 to four. HP reckons it can cut total applications from 3,500 to 1,500.

3,000 mission-critical applications, guess who thrives on this situation, the user? Nah.

Take 40 different apps and make them work together with nifty-state-of-the-art middleware and you get 780 relationships and nice billing opportunities for the glue-gun army. Let your CFO replace his accounting system, and the glue-gun chaps smiles again...

Why not split logic and information? Why not keep the information in raw form and manipulate when needed and never keep manipulated data? Then the 40 apps would equal 40 independent relationships. Guess what would happen to the other numbers above... and while you're at it, guess what the glue-gun army would say...
Alas, it would require a new kind of software thinking, a new breed of software...

wasting resources, big time

This is entirely about i n f o r m a t i o n.

Take our consumption, business, what we do and use and re-think 'what is information':

• Advertising is information. It informs me about a product. Duh
• Retail is information. It enables me to inform myself of the 'real product' by touching it and trying it on. And sure, pick it up, but the actual physical distribution could be by FedEx, or some twist to that. (You know what it costs to have your stuff shipped within a day or two from Amazon, Brooks Brothers or whoever - in percents, almost nothing!)
• Thus distributors, agents and warehousing costs are 'information costs' as well. All geared towards making a product available for my touchy-feely-choice.
• Then look into corporate OH - what about the whole marketing departments? Some or most of the time spent in organisational hierarchies? Etc.

An author, a musician, a game developer ends up with a royalty of 5-10-15%, rest is 'information costs'. A shirt, a skirt, a pair of shoes leaves about half of your payment in the shop, and some more for advertising, warehousing, agents...

A big & bulky item like a car car must be different, or what? But getting it entails distributors, showrooms, advertising, PR stunts... may I suggest at least 40% 'information costs'?

What does this mean?
It means that about half of the world's resource-use is wasted on 'information costs'. It means that we easily could make the world twice as 'rich'.

How about that.

Admittedly, my assumptions are... well pretty assumptive and not very scientific. But make a better founded calculation and tell me if I'm wrong - I'll bet I'm pretty close!