thingamy

competition

Hugh (rather innocently) follows up a potential speculation if the thingamy could be a a certain competitor "killer". Hamish of course says unequivocally no.

I agree with Hamish there, I even added in the comment that "why would I bother with such trivial pursuits..." :)

Guy Kawasaki on the other hand suggests that a better path is:

"Turn the competition into allies. One way to get rid of your competition is to drive it out of business. I suppose this might be attractive to you, but a better way is to turn your competition into allies."

I'll add: Become their friends and grow the market together, much better for all - in particular the customer.

But it's a bit like in school - the big boys do not want to be friends with the little boys even if the little boys wants to be their friend.

Oh well, I'll focus on becoming a big boy then :)

testing in full spotlight

When I do a demo I tend to talk a lot - the other party pushed back to a few "mmmm"s while I'm running through the system. Then lots of questions and more talking on my part.

Always a pleasure and one gets some sort of an idea for how it was received - but always left with the thought "what will he say to his colleagues" at the water cooler? Until now a question without an answer.

Now it's different though, completely different.

I read all about it on their blog. Public. Water cooler with a bullhorn. Cool.

Next step: I have given away a few stand alone systems for some to test and hash around with, no supervision or training offered.

(Actually it's more about "ease/hurdles to get head around" than bugs, those I can find myself. Using the system the first time is a bit like windsurfing or snowboarding the first time without a coach, those who have tried that will know what I mean ;)

Now I will read in their blogs about the bads, the stupids, the forgottens, the shaking of heads - and perhaps about the good things so I can trudge back to the code and try to lift it a smidgen before next round.

It's like getting the results from a pregnancy test or your exam results in the daily news only - "And in the late news we can divulge that Sig has flunked again, better luck next round Sig!"

Scary, but cool :)

[Note to self: Add wiki for test discussion (as per suggestion by Dennis) - open for all I think.]

fusion of blog and enterprise backbone

Hugh's says it, Dennis suggests it, Robert does it - blog as porous membrane, blog as customer relation tool, blog as door in to the business - blogging is conversation. And that a business needs and shall have.

Thus thingamy will have an integrated blogging "engine".

But not just any kind - we'll use our own tree-less multiple-tags-to-find version of course.

[Early stand alone version shown with three tags chosen, the matching objects and tag list shortened by "f" in search field.]

And not just any kind of back-end either - posts and comments will be objects like any other thing in thingamy - changes available on the fly, re-use in other parts of the organisation and vice versa. Completely integrated.

Trackback and RSS of course, possibly making RSS ubiquitous in the whole system - RSS feed from co-worker's todo list anyone?

In essence, integrate the conversation-with-bandwidth technology into the business software spine.

Gonna be fun at least :)

scary, scary

A little group of friendly geek souls will get a early-stage-stand-alone demo version of thingamy today/tomorrow (ish).

First time out on it's own, me not hanging over shoulder and poking at keyboard... scary! Like sending your son to boarding school the first time.

[The "builder" area; six tabs to set the whole business model and the reports needed.]

At the same time very grateful for the help I'm getting - lot's of head-scratching and noises of frustration will soon be heard in some quarters - then expecting stern feed-back and quick scurrying back to the drawing board, or at least to the code, for tweaks, changes and add-ons.

Goal is to make it manual-free, fun and generally easy as pie to use. One day after many such rounds...

Scary indeed.

Can only hope they have lots of stamina so they can endure the progression from "Hmmm" through "Eh??" and "Hmpfff!" to a potential "Ah!"

Suspect I will have to arrange a really-good-party on the Coté d'Azur to repay :)

[Note to self: Discuss party plans with Hugh, Jason, Thomas and Lars]

spring is in the air

And so is the rain I'm afraid. But warmer, expecting around 20 degrees C this weekend...

And with spring comes tourists, less layers of cloth, more to look at for us chaps and some colour to life.

Doing some finishing touches to a works-nicely with-a-little-list-of-missing-features version of the thingamy (you'll never hear me say pre this or that, and no alpha, no beta) that will go out to a few IT consultants and system integrators for some real life playing.

Thus the layout and quirky icons required a spring cleaning... perhaps some spring colour...

Retro 70's I guess, no web 2.0 rounded corners and subdued colours.

[It's a screenshot, Firefox, from a branch with a single "link" to another workflow (expanded), thus I could show all the neat instruction-icons made by Jeanette, red for user-tasks, green for flows, yellow for transfers, blue for object creation and manipulation :)]

Knowing that I have no chance to please all I'll leave the CSS file and icons folder open for the user to change as he please, any time, any day.

And soon an operational interface protocol based on XML-RPC for no limits at all to build whatever front-ends!

It's fun tinkering with though ;)

defending business models

Windmill operators sabotaging electric motor factories, horse breeders spreading tacks on the roads, trees desperately holding on to their leaves in the autumn...

...RIAA fighting their fans, Italian shoe manufacturers lobbying politicians to stop import from China.

Life.is.all.about.cycles. Accept it.

Such people should be shrugged off and sent to a two week history course.

But these guys? No, they're too smart - they take hostages.

And the hostages are always the weakest, the ones that are easy to sympathise with. Poor artists, low paid workers... with a perfectly spun story that is hard to fight without sounding like a callous profiteer. And the politicians falls into that trap like the blind sheep they are.

Business.models.changes. Live with it.

Call the RIAA and the ANCI on their bluff, tell them to cut out the hostage taking and do what they (the managers) are supposed to do:

Move on and become better, change your business model now or choose to die quietly without more fuss... I'm no big fan of deceptive dramas of positively Wagnerian proportions!

But I do like people who'd rather be nimble with their business model... maybe I should send Sony, Warner, BMG and the other silly sopranos a version of my software... ;)

[Inspired by Cory Doctorow of course!]

London

Just back from a few days in London, good fun as always - how can it not be when it starts with the London Girl Geek Dinner! (thanks Sarah and Hugh!)

Densely populated with such amazing girls as Gia, Henriette, Sarah, Cathy and many many more... and yet another inspiring call to arms by Cory Doctorow! No panels titled "Women in technology" needed at such gatherings... eh Gia?

(Eat your hearts out Dennis and Ric ;)

Met up with Cathy over lunch to show a snippet of thingamy and talk enterprise stuff. She's a wickedly smart SAP systems geek and really good company, what can I say?

Had also managed to talk James Governor into give me a snippet of time. He being a business 2.5 kind-of-a-guy he did not suggest any old Starbucks, nope, his meeting room was a wine shop with a table in the middle... that's the way to go I say :)

Think we stumbled out after four hours or something (James' brownie points at the home front being under threat), and with Hugh arriving at the scene after two hours I think we had most French wine districts covered... had a grand time!

Now I'm in serious wine bill deficit to James, and will have to arrange a 60m-of-shelf-rose-wine-tasting-sprint in my corner of the world to start paying off that debt! (Or arrange some serious eatery outing in London next time).

Wrapped up today with David and David, where the second David is a true work flow geek so what's not to like? Another inspiring meeting with yet more smart people!

To all kind souls in London, much appreciated, thanks for listening and engaging discussions, I truly had a grand (and believe it or not, productive) time!

process flow

This is how we worked in 1906:

This is how we work in 2006:

The difference? The tools are better, some I even like a lot! But where is the flow? An e-mail notification? A reminder alarm?

To attain a flow you need a riverbed for the flow of information - information representing real life objects: Parts welded together, products moving, invoices created, health records updated, x-rays taken, pills dispersed...

The riverbed needs to deliver workorders, pertinent information and the tools at the same time in the same interface and to the right person - then when finished it has to deliver all needed to the next person... and so forth.

A bit like this:

One single flow - but now beyond the pure production line; with user induced dynamics, loops and branches befitting a more human and creative environment.

That's why we tinker with the thingamy :)

more on serious people

In my last post I should have used other terms - pompous, stuffy, "important", you know - the kind that takes themselves and the "truths" they build their life on... well... very, very serious.

Then there are serious people who do not take themselves seriously, and that I seriously like.

Like Warren Buffet.

I love his little quirky stories like the one in his 2005 letter to the shareholders (p.17) about the Gotrocks family and The Helpers, not to talk about the twin islands of the Squanderville (using Squanderbucks of course) and Thriftville in an article in Fortune, November 10, 2003.

One about financial advisors and reality, one about national debt and reality - pretty serious stuff by itself.

That's a good kind of serious person if you ever saw one. And darned serious he is too :)

Just gotta love the chap.

serious people

(To annoy or not to annoy)

I have a friend who frequently (yesterday) nudges me that I should not annoy big serious big money potential customer corporate types with certain statements and words (management is a waste of time and bollocks?). That's rule #1 he says.

But I cannot help it. Here we say "find your voice", "be true to yourself" and "engage in open conversations" - and I happen to agree.

Stupid or not, being honest (and stupid saying it loud?) is an excellent filter against wasting their time and my time. They don't like it, good, then let's not waste time.

So, am I not interested in selling to the big corporate big money firms?

Sure I am. And luckily there are free-thinkers, curious and other forward looking people within such big firms, people who enjoy a pointed discussion, the ones I'd like to spend time with.

Why only break some rules when most rules deserves some breaking?

I do like breaking rules :)