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Way Too Much Information December 2, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Technology.
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I received an invitation to Google Wave a few weeks ago.  I was anxious to try it, but got little traction.  Since then, a few more friends have joined, and I’ve been able to experiment a little bit.  The jury is still out on the ultimate usefulness of the tool, but there is one “feature” that gives me pause.

If several people are actively participating in a conversation, the Wave interface actually shows their typing, in real time.  This is the next logical extension of existing instant messaging platforms, which note when another party is actually typing.  This was a handy feature, since it let you know if the person at the other end was actively participating.  Wave’s extension, on the other hand, is unnerving.

Very few people, myself included, write complete, rational thoughts on the first try.  Instead, we type, think, delete, edit, retype, and iterate until we have composed a complete message.  We often start out with something that we later contradict, or use a word or tone that we might regret and subsequently remove.  The end product represents a finished thought.

Google Wave exposes that entire process.  It is weird, and a bit voyeuristic, to watch someone in the act of composition.  In one conversation, I actually began responding to a person’s message, only to have them edit and change it before after I had posted my now-inappropriate response.  My response made no sense, and they knew I had been privy to a thought they later chose to retract.

It should be obvious by now that I am a big fan of all these new-fangled communications tools.  I like the idea of being instantly connected, and I enjoy the immediacy of keeping up with other people.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: I get it, and I use it.

But this crosses a line.  I am happy to share what I am doing, but I am not willing to expose my actual thought processes before they are fully formed.  Rapid communication is fine, but at some point there are aspects of what I am doing that I absolutely do not want to share.

I suspect that the folks at Wave did not set out to design a “thought exposure” feature.  Instead, I suspect they think that this is just a cooler way of showing that the other parties are typing and interacting.  I’m hoping that they’ll see the error of their ways and at least let me turn this feature off.

The whole experience reminded me of a scene from the show Married… With Children. Peg Bundy and her long-suffering husband Al are sitting silently on the couch.  Peg finally tries to break the ice by asking, “Al, what are you thinking?”  Al, speaking on behalf of every man on earth, replies, “If I wanted you to know, I’d be talking.”

Google, if I want people to know what I’m thinking, I’ll click “Done.” Until then, I’ll keep my keystrokes to myself.

There’s Not An App For That November 30, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership, Technology.
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I’ve been in a few CIO briefings of late that have revolved around the topic of business process management.  There is little doubt that much value can be found in formally capturing, defining, and managing the hundreds of processes that keep our companies running.  Even the simplest processes can have costly inefficiencies that can make a big difference in delivering good service and maintaining efficient operations.  A good BPM exercise can find and eliminate those issues and yield a good return on the effort.

For many of these initiatives, much time is spent selecting and implementing the right tool.  Certainly, having a sound workflow system to drive your processes helps.  The right system can automate mundane tasks, track all sorts of things, and make sure people know who needs to do what when.

As with most tools, however, it is easy to get so wrapped up in the tool that you lose sight of the real goal: creating a better process.  While it may be fun to connect lots of boxes with lots of lines, you’re creating a monster, not a better way.

I was once a party to just such a monster, several years ago.  As part of a workflow design team, we were tasked to formalize and automate a process within  our company.  This process had several gates, at which point someone could reject the item and stop the process.  This had been a bit of a sore point in the past, so we were careful to design in ways for rejected applicants to appeal their rejection.

This quickly escalated into a multi-level appeal process, with committees and advisors and automatic hearings.  It looked great on paper and took seven pages to draw out all the various options and choices that could occur.  We were pretty proud of this “better” way of doing things.

Finally, we all came to the same conclusion: this was a disaster in the making.  First, it would be extremely difficult to implement.  Second, it attempted to automate tasks that really needed to be handled by people.  And third, it would cause confusion and chaos among the users.

The real answer to the problem was far simpler: when an item was rejected, the rejecting party was expected to call and explain the circumstances to the rejected party.  The whole group realized that actual communication had an important place in the automated workflow.

That lesson hasn’t changed.  Tools are useful, but they can only go so far.  We cannot automate the most important part of any business: the interaction between team members as they get work done.  We need to use tools to remove the drudgery so that people have more time for the high-value interaction that really counts.  Freed from mindlessly shuffling paper (or email), people can actually discuss issues and work things out.  Communication is the most important thing we do; unfortunately, there isn’t an app for that.

Giving Thanks… November 25, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Random Musings.
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Thanksgiving is tomorrow.  By all accounts, you should not be reading this.  Instead, you should be wrapping things up at work and preparing to spend a few days with those near and dear.  But you are here, and for that I’m thankful.

In fact, I’m thankful that you stop by every time you stop by.  Writing this blog is a rewarding exercise for many reasons, few of which I anticipated when I started long ago.  While I have learned a lot and found clarity of thought in these articles, the greatest part of my experiment has been the wonderful community of people that choose to follow and visit these pages on a regular basis.

In many different ways, many of you have provided feedback that has been enriching and helpful.  I’ve learned a lot, met some wonderful people, and discovered all sorts of things I never would have otherwise found.  And all because people elected to share a few minutes of their day.

I wish I could say thanks to each of you individually, because I am sincerely grateful for your time and attention.  Instead, I’ll have to make do with this more general message and hope it will suffice.

Now, step away from the computer and spend time with people, preferably far from any distracting electronic devices.  I’ll be very thankful for the privilege of a visit on Monday, when we’ll pick back up where we left off.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What’s Your Iron Boat? November 23, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership.
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In planning for his great trek across the United States, Meriwether Lewis had a brilliant idea: a portable boat, made from a collapsible iron frame and covered in animal skins.  After leaving the Mississippi, his group would carry this boat until they reached the river rumored to extend to the Pacific, whereupon they would assemble the boat and sail away.  It was cutting edge technology for 1803 and Lewis absolutely loved the whole idea.

You can imagine what his men thought of it.  The boat frame was cast iron and weighed 176 pounds.  Fully assembled, it would be 42 feet long and could carry 8,000 pounds of men and equipment.  If you were one of the men assigned to lug the boat halfway across the United States, I’m guessing that you were not so enthused over the boss’ pet project.  You can almost hear the muttering and cursing as 176 pounds of iron were loaded up each morning and carried all day, day after day, across the continent.

Finally, the time came to assemble the boat.  Lewis had envisioned covering the boat in animal skins, sealing any holes with pine tar.  There were just two problems: they didn’t have enough animal skins, and there were no trees in the spot where they were building the boat.

For almost three weeks, from June 21 to July 9, 1805, Lewis directed his men to hunt elk and skin them.  It took a lot of elk to cover a 42-foot boat.  Every day, instead of heading west in the perfect weather of early summer, the men stayed in one place, shooting and skinning elk.  Lewis supervised, trying to figure out how to seal the boat without any tar.  Again, imagine the griping, growing each day, as the skins piled up and the boat slowly took form.

Finally it was time to put the boat in the water.  Within minutes, it sank.  Years of planning, months of dragging it across the country, weeks wasted for the skins, and the whole thing was over in an hour.  Lewis was embarrassed, certainly, and his men were vindicated.  Can’t you see them all at the river’s edge, biting their tongues and rolling their eyes, afraid to look at each other for fear of laughing at the boss?  I’ll bet no one could even say “boat” for the next week, without a lot of snickering from the back of crowd.

What is your iron boat?  What idea has captivated you, in spite of what your people are trying to tell you?  What bit of technology are you totally enamored of, regardless of its utter uselessness in the real world?  What piece of your plan made complete sense two years ago, but is now on the verge of sinking because you just won’t let it go?

Every leader has an iron boat, strapped to the backs of his or her team.  None of us can see the boat, but our people certainly can.  Are you listening for their feedback?  Do you trust them when they complain about your boat?  Are you humble enough to see your boat and let it go?

(I’m on hiatus this Thanksgiving week. This is a repost of one of my favorite articles from 2008. For more on the spectacular trip of Lewis and Clark, look for Undaunted Courage on my Books page)

When Tools Collide November 20, 2009

Posted by Chuck Musciano in Technology.
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I’ve written at length on the usefulness of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, and various other social tools. Each serves a unique role in creating a complete online social presence.  Professional network? LinkedIn.  Personal network? Facebook. Address book? Plaxo. Real-time status? Twitter.  This is not hard to understand for the millions of users of these systems. We all seem happy to use each tool as it fits our world, some more, some less.

Except for Twitter, the purveyors of these tools are not happy with our usage model.  They seem to think that we are not using them enough, and they keep making changes to draw us closer to their platform.  So far, this has not worked, and the tools are getting worse instead of better.

Most recently, LinkedIn announced that they had integrated Twitter capabilities into their interface. Really?  I find it hard to believe that this was the most requested LinkedIn feature.  Was LinkedIn barraged on a daily basis with demands that people’s Twitter streams suddenly appear in their LinkedIn profile?

I doubt it.  LinkedIn has no ability to present a status stream like Twitter.  The idea is completely out of touch with the LinkedIn model. The real-time, transient nature of tweets clashes with the professional, managed appearance of LinkedIn’s profile.  It’s like showing up to a job interview in your pajamas.

Instead, I sense a panicked decision among a management team whose product is losing relevance to a more dominant technology.  If you can’t beat ‘em, integrate them poorly, I guess.

What does LinkedIn offer?  They list your Twitter account in your profile and allow you to stream some or all of your tweets into your LinkedIn status.  To selectively send tweets to your profile status, you must include the hashtag #in in the tweet.  This serves two purposes: it lets LinkedIn grab and post the tweet, and it lets everyone on Twitter know that you don’t know the difference between Twitter and LinkedIn. LinkedIn might as well grab and post #fail tweets to complete your social portrait.

Facebook is suffering from a similar case of Twitter-envy, but is doing a better job of hiding it.  You can connect your Twitter and Facebook statuses so that all your tweets show up as Facebook status updates.  I do this, more as a time saver than anything else, although I occasionally update Facebook independently from Twitter.

Given the similar functionality between Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets, that integration is easy.  Unfortunately, Facebook also envies Twitter’s real-time nature and has developed multiple conflicting ways to look at status updates.  Within Facebook, I can look at status updates.  I can also look at my news feed and it’s close sibling, the live news feed.  As best I can tell, the live news feed provides a more intimate view of the activity on Farmville and Mafia Wars but little else.

When I do check Facebook, I tend to check all of these things, plus my wall and my inbox, just in case.  No wonder Facebook claims to present one-fourth of all pageviews on the internet: it takes that many just to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

There’s a lesson here: stick to what you know.  LinkedIn’s Twitter integration is just embarrassing for all concerned.  Facebook’s Twitter envy is damaging a once-clean user interface. If these platforms would be happy with what they do best, we’d all be better off. And if we all applied that rule to everything we do, imagine how much good we’d accomplish.

http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/05/focus/