I Want it Wet & Wild – A Mid-life Crisis?

So, I think I want one of these… I’ve got the Miracle for sailing with the kids, but I do miss getting on the water on my own, don’t forget my roots are in the Optimist..single-handed sailing is something that I’ll never grow out…

Actually I really want one of these, its a foiling International Moth...

So currently I’m looking to invest, purchase, blow some money on a Foiling International Moth..

I may get a Low-Rider i.e. a non-hydrofoil one, play with that for a while and then get it converted… but ideally, mad, stupid, insane or not, I want to go straight into a foiler….

The challenge will be awesome, just check out the footage below taken at the Moth Worlds being held in Dubai currently…

So, the old, the original, Soulsailor, may be back with blog posts about the thrills and spills of trying to go freakin’ fast without, hopefully, seriously injuring myself..

So, the plan is:

1. Convince wife the investment is worth it (gotta be better than a sports car?)
2. Any of you with contacts in the Moth fleet put the feelers out (sorry no pun intended) for a second-hand boat
3. I need to get fitter!
4. I’ll keep trawling the web sites for a bargain
5. I’ll keep dreaming!

Fast & Low my Friends… Fast & Low & Close(ish) to the Water…

Trinity achieve Microsoft Business Value Planning Services Certification (BVPS)

Trinity announced today that we have achieved the Microsoft BVPS certification.

http://www.tesl.com/TESL/News/Pressreleases/Trinity+achieve+Microsoft+Business+Value+Planning+Services+Certification.htm

Actually the reality is for the moment, I have achieved the MS BVPS certification… I’m certifiable around ensuring that you deliver business value for your organisation through the Microsoft Information Worker platform!

I’m extremely excited about the prospect of being able to engage with our existing and hopefully new (get in touch!) clients and driving proper ROI through their organisations.

Making a difference.

Engaging with business and IT.

Realising potential.

Changing cultures.

Maximising adoption.

Shipping value….

Get in touch with me or Trinity direct if you want our assistance in making you look good in your organisation and allowing your organisation to deliver its potential.

Why Facebook and not SharePoint 2010 could become your Intranet for 2010?

Don’t panic, I don’t believe this!

I came across this article on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/Capgemini/status/10021634294
http://www.capgemini.com/technology-blog/2010/03/why_facebook_and_not_sharepoin.php

I have to admit, I don’t particularly agree with the premise for the article. Ignoring the fact that a lot of companies don’t trust their employees to access FaceBook in work (so they turn to accessing anyway over their mobile devices!), what I don’t like is that it makes the assumption that SharePoint isn’t a good platform for an Intranet which of course it is.. it’s awesome and with the launch of SharePoint 2010 in May, the Intranet features, including a heap of social features which I feel are key in bringing context into our everyday activities, are immensely strong.

The article states that FaceBook (obviously) doesn’t support integration into your back-end systems and probably isn’t the right location for confidential documents… Right so you’re telling me that I should have an external FaceBook Intranet for news, information and connections (internal and external) and then separate systems for all the other stuff I do each and every day??

I don’t think so guys… maybe in the “old days” with SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007 that may be a credible approach as the social/connections focussed elements were weak, but SharePoint 2010 is a totally different beast.

What I do agree with in the post is that for Intranets:

• Adoption is key
• Building engagement with business partners is a key differentiator in business (Extranet AND other social tools)
• Utilise platforms rather than custom build

With FaceBook not being a good platform from a security perspective, then why not consider SharePoint Online, that platform certainly meets the needs of this requirement that they state at the end of the article:

Save money, thrive adoption. Not every successful solution has to start inside your firewall or should be custom build. Use the tools your colleagues already know, use the tools that they already selected as the tools they prefer to use.

Finally, an interestingly, what they also say is:

“…If that holds you back to go full fledge into Facebook, just use your Facebook group as a portal to get your colleagues to the news on the Intranet (which could be based on SharePoint 2010)…”

Now that is a more sensible idea…

• Build a social presence as a portal…
• Use the social features of a decent platform such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning etc to engage with new customers
• Use this as a launch pad for employees to an Internal Intranet (SharePoint 2010)
• Use this as a launch pad for partner/clients to an extranet (SharePoint 2010)

Sorted! This approach give you a great transparent presence, and as much relevant content and business processes that the platform can deliver, and hands you off neatly to internal systems such as SharePoint 2010 for the really rich, contextual intranet (or extranet) functionality you need…

Make sense?

The Fear of the Linchpin

So I bought from iTunes Seth Godin’s latest creation from iTunes a a few weeks ago.. The audio book comes in two parts and during some of my commutes and occasionally at home I’ve been dipping into it and slowly working my way through the 8 hours or so of audio..

I like Seth, he has a great deal of interesting, challenging stuff to say… his voice works well in audio books (maybe he has a face for radio?). This book is another well thought out insight/self-help/business/innovation book, or piece of art as he may call it.

But I started to not enjoy it.. it wasn’t that he wasn’t making sense, ‘cus he was.. but he did seem to be banging on about “factories”, I’ve never worked in a factory, but my parents have, so although I can see it’s relevant, for some reason it feels distant and I didn’t connect. I found that lack of connection, for an undeterminable reason all the way through the first half of the audio book; I still learnt a bunch of stuff, I still got some of what he said, but the power and the connection wasn’t necessarily there..

But the second half…

Wow, Seth really started switching on some lightbulbs for me, that showed some scary insights into me and you and our behaviours that reinforce or work against us being the “linchpin”.

Disclaimer:- I haven’t actually finished listening to the book yet!

Stuff around a 2nd voice in our heads was fairly standard stuff, but the focus on fear stopping us from being freakin’ awesome and becoming a linchpin and developing a network of linchpin’s around us was extremely interesting. The leadership strands, seem to strengthen as the audio book progresses and I’m not sure whether this is because Seth get’s better at writing, kinda gets into his stride, or that I’m just learning in the first half and putting the relevance into play in the second… but persevere please, it’s worth it…

3 things stuck out on my way to and from a client meeting today listening to Seth..

1. Fear -  Don’t be scared, things fail, people fail, failure is good.. learn from this, don’t stress, focus on (as Seth says) shipping getting things done, delivering
2. Stop Checking In - In order to succeed, in order to become a linchpin stop wasting time through the day checking-in periodically (email, Twitter, LinkedIn, intranet, colleagues etc) use that time to be awesome, to deliver, to “ship stuff” & to make a difference
3. Gift – Give things, knowledge, gifts, books, time or whatever with no thought to reciprocation

So I spent some focussed time this afternoon culling my inbox… I didn’t get to “Inbox Zero”, but I did get down to only 6 unread emails. (Stopped Checking In)

I shipped stuff… No fear, no pause, delivering this blog post, reviewed a draft RFP response, a manifesto and agenda for a clients IT Steering Group, an agenda for a SharePoint 2010 Organisational Readiness session all done, efficiently this afternoon and this evening (Fear)

And finally, as I’d discussed previously with Matt Groves previously, I thought I’d buy a book, a gift for my colleagues at Trinity; so a copy of Seth’s Linchpin is slowly making its way to the office for you to read, borrow, discuss or ignore (Gift)

So, I’ve got a day’s leave tomorrow to spend with my daughter on her birthday, but Friday and all next week

• I’m not gonna let fear define what I do,
• I’m gonna focus on shipping stuff and not a stack of spinning plates
• I’m gonna give..

That’s all, simple, effective and movement towards my personal vision.

Personal ROI – Accept or Decline

I’ve been thinking a lot about “time” – my time, company time, family time…

I see time wasted all over the place, I hear people talking about wasted time, I see inaction and I see great uses of time and resources.

So I’ve had enough of wasting any time, mine, yours and everybody elses. To achieve balance “time” needs to deliver “value” otherwise what’s the point?

So from now on I’m going to start to re-dress the balance, every internal meeting, every conference call and every client meeting needs to deliver me, or my family, or my colleagues or my company an ROI.

Every time I receive a meeting request I’m going to question it’s value, I’m gonna do the maths in my head, work out the Personal ROI, then decide whether to click “Accept or Decline”…

• Why am I attending?
• What value will the other attendees add to me?
• What will this meeting/call add to our client?
• What will this meeting/call add to our project?
• What will this meeting/call add to our company?
• What value will I add?

Life is too short to waste on delivering “nothing”…
I am valuable…
I have something to add…
I am worth more than this…

Click “Decline” and go deliver.

Is SharePoint a Huge Pulsating Beast?

Ok, so at the last Trinity SharePoint 2010 event it is true that I stated, when talking about the huge value around context and knowledge that can be captured within SharePoint, that, and I quote):

“…SharePoint is a huge pulsating beast…”

OK, in hindsight that may not have been the best way to articulate SharePoint’s value but in my mind at that second it was accurate, without:

• Governance
• Clear requirements
• Information architecture
• Stakeholder buy-in
• User adoption

Then SharePoint truly can be a beast when it’s left to it’s own device with your clients…

The following post is hopefully a better articulated version of “the beast”, that should make more sense!

So, when we deploy SharePoint our hopes, requirements and vision are that it will become a business tool that the whole organisation embraces, and with this large-scale adoption will come a deep pool of knowledge, data, information, debate and context.

The problem is, unless sufficient thought has been made around governance, information architecture, search, meta data etc, finding information in platforms like SharePoint can be like throwing a pebble into a fast moving stream, finding the exact same pebble again can be extremely challenging!

SharePoint 2007 is therefore very analogous to a complex maze of tributaries meandering towards the sea but going nowhere particularly fast… A fair bit of water (knowledge) flows through the tributaries, but there are also many twists, turns and dead-ends.

With SharePoint 2010, there are countless more ways in which knowledge, information and data can manifest itself, its more like fast flowing rivers on their way to the ocean. All that information flowing through the system can be difficult to take advantage of, but with SharePoint 2010, there are also an increasing number of ways in which you can harness the knowledge-flow, speed it up, slow it down, aggregate it, re-use it and give purpose to it (context). 

So SharePoint in the future is going to allow us a greater level of control (governance) to properly harness the flow (derive business value), but we won’t ever fully stop that knowledge branching out, being used in ways we hadn’t anticipated and we should plan for and accept this uncertainty…

So I’m going to stop referring to SharePoint as a “huge pulsating beast”, and start referring to SharePoint, and specifically SharePoint 2010 as:

“…a river of knowledge that we can’t control, but we must harness…”

LinkedIn to Infectious Generosity

 

Last week, now that my role has changed, I decided to request from a few close colleagues a “LinkedIn Recommendation” for my time as both a Strategic Consultant and Deputy Head of Strategic Consultancy. I don’t know whether I deserve any recommendations, but sometime you have to push a little to take your life forward, and I figure if people don’t want to then they’ll just ignore my request, now worries.

Christmas (or early February in reality) is for giving as well as receiving, so I decided to recommend some people I currently work with whom I felt at the time warranted recognition… these included:

• A Technical Architect at a client
• A Trinity project manager
• Two Trinity consultants
• A Trinity “technology leader”
• A Trinity solution architect
• And a Client Project Manager.

There are of course lots of other great people I do or have worked with, but in the spur of the moment these “felt right”.

It’s a cathartic experience writing a recommendation, but it’s a little weird when you push those little “boats of reputation” onto the virtual lake and hope that they get to their recipient and they are accepted and become reality…

Anyway, the deed was done, I felt good about the “giving” and life went on… One of the recipients of a “boat of reputation” (not sure i like the analogy anymore!) dropped me an email the next morning stating:

It’s nice to feel appreciated – what prompted this then?

I don’t usually give or expect recommendations on Linked in ....

My response was:

Decided this year I need to be more proactive in being positive and giving credit where credit is due..

Plus its always nice to do something unexpected!

So go on, think of the last 3 people that inspired, impressed or were just plain awesome and go to LinkedIn and write a recommendation.. Why wouldn’t you?

Reputation and attention are rapidly increasing in value, give the gift of a recommendation, it’s infectious!

Social SLA

When I hear that “ping” or “boing” or see the flash of a new message, connection, thought, innovation, idea, friend request, poke, check-in, request, event notification, email, updated RSS feed, email or whatever I kinda find it hard to not just check who, what, where pretty immediately…

But responding back is a different matter; I seem to have a brain and psyche that can cope (on the whole) with  multiple sensory inputs\updates\distractions… For me the stimulation is good, new ideas, new perspectives, creative sparks or getting bumped back on the right track.

But if I’m trying to get my “shit done” then responding is a different matter…

So what is the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Social Media? Ask yourself this, when do you expect a response from a:

• Facebook Poke
• Email
• Instant Message (work or personal)
• Friend\Connection Request
• Twitter @Mention
• New Blog Post (comments).

If you mention someone on twitter and they don’t respond within a few hours, does that p!55 you off?  How long should it take for someone at work to respond to a truly important email or an casual IM?

I think the “Social SLA” is determined by three key factors:

• The proximity of the “engager” to your social graph (Family vs Acquaintance)
• The transient nature of the “request” (Twitter vs Email)
• Perceived value in the “payload” (Insightful Blog Post vs Checking-in@Gowalla)

Using a VERY rough rating table such as this:

Proximity	Transience	Value
Close = 1	High = 1	High = 1
Friend = 2	Medium = 5	Medium = 4
Acquaintance = 3	Low = 10	Low = 8

And an SLA calculation based upon:

Proximity * Transience * Value = SLA (Hours)

Lets look at the extremes e.g. Twitter\IM versus Email:

	Proximity	Transience	Value	SLA
Twitter	1	1	1	1 hour

Twitter

3

1

8

1 day

Email

1

10

1

10 hours

Email

3

10

8

10 days

It may be rough, but for a, lot of people this isn’t that far off reality!

Scenario 1 – Twitter, tweet pops into my stream from a close friend, family member or trusted advisor, its a valuable tweet i.e. a great link or breaking news or a fix to an issue – expected response within the hour.

Scenario 2 – Twitter, tweet pops into my stream from an acquaintance, its not a valuable tweet i.e. a link to an event or a re-tweet of something I probably already know – expected response (if any) within a day.

Scenario 3 – Email pops into my inbox from a close friend, valued colleague, family member or trusted advisor, its a valuable email i.e. breaking news, a great offer for something I am interested in, or a request for information that I can add value to – expected response within 10 hours or roughly a working day.

Scenario 4 – Email pops into my inbox from an acquaintance, its not a valuable email i.e. a catch-up email, newsletter or something I probably already know – expected response (if any) within 10 days.

The problem with a Social SLA is that the expectation and the ability to deliver are poles apart…
Maybe the recipient is on leave, currently Twitter doesn’t have an off-the-grid message?
Maybe they are up to their nuts in work?
Maybe they have a few hundred other connection requests, messages, tweets or IM’s to work through?

So maybe there should be some kind of leveller on the SLA according to how much traffic, reputation and engagement you get from elsewhere on the grid (or offline)?

Lots to consider and think about…I’d like to hear your thoughts, in a timely manner?

SharePoint Perception

SharePoint is a “large beast”, it can deliver a wonderful array of functionality, however I still encounter clients and organisations in the wider world that feel that SharePoint just doesn’t deliver on its promises... But why?

To me it fundamentally comes down to 3 things:

1. Wrong starting point 
Please don’t do a “SharePoint Project” any more! Technology never solves problems, it facilitates the organisation or end user to achieve, SharePoint is no different. Do a business change project, sort out a business process do something for your business.

2. No Directions
Just because SharePoint has a stack of functionality doesn’t mean you can go into a project without a clearly defined business vision and set of requirements, if you do the project will almost always fail to deliver.

3. Rose-tinted Glasses 
Less obvious but equally damaging, is end-user perception, especially when your “showing” SharePoint to a client. Be it a causal “look this is what SharePoint does”, a formal pitch or an event you must be clear to clients as to what your showing, how far from OOTB it is and how they get what your showing. Office Versions, customisations, add-ins, ways of working all fundamentally change the SharePoint experience, what it can deliver and how much it’s going to cost to deliver.

“Lead with the business and be transparent; then think about SharePoint”

I’m Certifiably Delivering BVPS!

I bloody did it!
I passed the Microsoft Business Value Planning Services exam… I am well and truly certifiable!

It’s an interesting exam, I found it quite challenging because, well basically in most cases all the multiple choice answers were “positive” and could have been correct… What do I mean well, for the scenarios described the companies would have benefited if any of the answers were followed… what the exam looks for is the “most right” answer based on the wording of the questions…

I don’t think you get that by a course or cramming… It’s the experience of working with clients and understanding what is really important to them, what meets their needs, doesn’t step over their cultural boundaries and answers the question in MSFT’s eyes..

BVPS itself kinda fits only when there are clear challenges around business process with human interaction and links to the Microsoft Information Worker platforms and products… I’ll be looking to evolve BVPS thinking around more fluid, non-structured, loosely coupled, non-process orientated “flows” within an organisation.

So now I have the certificate, what next well… Firstly I’m developing a wider business value consulting proposition here at Trinity that includes BVPS and other consulting approaches I’ve architected, and also I’ll be focussing on business value at a Trinity SharePoint 2010 Event we are holding later in January in Coventry and March in London along with Matt Groves. Ongoing, I’ll be looking at a verticalised focus on BVPS, starting with the Public Sector.

So if you or a client need to engage around delivering business value from a general organisational or Microsoft Information Worker perspective, give me a call..

It’s official, Microsoft say I can help your business achieve your business strategy!

How Do You Make A Strategy Stick?

Sticky Strategy is an interesting concept… I hear and see a great deal about strategies of all sorts in my consulting work both successful, ineffectual, innovative, obvious etc, but the number of true IT strategies that are operational i.e. have been implemented and are being managed and tracked are few and far between.

My definition of a sticky strategy is one that, once created (by the organisation or a partner like Trinity) actually gets implemented, no dust, no change of heart no ignorance, just strategy created + strategy followed = business and IT outcomes are being achieved.

 

There are a stack of challenges that prevent a strategy from sticking and deliver:

• Confusion over what IT Strategy means:
  • Applications
  • Infrastructure
  • Full IT estate
  • Collaboration
  • Virtualisation
  • etc
• Not taking sufficient heed over business strategy
• Focussing on strategy duration
  • Why will a 5 year IT strategy keep you in a better position than a 1 1/2 year one that is regularly evolved with business changes?
• Evolving Service Models (see Stop Talking Fluffy Cloud Crap!)
• IT resources
  • People
  • Financial
  • Knowledge
  • Skills
• Business and economic influences

So back on track, how do you make an IT Strategy, whatever flavour it is, stick? I was going to way lyrical for a few “pages” about this, but the reality is that won’t add any value to you, and there are only, in my opinion, a small number of truths that together ensure the delivery of a “Sticky Strategy”..

• Business Vision and IT Strategy Alignment
  • Business first
  • IT Strategy has to deliver “services” that directly support the Business Strategy
  • IT Strategy must be regularly evolved to keep in sync with business strategy changes, market influences and economic drivers
• Be Actionable
  • Must be able to clearly articulate tangible IT projects from the strategy
  • IT must be able to deliver with their IT eco-system (partners, contractors etc)
• Deliver Demonstrable Value
  • Primarily to the Business (first bullet)
  • Secondarily to the IT function
• Demonstrate Awesomeness
  • Make the IT Director \ Senior IT Stakeholder look awesome in the eyes of the business and the Senior Executives.

Success starts at being able to clearly define what the strategy will do for the business and how. So every IT Strategy executive summary should start with something like the following, to ensure awesomeness for all involved:

“…This strategy will facilitate the delivery of business excellence and successful achievement of our key business objectives <list>; Delivering demonstrable value <list>; Through a programme of business-led IT projects <list>…”

Hey Number 33 Who The Hell is Number 158?

Social Strategy & Dunbar’s Number
Dunbar's number has been most popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, where it plays a central role in Gladwell's arguments about the dynamics of social groups which is where I became familiar with the concept… but of course I was always “aware”, because its human nature.

So, why blog about this? Well, it’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve witnessed both organisationally, socially and within the confines of “social networking” platforms and I guess I wanted to get my thoughts down on "paper” and illicit some thoughts and views from you guys.

Organisational Stickyness
Within organisations, as companies grow, especially from a small org to a mid-size org and structures within that organisation or a discrete operating business unit move up to the 150 mark, it is very clear that suddenly the cohesions and stickyness of the organisation (everyone knows everyone and what is the power behind great teams, departments and companies) suddenly breaks-down completely. Immediacy, flexibility and the ability to “just do it” to achieve positive business outcomes, just disappears and is replaced by process and governance to hold the “group together” and achieve the same positive ends, but it’s not the same, not by a long way!

Social Networking:
So currently I have:

• Twitter – I follow 803 people & have 860 followers and appear on 22 lists
• Facebook – About 300 “friends”
• Physical Close Friends – Probably less than 20

So, my reality versus my virtual is drastically unbalanced, but that’s no bad thing, not to me anyway.
I kinda crave on-line attention, but off-grid and out the office I keep myself pretty much to myself…

Twitter List Experiment:
So, I’m at the time of writing creating a Twitter List of 140-odd people that I would have an unprompted conversation at any bar in any town of I saw them; the kinda people with whom I think I have a connection, add value to me or I work well with in whatever sense…
This list will grow and shrink like the tide and people will drift in and out like pebbles on the shore – but there will never be any more that 149 pebbles, but that’s no issue for you, the list is just another type of filter… not something to get hung up on… its all in my head, its all psychological ;-)

Finally,
Gladwell also refers to Mark Granovetter’s theory of “The Strength of Weak Ties.”  this is where Twitter’s power is for me, this is the massive groups of interesting, powerfuil, influencing people that missed the Dunbar List but I would never be without!
The Twitter platform seamlessly supports engagement between close friends, peers, work colleagues and loose ties and allows people, brands and organisations to float between these categories as is appropriate and required.

Go make a list, but don’t make it too long and don’t worry if I’m not on it… that’s my problem and my value proposition to you!

Stop Talking Fluffy Cloud Crap!

Awesome "How to talk about cloud sensibly" document from NIST:

NIST Definition of Cloud Computing v15

The key elements to me are (a) Moving focus away from “cloud” and more to what it delivers, (b) Definition of Models and (c) Simplicity! I’ve summarised these below, but please go read the 2 page-document:

Characteristics

• On-Demand Self-Service
• Broad Network Access
• Resource Pooling
• Rapid Elasticity
• Measured Service

Service Models:

• Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Deployment Models:

• Private Cloud
• Community Cloud
• Public Cloud
• Hybrid Cloud

The document doesn’t seek to define how these are implemented but does create a wonderfully simple common ground so we can stop talking "fluffy clouds” and start talking about what our clients need in a clear and concise language!

Go Read Today!

Job One…

So after a fair few days of tweaking, the blog is now up and running, content is in from the old www.soulsailor.co.uk  and www.fluffycloudsofinnovation.com and I’m pretty happy with the layout, design and function…

This was job one on my way towards being Fookin Amazin’ – Now it’s time to start delivering quality adding value and engaging everyone.

Feedback is always welcome… but remember it’s after 1am when I’m writing, I haven’t been drinking, and its been at least 8 hours since my last coffee; so I’m kinda sensitive now… Any criticism leave till after my first coffee of the morning please!!

Got the builders in.

You may have noticed that I have now pulled together the posts from:

• www.Soulsailor.co.uk
• www.FluffyCloudsofInnovation.com

I'm still not sure that this is the best approach, but I think that the current levels of blogging on both domains will mean that a mix will sit ok with everyone.

For the next week or so I will be tuning the blogs functionality, layout etc.

Let me know what you think from a look & feel perspective and also from combining my two personas.