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.

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…”

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!

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!

Is Google OS a SharePoint Killer?

It’s early days, really early days… but what if, just what if Google OS delivers all the collaboration and business functionality you actually need:

• Blog
• Wiki
• Email
• Documents
• Team Collaboration
• Spreadsheets
• Data
• etc

 

How far away from that are we, they have all the apps now… well not very far at all by the sounds of it (http://mashable.com/2009/11/19/google-chrome-os-launch/) and although the SharePoint bashing is usually a crock-o-crap and I am definitely a fan, maybe just maybe, a device that boots really quickly, allowing individual, global and team working may just be the thing that seriously challenges Microsoft SharePoint.

All Google OS needs is proper integration between it’s business and collaboration services and Microsoft will have a proper fight on their hands, this will take time, I think it’s a 3 year battle, but Google OS v2 will definitely be the one to watch!

Just thinking…

Just saying…

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,SharePoint,Google,"Google OS",Collaboration

Social Sales Cycle - Create or Die!

So we are in a recession, inevitably the chase is now on for Revenue Protection & Revenue Generation…

According to Heidrick & Struggles, the No. 1 focus for C-level executives in 2009 is the customer—acquiring new ones, increasing retention and improving their lifetime value, in that order.

Eighty-eight percent of the executives surveyed said acquiring new customers was important, and 87% said the same about customer retention. Least important on their list of priorities were improving marketing’s impact on shareholder value, retaining talent and expanding to new geographies.

This makes sense in current economic conditions—if a business is struggling, further development gets pushed to the back burner. Talent is easy to come by when unemployment is high, and if sales increase, shareholder value will naturally follow.

The question is how to increase sales.

Most significant to senior executives was optimizing the efficiency of the marketing mix across the business (including digital marketing), followed by responding more rapidly to growth opportunities and improving the consistency of marketing and sales communications.

 

The time for the Social Sales Cycle is most definitely here, and it’s likely that in your organisation there isn’t a Social Sales Cycle… or at least not a recognisable one!

If you asked any Sales Person or Account Manager though, they will absolutely agree that sales, relationships and opportunities are best achieved looking at the whites of the clients eyes and breathing the same air…

But this is social, personal, emotional, communicative… this is Social, isn’t it?

Traditional Sales methods around client engagements are certainly the start of the Social Sales Cycle, it’s like the root, but to make it really work, to maximise its effectiveness and to make it really resonate in todays culture and your industry or sector then you need facilitators and that is where social media needs to be embraced to amplify and control the effects of “voice” and “emotion” in business settings.

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004900.html

I don’t need to say any more, but you do….

• Create Reputation
• Create Conversations
• Create Stories
• Create Connections
• Create Brand
• Create Opportunities
• Create Revenue

Create the companies Social Sales Cycle…or die

Technorati Tags: "Social Sales Cycle" "Create or Die" "Social Media" "Social Networking" Connections Conversations

Social Media in the Sales Cycle or Social Sales Cycle?

 

Social Media in the Sales Cycle

Social Sales Cycle…

I don’t think that this should be as scary a prospect for any corporate organisation as perhaps we all initially perceive.

Chris Brogan wrote a good summary post earlier this week titled Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle. Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value and is well respected in “social circles”…

His key point is that the sales cycle has a number of points, roughly:

• Prospects
• Awareness
• Leads
• Customers
• Evangelists \ Support

..and that for each of these engagement points between a supplier (just like you) and the client, traditionally differing approaches and tools were used, and that now, in the era of connections, social networks and transparency, a range of Social Media tools are relevant to be used in addition or replacing traditional marketing, sales and engagement methods… some of these tools include:

• Email
• Blogging
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Forums
• Flickr

But these tools are not the focus of this post, more the person wielding the tool and their responsibility within the supplier organisation and the sales cycle.

All organisations have a number of overlapping areas that make up the “Sales Cycle” and a set of tools and techniques..

• Sales
  • Sales methods
  • Relationships
  • CRM
• Marketing
  • Web Site
  • Telesales \ Direct Mail
  • Campaigns
  • Events
• Senior Consultants
  • Relationships
  • Social Media – Blogs, Twitter, forums etc
  • Authenticity – Technical Delivery, Events etc
• Rest of the organisation
  • Relationships
  • Social Media – Blogs, Twitter, forums etc
  • Authenticity – Technical Delivery, Events etc

As has been discussed at length both personally, within Trinity and across our sectors, the way we do business is changing, the ability to influence clients, drive client satisfaction, raise awareness, revenue generation and revenue protection has absolutely expanded outwards from Sales & Marketing and into the hands of each and every employee, within the organisation and this is especially so for an organisations senior consultants, technologists and strategists..

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin illustrates that point very well.
"Marketing", the word, has become tainted by the apparent lack of interest that most professional marketers pay to their markets. They seem to not be listening to the market...

Guess what, the market stops listening to them...

So we need to be aware, understand our role, power, influence and impact on “sales”… I’ve only been at Trinity for a couple of years, but even in that time I’ve seen a marked shift in the sphere of influence of our Strategic Consultants and certainly in my role and with my skills it’s apparent to me that we are all becoming a powerful mix of Technologist, Strategist, Marketer and Sales Person…

So I ask you all to think about “Social Media in the Sales Cycle”, who should be “selling” and what role do you have in the “Social Sales Cycle”?

• Who should be blogging?
• Who should be delivering content through our web site?
• Who should be “listening” to where our brand is?
• Who should be attending events?
• Should we Tweet?
• Who should be speaking?
• Who should update CRM?
• Who should have the relationships?

The Ant Clay view of the world is that anyone with a voice, with authenticity, with trust, with brand, with respect, with experience and something positive to offer for your organisation and its clients (new and old) should “be involved”….

Involved doesn't mean leading, owning or solely involved… involvement, many voices, authenticity an employee crowd-sourced sales cycle :-)

If you’re in any doubt that the world is changing have a look at the great presentations out there on marketing, social media, new ways of working etc.. Matt Groves did a great presentation on “Building Trust via the Web” at a team meeting earlier in the week… He gets it, I get it, do you or your organisation or your clients??

And Finally: Doing a Google search for “Social Sales Cycle” brings back zero hits! That phrase is mine :-) 
Update: it now brings back one result from a tweet of mine! http://twitter.com/Soulsailor

Written with Windows Live Writer

Technorati Tags: "Social Sales Cycle"

What’s in a colour – Azure?

So today the Wikipedia entry for Azure got changed..Why? Because Microsoft just changed the game..again…Today, Microsoft has announced Windows Azure, the Microsoft new cloud computing platform; it’s been a long-time coming, some thought it was too late, but by the sound of the info that’s streaming out of PDC today, it’s here and packing a huge punch.

Before I get into some vague details (I’m on leave this week and I’ve got a porch to build!) I have a new definition that’s relevant to this post…bare with me! A lot of people that are talking about the anti-cloud, traditional services use the term on-premise, but to me that conjures up the feeling of a system and a person tied to the Enterprise…

Shore-Side Computing - software deployed @ home, on the desktop, laptop, set-top etc but served through traditional means… Shore being a safe place to seek, a harbour, a sanctuary… the Cloud is more adventurous less predictable, less defined…

Anyway, the potential power of harnessing cloud computing, Microsoft’s cloud services, Microsoft’s data-centres and then creating business apps based initially upon a combination (shore-side or cloud-side) of:

Windows Azure for service hosting and management, low-level scalable storage, computation and networking
Microsoft SQL Services for a wide range of database services and reporting
Microsoft .NET Services which are service-based implementations of familiar .NET Framework concepts such as workflow and access control
Live Services for a consistent way for users to store, share and synchronize documents, photos, files and information across their PCs, phones, PC applications and Web sites
Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services for business content, collaboration and rapid solution development in the cloud

Is surely gonna allow those companies that invest, have vision and a Tribe-like mentality (such as Trinity) to go out and create some extremely valuable business outcome-orientated applications that reside in “the cloud”, on-shore or a combination of both…Wow!

..but once the mist & fog lift, leaving only the Azure, the people will start drawing comparisons… what about Salesforce.com’s application platform, core CRM + a range of application services?

I guess the reality is that Microsoft has leverage, it has momentum and adoption… switching consumer and valued business and “developer” services through to the Azure will drag attention to the sky’s, away from Google, Amazon, Salesforce and the like… Microsoft has the ability to deliver.

A lot more on this once I’ve built the porch!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows Azure,Cloud