Of Bugs, Late Nights and “Projection”

August 20, 2010

A Long, Buggy Night

It was about 4:00 AM.  The office was dark.  I was exhausted.

For the umpteenth time, I walked back into the office of the lead architect to demo the web app that was due to the customer at 8:00 AM that morning.  Again, he managed to break it.

Dejected and frustrated, I went back to my cube. Over the next two hours, I managed to ferret out the rest of the bugs and, thanks to the architect who stuck with me the entire night, the product was delivered on time.

I will never forget that very long night many years ago, because from that experience, I learned my most profound and important lesson about technology.

The Message

The next day, I met with the lead developer, who at the time was a sort of mentor to me, a newbie programmer analyst.  An analyst, who, without a classic background in computer science, was trying to make the switch from client account management into development.

About the program I had wrestled with for many weeks, he said:

“It’s just doing what you told it to do.”

As a young developer, I of course didn’t comprehend the profoundness of what he was telling me.  I just wanted the program to work, per the requirements.  I told it to do X, and it’s doing Y, and if it does not starting doing X soon, I’m going to blow this incredible opportunity.

The next day, I was debugging yet another program when hit me like a ton of bricks: I’m the one causing the problem.  The program is broken because of me – it’s not the program’s fault.  I’m projecting what I think the program should do, but I’m not communicating correctly what I want it to do.  It’s only doing what I tell it to do.

For some, grasping this seemingly “duh” concept comes very easily. Others don’t care. But for me, getting my head around this fact fundamentally changed the way I look at technology.  I was now the solution (or the problem), rather than the technology running the show.

From Emotional, to Rationale

I call this phenomenon “technology projection” – when something goes bad, the technology is to blame.  Technology projection replaces logic with emotion, which in today’s fast paced, no margin-for-error business environment, can be incredibility destructive both inside and outside IT.

Unfortunately, technology projection is still alive and well today, and it takes strong, seasoned teams to overcome it.  Teams that are good at separating themselves from the problem, able managers who understand how to recognize it and educate the business about it, and supportive executive management that champions the time, cost and effort of maintaining a mature technology function.

Note: I do still curse at my ERP system from time to time, but these days, I apologize.

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Image courtesy Flickr user Anthony Easton

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Posted by Stanton Jones

Partner, or Perish

August 3, 2010

In academic circles, scholars that are not frequently publishing new work may be unable to grow or sustain their career.  This phenomenon is known as, “Publish, or Perish“.  Constantly churn out new research, or find a new gig.

The same concept can be applied to the CIO in 2010.  Learn how to partner with your key stakeholders to create value for your company, or find yourself relegated to the sidelines (or worse).  Also known as, “Partner or Perish”.

Much has been written about the eventual demise of the CIO role. According to the pundits, the technology chief seems to always on the verge of irrelevance (be it the year 2000, or the year 2010).  However, take a look towards the end of these articles – even though they are nearly ten years apart, the message is still the same: develop relationships and create business value.

Unfortunately, many IT organizations have not heeded this advice and are still focused on trains.  Big, expensive, high maintenance trains. CIOs have spent years optimizing, streamlining and securing every aspect of train choreography.  However, it doesn’t matter how effectively the trains are run if they’re disappearing. Cloud infrastructure and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions are rapidly maturing, and the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) movement is gaining steam. Mid-market CIOs could very easily look up in three to five years and have very few trains left to conduct.  Or, worse, big expensive trains that are diminishing your ability to compete.

What to do to avoid this gloomy fate?  The same advice as in the year 2000: build relationships and create business value.  Help your key stakeholders get where they want to go by knowing their business cold.  Focus your deep knowledge of business process and IT on helping your company attract and retain profitable customers using technology. And finally (and sometimes most difficult): remember that the technology itself is a commodity.  What matters is how quickly and effectively you apply it – be the best at knowing how to apply it faster than anyone else, but don’t try to create a better train than the competition.

The road ahead for CIOs and their organizations is filled with tremendous opportunity.  However, there is also significant risk as the trains are already starting to disappear.

Are you ready to partner?

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Image courtesy Flickr user Denis Defreyne

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Posted by Stanton Jones

The Big Four

July 12, 2010

The Big Four (Cloud Collaborators, Not Accountants)

No, we’re not talking the Big Four Accounting Firms here.  We’re talking the Big Four of Tech: Cisco, Google, IBM and Microsoft, and their plans to get you and your company into the cloud.

It’s a foregone conclusion: email will move to the cloud.  It’s a matter of when, not if.  The big four tech vendors have recognized this and are aggressively moving, acquiring and bundling collaboration products and services into the cloud.

However, there is a broader strategic discussion here beyond just email, one that reaches across all boundaries of the enterprise.  Small and mid-sized organizations are now, for the first time, in a position to consolidate, centralize and migrate the entire collaboration and messaging stack into the cloud.  Email, web and voice conferencing, document storage and sharing, presence awareness, chat and video. It’s all there, today.

Cloud Investment Gone Wild

IBM is making major investments in LotusLive.  Microsoft is “all in” the Cloud.  Cisco is making a strong push towards embracing voice and video as the cornerstone of cloud-based enterprise collaboration.  And Google continues to bet that the consumer market and Google’s scale will be their key to the enterprise.

As an added benefit, all of these vendors, to a varying degree, are weaving social computing constructs into their cloud platforms, including profiles, microblogging, comments, etc.  Imagine: one solution for the enterprise collaboration stack, with pre-built social features included. Nirvana for the small to mid-market CIO.

The Landscape

Comparing these solutions across six key categories, it’s clear that the tech giants are quickly building and acquiring technologies in order to round out their cloud based collaboration offerings:

However, as investment in this space continues to grow, a few key questions emerge:

  • Given the similarity in product set, how will vendors differentiate, given that their software stack is no longer dependent on the infrastructure and middleware sitting in the data center?
  • How will vendors fill key gaps for areas not in their traditional sweet spot?  For example, Cisco clearly has a very strong position in web, voice and video conferencing, given their WebEx acquisition and their long heritage around voice and data networking.  But will organizations trust email to Cisco, based on the acquisition of a little-known, Linux-based Exchange server replacement?
  • Will concerns around data security steer customers towards the Microsoft, IBM and Cisco brands over Google, even though these concerns should probably apply to all four vendors?
  • Will customers use the cloud as an opportunity to consolidate on a single “stack”, or will they select the best cloud-based products from each platform, avoiding vendor lock-in?

Key Takeaways

Organizations will stick to what they know.  Microsoft-centric shops with large investments in Microsoft infrastructure and desktop products will probably lean towards the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) – if only for the fact they can leverage their existing enterprise agreements with Microsoft in order to get a lower per-seat cost.  The same for IBM – it is hard to envision many Lotus shops moving to a Microsoft platform.

Small companies, state and local agencies and universities will continue to press forward with Google-centric solutions (save Yale), given the open nature of Google’s platform and the very low cost for these types of institutions.

Cisco is the wildcard here.  Their web, voice and video networking products are a no-brainer, but will organizations trust a company known for routers and switches with their enterprise messaging and collaboration needs?  Time will tell, but Cisco is building a very strong position here, and may just be the dark horse in the cloud collaboration race.

What do you think about this emerging space?

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Posted by Stanton Jones

Walk a Mile in *Their* Shoes

June 28, 2010

Your financial chief is reading CFO Magazine.  Your VP of HR is reading HR Magazine.  And your CEO is reading The Wall Street Journal.

What are you reading?

Like most folks in tech (including me), you’re probably reading CIO, InformationWeek, and a gaggle of other publications, blogs and white papers.  However, why not broaden your spectrum a bit and spend some time reading about what’s important to your colleagues.  In other words, put yourself in their shoes.

I have found it hugely beneficial over the years to spend time reading what my co-workers are reading.  I happen to be very interested in finance and economics, so CFO and the Journal is an easy one for me personally, but I’ve also gotten significant value out of reading far beyond the reaches of tech.  Yes, it’s harder to read about stuff you’re not as interested in, but the value gained from this exposure far outweighs the small amount of time invested, in my opinion.

There are obvious personal benefits to you, and business benefits to your company when you are well versed in what is important to those around you.  But did you also know that by taking time to invest time in those around you, you are displaying a key leadership trait?  Empathy is a key quality in great leaders, and while reading magazines is certainly not going to make you the next Jack Welch, it is a terrific way to show that you are serious about building business partnerships.

If the thought of reading about the latest trends in payroll has you running for the exits, keep in mind that all of these highly respected publications now have a significant amount of ink dedicated to tech.  Take a look at CFO’s In Tech, HR Magazine’s Technology and just about anywhere on the Wall Street Journal.  Make no mistake: tech is huge, it is ubiquitous, and your business partners getting bombarded with tech industry news, trends and analysis.  So, at a bare minimum, stay up to date with these publications so that you’re prepared the next time the CEO sends you an article about cloud computing from Barron’s (subscription required!).

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Image courtesy Flickr user Julia

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Posted by Stanton Jones

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