Well ultimately it’s the rise and rise of mass applications, shadow and Gorilla IT on the desktop that has become a sprawling mess of specialist application after niche application.
Along came the internet and new distribution channels and the old apps and mainframes couldn’t support these, so more apps were added. Next up is the world of hosted and SaaS based solutions that moved some of this from the desktop to the cloud, but still didn’t solve the problem of multiple apps, there are just lots of web apps instead added to the mix.
Not many people have the luxury of starting with a Greenfield site, which means for the majority of us we need to un tangle the mess we have created over time and inherited through various M&A. In our experience Mashups based on visual building blocks provides an easy quick way to alleviate the pain.
My analogy leads me to food and a buffet more importantly. When you go to the buffet table – there are lots of things for you to choose from, lots of things tickle my taste buds – always checking out the desert section so as to gauge whether to hold back on the savoury. The key here though is I can pick up a few sandwiches, crisps and other nibbles all at once unless I pull a chair up to the buffet and sit there and block everyone else. I need a plate! To me the desktop is no different, the core application needs to hold all of the bits I need to solve a problem, answer a customer enquiry and generally be more efficient and effective at getting to the end result.
How you go about doing this and what do you do first is where I’d like your feedback.. Following on from my colleagues recent post (what shape is your Mashup), I see customers in the dilemma of what to do first – looking at the contact centre, should them update their ACD, Speech IVR, Routing or start to fix the desktop. In my view, there is no point adding any more to the buffet table if your plate isn’t up to the task. Each organisation is ultimately different and has different priorities that it needs to address, but I still feel there has to be a good order of resolving these.
Maybe there is a clear divide between the desktop and the telephony – however with UC and soft phone integration even more common place, this just adds to the buffet!
When you get to the desktop I think the problem worsens – there is the dilemma of CRM, knowledge and channel management, document imaging, single sign on… the list could be endless. The logic and process typically already exist – be it in Remedy, Salesforce, Siebel, Clarify or other home grown app – all we need to do is re-wire these quickly and effectively to match your customer process, not the application process and respective constraints. I have seen reports of an average 6 applications open and used to handle a customer call – in reality I’m seeing anything from 12 to 35! Something’s got to give. The buffet table is full!
What do you think? What would you do first?
after finally getting around to setting up a blog, first I was squatting on some space my brother set up, then decided it really ought to be hosted – so spent some time moving it to ndwalsh.wordpress.com – great.. The reason I hesitated was mainly around look and feel, Plugins and widgets, these are really important to me.. I really liked the twittertools plugin – however one of the drawbacks of wordpress online is that you cant do this type of thing, you don’t get any flexibility to add simple plugins or choose different themes other than the 30 or so they give you. In this day & age, I’m surprised by it..
After moving it, and giving up my twittertoools plugin – I have just come across Posterous - which also looks great… anyone else use this – or have any feedback on both of them?
There must be a 100+ places to blog and store things, wordpress for me beats blogger, I never seemed to get on with it. For now I will stick with this – most importantly, I will always have nigelwalsh.com/blog so it will head this way regardless.
on a final parting note, just went to spell check this and noticed WordPress isn’t in the WP online dictionary… couldnt see a way to add it either.. I guess we are all just human after all.
Over the last few days and weeks I have noticed a backlash against Twitter. With Loic le Meur now un-following over 20,000 people who he didn’t really know. He has a great post here. There are lots of arguments and discussions here – I could have chosen a hundred plus headlines/titles for this post.
With twitter you follow people, they follow you – you in essence either “ease drop” or “take part” in a wider conversation. Twitter is probably one of the most talked about services I have seen in a long time. A good example here is Stephen Fry – almost an ambassador of twitter who has 229,00 followers, but still follows over 54,000 (as at 24th Feb 09). You can not have a conversation or eavesdrop on that many people. Loic’s new view still has 22,000+ followers, but is only following 168 people – much more realistic. at 22k or 229k followers it becomes and reverts us back to the world of publishing, a one way broadcast medium with no interaction. Point to note – followers are different to friends.
Some people say Quantity is more important than Quality – You have to go for quantity, I completely disagree – I would rather follow people that give me 1 post per week than 500 people that give me the same, but take up all my time filtering the noise. At 20k followers, this is near on impossible.
Perhaps Plaxo were right all along, When you add a Plaxo contact, it asks the following question …
In essence categorising your contacts… For a while, I was confused, but I now see total sense in the friend comment – (not your “social networking friends”!)
I also saw someone comment the other day (apologies I don’t recall who/where specifically) but requesting a feature enhancement for Facebook – called “best friend” or similar. A good idea, but I actually think they have this already… See the example below.
You can filter the noise in general and then even be more specific and say what 200 people you want to know more about.
Another one that has it right in my opinion is Social | Median – here you “follow” “newsmakers”, you don’t have to be friends with them – you can have the same interests without being friends…
Over the past months, I’ve shared lots, learnt lots, and gained one or two new friends along the way. Others like listening to what I say, others think I’m full of drivel - I have a better understanding of my network, LinkedIN for Business, Facebook for personal Friends, SocialMedian for my news, Twitter for random conversations. Brightkite and Latitude – I get, but don’t see a need for me personally. yet – (never say never)
Adding an acquaintance doesn’t seem as good, but adding a Friend makes you feel good – even if you dont know them.
Perhaps we should use a different word other than friend and before we add them or follow them – ask yourself, would you go out for dinner with them, would you invite them to your wedding, would you let them babysit for your kids – you know, like your friends would?
Another move by LinkedIN to be more ’social’. Earlier I was on a discussion forum and noticed in the top left two new icons. First Follow and second Move to Jobs. I have not tried the latter, but Follow is really interesting and to me is (was) one of the key things missing. I would often comment on a discussion, but then not be able to remember or track easily where and what comments I had made. Now with this I get an automatic email, I can even choose to follow a discussion I have not commented on which is also very good.
When you post a comment here, you now also get a check box to say ‘follow this discussion’ – a nice touch LinkedIN
My previous experience here was this was only available if you installed the LinkedIN toolbar for Outlook, yet again another Plugin that continues to drive Outlook to a halt. So to me, this new functionality again goes to show that LinkedIN has still got it – albeit, a little bit slower to respond.. Are all these sites now just sheep and will follow each other, first status updates, now follow and like on facebook?
All I need now is a LinkedIN Blackberry client and Ill be very happy!
Is it me, or has Faecbook just back pedaled? I logged in this AM to find this. There is also a good post over on Mashable now which can be found here:
Facebook back pedals?
Do you see any value in blogs?
A great question posed by Simon Levin over on LinkedIN, IoD Discussion Group. He states “I should start by noting that I am neither seeking to promote a blog or blogging software or services. Essentially I am simply keen to understand people’s views on the value of business blogs. Do you regularly use any? if so which ones? and why specifically that blog (i.e. what characteristics make it a valuable tool).”
And my resposne…
YES. I see lots of value in these. Blogs to me are what Digital TV is Terrestrial TV. Let me explain. In the ‘good’ old days, I would watch some TV and be forced to watch either 1, 2, 3 or 4. Then came 5.. Then came 100+ more channels, 100+ time delayed channels and then I gave up – I would regularly miss things that I used to like due to too much noise.
Much is the same in my internet world. First was a site or two that I liked to read and keep up with things but now with the explosion of content its difficult to filter the noise from stuff I like to read and that helps me understand issues and things that are important to me, be it work, personal or just for fun.
Blogs and Digital TV therefore give me the ability to filter, pick and choose and say – yes, lets record/subsribe to that series of 24 (TV) or ChirsBrogan.com (Blog). I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched an ad on TV..
I often think about starting my own blog, but with the advent of sites/discussion groups and twitter, I have the ability to rant, rave and share my opinions and thoughts… Perhaps one day but not yet.
As for which ones are useful, then there are a zillion to choose from – everybody and every company blogs – some much better than others and like digital TV – I can cancel that series at the touch of a button.
I’m in technology and a gadget geek at heart, so the ones I subscribe to include chrisbrogan.com , Gartner, Forrester, A VC, then they are the blogs from my competitors – I want to know who they are talking to and what they are saying, my partners, our investors, other tech startups – then the geeky blogs like WinExtra and Windows 7 etc etc..
Email me if you want the links. Happy to share.
Now that 30m of us have been working hard and building quality networks, interacting with others and joining the ever increasing list of great features on LinkedIN, I get this today:
LinkedIN Groups Limit
Part of me agrees with it – part of me is angry… I probably belong to too many groups, and I have in the past posted about how bad groups have become (see below). But surely a limit is a bit much when 20 of my groups are around CRM. I have lived and worked in CRM for most of my career and love hearing and see various applications of its use across different countries, applications etc.
No doubt this is a follow on from the limit to 30,000 connections announced ain January ‘09.
Surely if they want to limit our number of groups they (LI) should do a better job at moderating them. A simple search later – Do we really need 431 groups that are CRM related? so what happens next, I get to 50 – and am no longer allowed to participate? Isn’t that discouraging me from being part of the social community, the network. Are they slowly plugging us out?
Since when did the Group Discussion forums on LinkedIn degenerate into a poor-man’s marketing tool ?
A great question asked over on LinkedIN by Theo Priestly
And my response…
The IoD discussion seems to follow the spirit of a true peer to peer discussion group, to the extent that I’m now dropping out of other groups – there is simply too much noise. Typically I see the following
- I am an open networker – X,000 connections, lets connect?
- Expert in XYZ looking for a new role
- My company wants your business
With 1, I don’t see the value of this – am I the only one? Surely the purpose of a peer to peer network is to have trusted known connections, LinkedIN just happens to be online. When I need help & can see that one of my connections is ‘connected’ to who I would like to talk to, then I see this as a great way for a referral/recommendation & ultimately an introduction. If have ‘open networked’ with someone who doesn’t know the person I need help in getting too from Adam, then what additional benefit does that get me (or the person ‘collecting’ contacts)? Will it have the same vigour & value as a known/trusted relationship & as a result, be automatically treated with less importance?
On 2, I don’t want to appear as a heartless soul, I have many friends & family out of work right now, however I don’t see what sending this type of request would get. I admire people being proactive & taking the initiative, however with the volume of these types of request increase, there has to be a better way of filtering & differentiating. Perhaps related to sharing experiences
On 3 – I fundamentally think this is a misuse & goes against the grain of such forums, specifically with many blatant requests. These are easy to spot, they don’t normally have any comments. However, many skilled folks do this very well to which I have no objections & they do this by sharing personal or company experience which I do find of interest & use. As mentioned, this is the most professional group, & as yet I haven’t seen too many requests like this, but keen to get your feedback!
What do you think the role of information technology should be in the post credit-crunch economy? What are the key differences between its future role and the role it plays today? asked by Graham Kennedy
via LinkedIn: Institute of Directors – Members Only: Discussion. (note this is an IoD members only group)
and my response…
“An interesting question. I don’t think the role of IT will be that different than it is today. At the end of the day, Fads only exist with supply and demand. Small Fads often get swallowed up into larger companies once a level of adoption has taken place that has proven value. There are plenty of fads that never go anywhere and 1 or 2 that change the way we communicate, interact and do generally do business. How many people remember the quote from Bill Gates on memory or the story of the internet never taking off, the search by Google founders in the early days for just $100k in investment that if they didn’t get meant none of us would ever be googling today!
We as IT professionals continue to evolve and drive benefit to our respective businesses that create bottom line value. Post the ‘crunch’ or whatever we decide to call it our focus may be slightly different, our budgets smaller to test and try ‘fads’ – but either way – we will evolve, try new things and look for ways to automate, drive cost out, simply and allow us to focus on things that change our respective businesses. Let’s not also forget, a fad to one maybe the killer Niche app to another company.
A good example of where to start is Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009 – here: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=777212 . Im not saying its the ultimate list, but it’s a good starting point as to where companies will be investing and focussing.
Whilst I agree with some of them, others are either ‘Fads’ or themes or I don’t know enough about. For example, Green Computing – could be described a fad – we are all conscious of the environment right now, but if we can prove this takes cost out (which I’m led to believe it does), then it moves from fad to theme. I say theme because I can’t ever imagine us now producing less environmentally friendly ones. can you?
Look at the good old light bulb – after 100+ years in the UK, we are now only allowed to sell Energy Efficient ones.. This to me is simple evolution and IT will always evolve, its just the pace of evolution that will change & increase.”
