Dennis McDonald's MANAGING TECHNOLOGY

Dennis McDonald's Weekly Top Ten

2012-02-09T13:30:04Z

For the seven day period ending February 9, 2012, the following were, in descending order, this web site’s most popular Managing Technology posts:

Cookies, Imrworldwide, and Nielsen Netratings: What’s the Connection?

Collaboration Can Be Messy

A Short Definition of “Strategic Planning”

Peer Review in Scientific Journals Isn’t Perfect - So What Else Is New?

How To Develop a Business-Aligned Social Media & Social Networking Strategy

What’s the Difference Between Innovation and Creativity?

What the Heck is “Social DRM”?

Banners and Widgets for Nonprofits and Volunteer Organizations, Part 1

Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board

Defining and Measuring Enterprise Collaboration

Collaboration Can Be Messy

2012-02-06T14:27:45Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

Collaboration can be messy. Convincing a diverse group of people to work together to accomplish a common objective, especially when the group contains many people that don’t know each other, requires artful leadership.

Fortunately, collaboration can be helped by technology of many kinds ranging from basic phone and email service to more sophisticated web conferencing, screen and content sharing, and collaborative content creation.

One problem with a technology-centric collaboration approach is that successful collaboration also involves luck and serendipity. More importantly, it’s not always clear how much relative emphasis management should place on improving collaboration processes versus managing to improve the hoped for outcomes of those collaboration processes.

Sometimes that distinction between the two is hard to make. Knowledge sharing and discovery, when appropriately facilitated and measured, can lead to faster problem resolution and less reinvention of the wheel. But at the end of the day will the results of a process where collaboration and information sharing actually occur necessarily lead to better outcomes of those processes? Isn’t it also possible the improved ability to generate and share information actually promote more inefficiency because it’s now easier to pursue blind alleys or to engage in unproductive work?

Since I’ve spent the bulk of my professional career helping people use technology to improve how information is created, managed, and shared, I’m definitely biased towards making collaboration and information sharing easier in order to support an organization’s business objectives. Today’s mobile, cloud based collaboration, and social networking technologies support this. One problem, though, is that in many organizations there is still a distinction made between how technology is managed and how the businesses operate. Collaboration can be supported by the implementation and use of appropriate technology, but who is responsible for changing and managing the business processes that the new technology is intended to support? The IT department? Or the business unit whose processes may have to change significantly — and expensively — in order to take full advantage of the new technology?

It’s not unusual for project managers to experience situations where the costs of implementing and using new software based tools have been underestimated due to a failure to adequately assess how much process change will be required to take advantage of a new tool. Yes, new software tools are implemented, training occurs, and technical support is provided as a matter of course. But how will the use of the tools really and truly be integrated into the business, and will everyone be able to take advantage of them?

Anyone who has ever attempted to shift from an email based collaboration and information sharing to a more structured approach built around tools such as blogs, wikis, or collaborative document management solutions will understand the challenges.

Which gets us back to the title of this piece: Collaboration Can Be Messy. Making a new tool available is easy. Helping people learn how to use it effectively in situations where knowledge management and information sharing are based on habits learned over many years is hard. Add to this the frustration modern workers feel when hardware and software tools available in their workplace don’t have the ease of use and simplicity of the tools and mobile devices they use day in and day out with friends outside the office, and you may see additional challenges to transitioning to a more collaborative and secure work environment.

Part of the solution is realizing that the IT department cannot go it alone in situations where business process change will be closely linked with successful use of new technologies. The business must be involved and lead the charge. Just as the IT department of the organization needs to understand the business, so too should the business units understand what’s involved in implementing and using new technologies. This collaboration between business and IT has to occur right from the time a business goal is first being articulated through the time a technology becomes the subject of regular training, support and upgrades.

This is nothing new, of course; the need for “alignment” between business and IT has been realized for decades. Given the ongoing democratization of workplace technology and the ease with which people expect to be able to communicate and share information within and outside an organization, this alignment is more important than ever before. What’s different about collaboration, though, is that it can be messy and, like sharing and communication in the “real world” outside the enterprise, it’s not always possible to predict the outcome of how new technologies will be used.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. If an organization is so risk averse that it is unwilling to experiment with new ideas and ways of working, it’s probably doomed to be bypassed by younger, leaner, and more agile competitors anyway. Either way, though, management needs to be involved in managing the transition to new work habits and that may very well involve using the new tools in the process.

Peer Review in Scientific Journals Isn't Perfect - So What Else Is New?

2012-02-04T12:26:32Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

In Stop deifying “peer review” of journal publications Jonathan Eisen skillfully walks the reader through three realities of how peer review works with scientific journals:

Peer review is not magic
Peer review is not binary
Peer review is not static

In other words, peer review, where a prospective journal author’s “peers” are asked by a journal editor, often confidentially, to review and comment on manuscripts submitted for possible publication, is not perfect.

Eisen reiterates often quoted criticisms of peer review which I won’t repeat here. He emphasizes that peer review is not a perfect system. He also notes that hiding behind “the need for peer review” as an excuse for not discussing controversial results in public, as in the case of the NASA/phosphorus/arsenic news release and story, is not appropriate.

Having once studied and worked in the field of scientific and electronic publishing, I am somewhat familiar with the system and the criticisms that Eisen encapsulates so well. Some of his criticisms can be attributed to the fact that humans are flawed. Operating any complex knowledge transfer system at a distance using volunteers with varying levels of familiarity with the topic being written about, and who are limited to interpreting a brief paper and minimal data through the lens of their own experience, will be bound to reach difficult-to-replicate conclusions that reflect a variety of personal biases. Bad stuff will occasionally get through and good stuff will occasionally not get published. Controversy will continue to swirl around a complex editorial process that so many have come to rely upon for professional validation and advancement.

Eisen’s comments, however, are not just a general critique of journal peer review. They are made in the context of the aforementioned controversial research finding that were first announced at a NASA press conference in 2010. The author of that study apparently has stated a preference that criticism of the study be made via the peer review process not in the open press.

While such a preference given the initial public release may be inappropriate I am also sympathetic with the author’s view that a completely open public forum may not be the most efficient format for discussions of complex and controversial research findings such as she first announced.

My view is that scientists should have an opportunity to talk “amongst themselves” to thrash out the pros and cons of complex and controversial topics. Whether or not that forum should necessarily be “peer reviewed” is the question. Given the various collaborative media now available to exchange, evaluate, and discuss information, a traditional refereed journal is not necessarily the best forum for such an interactive process. Nor should discussions of complex and potentially controversial topics be conducted “behind closed doors” — or behind pay walls.

In the case of the aforementioned research, which was at least partially funded by U.S. taxpayers, hiding information being exchanged by qualified researchers “until it is ready to be made public” is an old fashioned concept. Doing so would not only shortchange the public but would also promote an old fashioned view of science as a static process built on an edifice of facts created and maintained by ivory towered academics.

When the need arises to evaluate and criticize new or controversial findings, perhaps we need a system that:

Allows scientists with relevant expertise to exchange information quickly and openly — and frankly — with the author.
Takes into account that the community of researchers addressing the topic may need to change over time since the topic of discussion may itself evolve.
Provides a mechanism for public access not only to the original content of the discussions but also to information about the participants themselves and their own qualifications.
Makes available “translations” of what is being discussed so that the interested public (and teachers, students, and law- and poicy-makers) have an opportunity to understand and appreciate the significance of what is being discussed.

Does such a system currently exist? If not, should it?

If it should exist, who should operate such a system and how would it be funded and managed?

I Just Updated My Copyright Date - So What?

2012-01-01T12:35:56Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

I just updated the copyright statement in the footer of this blog from

Copyright © 2002-2011 by Dennis D. McDonald. Please ask before re-publishing content from this web site.

Copyright © 2002-2012 by Dennis D. McDonald. Please ask before re-publishing content from this web site.

Why do I do that every year at this time? I’m not really sure any more.

There was a time when I sincerely cared about the details of copyright law and how it operated. Early in my career, for example, I managed a series of government funded research projects into how managing copyright-related formalities impacted industries and activities like motion pictures, textile design, and database publishing.

This interest had all grown out of the influence one of my professors Laurence B. Heilprin had on my thinking about the relationship between publishing, technology, and copyright. Back then I had thoughts about copyright as a type of “control” over the flow of information from authors to users via the publishing process. Heilprin, a physicist, had even modeled this process using basic cybernetic concepts and had made a series of logical proposals about how to incorporate the monitoring of photocopying by libraries into the overall process given how sensitive scholarly journal publishers were to uncontrolled photocopying. (Given my interest in copyright and technology I even flirted with the idea of getting a law degree once I had finished with my doctorate but good sense prevailed and I wound up in the electronic publishing business instead.)

Fast forward to today. My attitude about copyright has changed a lot. I still believe in author’s rights - I am writing this right now - but when I look at how copyright industries have bent the law and lawmaking processes to protect old business models that don’t directly benefit authors and artists, I have to wonder about the value of copyright given how information is created and shared in the real world.

Using legacy legal concepts to shut down questionable internet domains related to piracy without regard to ancillary effects on free speech and due process, as proposed with laws such as SOPA, is far removed from promoting “…the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

And don’t get me started on the economics of publishing and how government funded research ends up being published in commercial journals that require libraries to pay thousands of dollars a year in subscription fees. Having been in the publishing business myself I am very well aware of the economics of publishing. I know there ain’t no free lunches - I have my own mortgage to pay, thank you.

But when complex systems reach a point where legal and commercial entities are more interested in preserving the infrastructure itself than in promoting what the infrastructure is supposed to be supporting, it’s time for some serious disruption.

But I still display my copyright notice. Maybe it’s just my way of saying, “Hey, if you want to republish my stuff, please be nice enough to ask me first.”

How Much of Knowledge Management is Social - and Manageable?

2011-11-07T17:38:10Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

This post was sparked by reading a discussion series in GovLoop’s Knowledge Management in Government group. What caught my eye were several references to the relationship between “knowledge management” and “social media.”

I’m fascinated by such discussions. My career has frequently touched on both of areas and I think I’m finally beginning to understand how they relate to how people work. Here is the comment I left on GovLoop:

In reading this discussion series I’m surprised I haven’t seen references to the concept “social business” which seems to have evolved from the old “enterprise 2.0” and “web 2.0” concepts. Yet the concept of knowledge sharing seems to underlie much of what is being discussed, and much of sharing is based to some extent on social interaction.

My own story is that I got my start professionally by researching the relationship between formal and informal communications among scientists and engineers, then I got into what many would think is “traditional IT.”

Now, given I’ve been focusing on collaboration, social media, and professional networking, I feel like I’ve gone full circle. One thing I have learned is that there is a limit to what we can control in terms of how people communicate, collaborate, and share information. It’s not like it used to be in the IT world where we could safely automate repetitive white collar and administrative processes. Nowadays we also need to enable people to discover, establish relationships, and share questions and answers.

We can provide a foundational infrastructure of both technology and processes for that to occur; there’s a lot of competition in the marketplace for systems and procedures to do this. But I am leery of attempting to provide too much structure to how people gather, organize, and share information. Such behaviors tend to be personal and spontaneous, sometimes they are private, and sometimes they are social. Instead, I think it’s more important to provide leadership and direction so that people understand where they are headed and how thay can manage their own communication and collaboration behaviors to handle the knowledge they need.

Here are some more posts that touch on these topics:

Who Cares if Business and Brands are "Social"?

2011-11-03T18:48:31Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

Back in August I posted Let’s Stop Talking about “Social Business” where I made the following statement:

Doing and managing business has always been “social.” Business has always involved people working individually or in groups. Creating a synthetic concept called “social business” to promote technology-enabled processes, collaboration, and information sharing among customers, employees, and business partners might be a valuable short term marketing initiative. But sometimes it smells like it’s just being used to promote software sales and consulting. (I should know!)

I was reminded of this by reading an excellent post by Michael Brito titled The Social Business And The Social Brand. Brito compares and contrasts the concepts “social business” and “social brand.” In a nutshell, this is his theme:

They’re different—and the same. For starters, there needs to be consistent alignment between the two to generate true business results.

It’s a good read. It reflects some of what I’ve learned about enterprise collaboration and communication in my own research and consulting related to internal and external enterprise communities. Basically, brands and businesses need, as Brito suggests, to be aligned in order for the enterprise to be successful.

Complicating this need for alignment, unfortunately, is the complexity involved in aligning the processes, technologies, and governance practices associated with communication and collaboration. As Brito points out in his piece, the “siloing” we see in traditional organizations poses a challenge to such alignment.

I wonder if the popular current practice of focusing on the concepts “social business” and “social brand” may be a mistake for reasons related to what I suggested in my own earlier piece: businesses and brands have always been “social.” The fact that we have more sophisticated and easy to use communication and collaboration tools, for example, can exacerbate siloing Brito refers to.

This can happen, for example, when two or more “camps” emerge within an enterprise in terms of the collaboration tools they support. As usage of such tools spreads through the organization and people choose “sides” by investing time and energy in building profiles, usage patterns, and relationships via one toolset or another, the possibility emerges that the concept of “siloing” will extend beyond organizational or departmental boundaries to boundaries defined by tool use and loyalty.

Enterprise social software standards may solve part of the problem that relates to system integration barriers. But I suspect standards won’t be enough to overcome siloing related to different groups’ competing governance priorities. I am now wondering if this may be another problem that focusing on concepts like “social business” and “social brands” may be exacerbating. Deep-seated issues related to governance and organizational alignment aren’t going to be solved by making transactions more “social.” Real alignment will only occur when management and staff work together in support of corporate goals, regardless of whether the tools and processes they use are “social” or not.

Here’s a relevant experiment. Go back to Brito’s article. Copy the text out to a text editor. Do three global replacements:

Replace “social business” with “business’
Replace “social brand” with “brand”
Replace “social customer” with “customer”

Now read the article. Has the meaning changed? If your answer is “no” — as mine was — think about what that means.

One of the things it says to me is that we need to be focusing on the goals we’re working toward and the processes that support these goals. The tools we use to support our work, including the tools we use to support our communication and collaboration, should be subordinate to these processes and goals.

Focusing on making a business or brand “social” without first thinking about goals, processes, and governance can take us down the road to focusing on technology first. That may not be the best way to serve the needs of the customer — or the employee.

On the Importance of Authentic Social Media Engagement

2011-11-01T11:25:17Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

I recently had a discussion with Robyn Tippins on Google+. I know Robyn from our podcasting days and from Linkedin Bloggers. Robyn, who recently moved to Read Write Web to serve as Community Manager, had mentioned she was hoping it would be possible to schedule posts in advance on Google+:

When are we going to get the chance to schedule Google Plus posts?

We have a live chat coming up on Tuesday and I want to promote it as much on Google Plus as I already do on Facebook and Twitter, but I can’t unless I schedule reminders to myself to manually post (and the Google Plus traffic isn’t worth that type of commitment just yet).

If you want us to use this as much or more than we use Facebook and Twitter, allow us to use it as easily as we use Facebook and Twitter!

This is how I responded:

Robyn, I have a really mixed feeling about this. While I promote my own interests and posts here and on Twitter, I would really prefer to screen out automatically generated or automatically posted announcements. The reason is simple: I like to know there is someone else pushing the buttons at the other end, even to reshare stuff. When a system gains the ability to easily schedule (and by extension, automatically generate) materials for publishing, the flood gates are open for auto-generated posts that contribute little to engagement. This results ins a system like Twitter which sometimes takes on the appearance of a massive stream of public service announcements and advertisements. I understand that this has turned out to be one of the marketing related applications of social media but one of the things I like most about Google+ is the quality of engagement potential it generates for me. I’d hate to see that degraded by autoposting.

Why did I say that? Two reasons.

First, I like to know when I read something online, especially on a service like Google+, that it was (a) written by a live human being and (b) not just broadcast automatically. I enjoy meeting and conversing with people and when impersonal or automated services start to take over social media channels, as has happened at Twitter, their value to me significantly degrades.

Second, I like to be able to filter or sequester posts made on behalf of organizations as opposed to individuals. Do I really care that the local dealer I bought my car from has added a new line of automobiles or has won a contest for best service? Maybe, maybe not.

Not all such announcements are advertisements, of course, as evidenced by the large number of nonprofits that use services such as Twitter. But many organizations do approach social media as just another advertising channel where effectiveness is measured by the number of exposures or clicks that are generated, not by more difficult-to-measure effectiveness or communication related metrics. In such an environment “ad impressions” become just as much of a yardstick as the easily-gamed “circulation” statistics proferred by many newspapers.

Maybe all this just makes me a curmudgeon. But when I see someone’s face next to an online post and I know that person personally or by reputation, I want to believe that that person wrote that post and is interested in engaging with me. That’s really all there is to it.

What do you think?

Five Podcasts I'm Listening To Now - Oct. 2011

2011-10-29T11:13:32Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

I’m partial to history, technology, and the arts. Here are five I’ve been listening to regularly in recent months:

Big Picture Science. This continus to be my favorite science podcast. Literate, funny, well-produced. Hosted by Molly Bentley and Seth Shostak. I’m not sure why they changed the name; maybe it was to distance the brand a bit away from their connection with SETI? Whatever, they cover a lot of ground. And, I love the regular “skeptic check” feature.
This Week in Tech. Leo Laporte’s weekly roundup of tech talk. I bounce back and forth from video to audio and in general prefer audio. The changing cast is great plus regulars like professional curmudgeon John C. Dvorak add perspective.
This Week in Google. Leo, Jeff Jarvis, and Gina Trapani talk about Google and Cloud-related stuff. Tends to be a bit more thoughtful than the usual tech news shows. Leo chooses the topics well. Plus I have a crush on Gina. Only problem is, if you follow tech topics on Google+ you do find some duplication here.
History According to Bob. Bob just keeps rolling on. I’m excited about his Prussia series. Good concise nuggets, clearly discussed. This guy’s a national treasure. Love the month by month history of the U.S. Civil War.
Frame Rate. Another one from Leo Laporte’s media empire. Tom Merritt and Brian Brushwood talk about TV, media, “cutting the cord,” and whatever. Where they get the time to watch TV series I don’t know. They seem to understand the underlying economcs of TV and advertising and keep hitting on the theme that media companies inevitably will have to make it easier for people to buy media via whatever channel they prefer, not just via hated cable companies.

Proposal to Create a Google+ "Collaborative Project Management" Circle

2011-10-20T20:00:38Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

Over the past week or so Michael Kaplan and I have been talking about our common interest in collaboration tools and project management.

The overlap of our interests is pretty straightforward. Michael’s company is developing a set of tools for project managers built for delivery on the Google Apps platform. Based on my own project management experience, I’ve been long interested in how project managers can make use of modern collaboration and communication technologies, including basic tools like blogs and social networks.

I’m a devoted Google+ users so I’ve suggested to Mike that we start an informal Google+ “circle” of people interested in “collaborative project management.” Here are some of the things we might discuss via Google+ discussion features and/or via the video “hangouts” feature:

What’s the difference — if any — between “collaborative” and “non-collaborative” project management?
Have you had any difficulties in convincing members of your project team to use more collaborative tools such as SharePoint or group messaging services to work together?
How do you deal with “holdouts” who insist on using traditional meetings and emails to share information and collaboratively develop documents or other products?
How do you address security issues when members of your project team aren’t employees of your own company?

These are just a few of the topics Mike and I came up with to discuss. If you are interested in “joining” this group and participating in discussions about these types of topics, please let me or Mike know via email, or just “+1” this post if you’re reading this on Google+ and we’ll add you to the circle.

Dennis: dennis.d.mcdonald@gmail.com
Mike: kaplan.usa@gmail.com

My First Electronic Gadgets

2011-10-18T15:03:37Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

As I salivate at getting several new iPhone 4s smartphones via some kind of “family plan” and try to decide what storage capacity I’ll need to replace my worn-out-but-serviceable iPod Classic, my thoughts return to the gadgets of my youth.

My first memory is of an old “crystal radio” that made use of a wire “cat whisker” detector to connect with a sensitive spot on the surface of a Galena crystal. I think the radio belonged to my dad when he was a kid. Selecting the right spot would tune in one station, WBNS radio in Columbus Ohio, the single station this unpowered device would receive. The earphone was a disc shaped black bakelite disk with a screw off cover in which a thin circular plate of metal lay against a magnet. The sound was faint but listenable, especially late at night when the local station broadcast country western music. You had to be careful not to jostle the radio or the connection between the wire and the crystal would be lost.

My next memorable gadget was a red plastic “rocket radio” that did away with the cat’s whisker and replaced it with a rod that slid in and out of the red case. You still had to clip an alligator clip to a “ground” of some sort and trail a long wire antenna somewhere to receive a station. I remember with this made-in-Japan device that I could receive two, maybe three stations. It had an earplug type earphone so it was much more portable and aesthetically pleasing than the older crystal radio. I don’t remember how old I was when I got this but I definitely felt it was “high tech.”

Next was the first really amazing piece of technology I remember getting for Christmas one year — the Zenith Royal 50 transistor radio. It was totally portable, ran on batteries, and you could switch back and forth between speaker or earplug type earphone. You didn’t have to trail a long antenna wire or clip a wire to some kind of metallic ground. It was small enough to fit in a pocket. The device would clearly receive every AM radio station in Central Ohio and at night could pick up, when the weather was right, stations as far away as Boston and New York. Plus there were those late night stations that played country and western music for long distance truck drivers. I had this radio for many years and still remember the solid “click” the on-off switch made.

On the Emerging Need for Both a Smartphone and a Tablet Computer

2011-10-05T20:11:09Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

A couple of weeks ago I ran into Ian McCully on Google+ on a video “hangout.” Ian recently shared a post on Google+ (by Joe Lancaster) speculating that the upcoming Nexus Prime announcement will actually be a dual announcement by Samsung of both a new smartphone and a new tablet. Here was my Google+ comment:

“Jane, should I bring the tablet or the phone?”

“We’re just going out to the movies, honey, how about I just bring the phone?”

“Well, you know how we have to sit down for at least 15 minutes to wait for all the commercials and previews, and you like to do your sudoku without reading glasses, so why don’t I just bring the tablet?”

“But you know, honey, that when I do that you like to work on your email, so maybe you should bring the phone as well.”

“You’re right, we need both. But I don’t want to take my backpack. So can you carry both the phone and the tablet?”

“Honey, I don’t want to take my purse, but will you take the tablet and the phone? And my driver’s license and lipstick?”

“Let me get my backpack.”

Toward a Definition of Enterprise Mobility, Part 1: Key Dimensions

2011-10-01T11:50:51Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

A .pdf version of this article can be downloaded here. Part 2, which is still being developed, is here.

INTRODUCTION

Is availability of powerful mobile devices and services really changing the way people work? Or are smart phones and tablet computers just providing more options for doing existing work without regard to location?

Whichever is true, management needs to think about how best to incorporate mobile devices and services into the business. If management doesn’t do such planning, employees — or competitors — will.

An important question is, how can we plan for the best ways to use such devices when we know the technology is changing so rapidly? Even if we are clear about our organizational goals and objectives, and even if we understand the business processes we want to create or change to improve support for these goals and objectives, we still need to decide how to make things happen in the real world.

Sometimes “bottom up innovation” by those closest to the work will lead the way. This can happen when employees bring their own devices, membership in their own social networks, or even their own cloud based storage to work with them where they start mixing and matching how they communicate about work. Unfortunately, problems such as message confusion or even mis-use of resources could arise from such bottom-up innovations if employee efforts are not coordinated or managed effectively. Helping to plan for such innovation is one of the goals of this article.

Another challenge occurs when employees’ own technology is perceived to be more flexible and easier to use than what’s available at work — “I know I have a company Blackberry but why can’t I use my iPhone?” When something like this happens, management might need to look at adopting technologies that initially may not integrate well with enterprise systems or security practices.

One thing that makes adoption of mobile technologies potentially complex is that sophisticated location based application running on smart phones or tablets can now be developed to take creative advantage of today’s mix of portability, cheap computing power, and geolocation information. Such capabilities, some of which have been available on expensive portable systems available to high end customers and the military, are now readily available at consumer prices.

How to take advantage of such power and flexibility, though, still requires thought and planning.

WHAT ARE THE KEY DIMENSIONS OF “ENTERPRISE MOBILITY”?

This article discusses how planners can think about the concept of enterprise mobility, starting with a recognition that more is needed than just deciding among brands of hand-held devices. The following are key dimensions to consider. The eleven key dimensions to think about are:

Process
Actor
Sponsor
Location
Control
Data
Application
Support
Community
Device
Cost

1. PROCESS

“Process” refers to the sequence of activities a mobile worker — called an “actor” here — engages in when doing work. Some processes may be defined in advance, some may be defined on-site in response to location or local conditions, and some may be defined by the actor making an independent judgement about what needs to be done.

Processes generally are the collections of actions that organizations and their employees put in place and manage in order to accomplish organizational goals. Some processes are very explicit, repetitive, structured, and tied to a well-defined sequence of activities. An example of this might be the steps involved in disassembling and re-assembling a machine. Other processes are more general, unstructured, or loosely defined. An example of this might be the thought process and research a worker goes through once a faulty machine has been disassembled.

Technology, obviously, is only one of the resources needed to perform a process. Others include skills, knowledge, physical equipment, facilities, and administrative support. Whether the process is tightly or loosely defined, technology can help. In fact, the same piece of technology can help a wide range of processes dependent on its configuration or programming.

As experienced IT managers know, technology is only part of the puzzle and may only account for a small part of the total cost of a project that involves changing a large or complex set of business processes involving many people.

It’s a fair question to ask whether mobile technologies are forcing us to change the way we think about processes. That might be true if you think of processes in a rigid, workflow-software-enabled way. Even if we restrict our thinking to that view, there is a lot that using a flexible and powerful mobile device can bring to the table, especially if that mobility means that decisions and actions can better reflect access to signals about local conditions that mobility enables.

Viewed another way, use of mobile systems enables an alternate view of process. This is potentially one where there is less tight integration of all the steps in an automated sequence of tasks in favor of a more flexible mix of activities that combine automated and manual tasks tied together by a human actor making decisions and taking actions in direct response to local conditions. Looked at this way, one could say that extending technological support to work via mobile systems can in fact change how processes are defined and managed.

Does this also mean that using mobile systems could actually increase complexity with a resulting rise in risk and cost due to increased uncertainty? Perhaps, but this is also a reason to carry out a detailed planning process.

2. ACTOR

The “actor” is the person or device that moves from place to place and performs work. Most of the actors we are concerned with here are people. In some cases actors may also include remotely operating “smart” devices that monitor and respond to local conditions with varying levels of independence or human involvement. This article, though, is mostly concerned about human actors.

In either case, the roles actors play in the business must be defined and understood. This starts with an understanding of the types of decisions the mobile actor needs to make while “in the field,” along with the training and experience the actor must bring to the mobile processes that need to be performed.

Another important expectation is the role the sponsor expects the actor to play and how the mobile device will support this role. The actor may belong to a variety of communities and might in fact use the mobile device to communicate with both work and non-work communities while on the job. In addition, the mobile device may host a variety of work and non-work related applications that require communication with remote servers to operate. Some of these applications will be work related, others won’t.

Whether we are discussing an Android, Apple, Amazon, or Windows remote device, the sponsor needs to consider the type of support needed for the particular work related role that will be performed with mobile support and how security for the work related applications will be managed on a device that may host non-work related applications.

3. SPONSOR

“Sponsor” refers to the individual or organization on whose behalf the mobile work is undertaken. This could be a client, an employer, an organization, another individual, association, or a consortium of some sort.

The relationships between the sponsor and the actor may be formalized though a contract or employment or may be temporary based on factors such as availability or convenience — or even whether the actor is “on duty” at the time the need for remote work arises.

Support for varying levels of control and initiative may need to be considered here, with some actors’ work being guided on well-defined paths specified by experts or someone in authority that is associated with or employed by the sponsor. Other actors’ work may be guided more by the actor’s own initiatives in situations where judgement and decision making need to be carried out by the actor working on behalf of the sponsor.

In a traditional employee-employer relationship a certain level of understanding is assumed on the part of the actor about the sponsor’s goals and objectives. This helps the actor understand the “why” of the mobile processes that need to be performed. This understanding is critical when the process to be performed involves collaboration or coordination among a variety of actors. Keeping multiple actors “on the same page” in any sequence of processes or projects is always a concern and may play an important role in mobile processes where roles and responsibilities are spread across multiple actors.

If the sponsor-actor relationship is more tenuous or temporary, e.g., in situations where mobile technology is used to support point-of-purchase or impulse buying transactions, such assumptions may not be appropriate. This may have an impact on the type of mobile work that can be expected or on the communication that needs to take place between the sponsor and the actor.

4. LOCATION

“Location” refers to the physical space occupied by the actor at the time that work is done. This may be a fixed location or a series of locations occupied over a time span during which work is performed.

In some cases the location of the work will impact the local conditions that drive what type of work needs to be done. In other situations local conditions may be irrelevant to the work.

Location may also:

Influence the nature or quality of real time communication that can — or must — take place between sponsor and actor.
Impact availability of resources at the time work needs to be done.
Trigger automated actions that configure or provision the mobile device in preparation for the performance of work.

5. CONTROL

“Control” refers to the influence the sponsor has over the decisions and actions of the actor and the device and system used by that actor. This ranges from situations where the actor has little or new influence over his or her own actions, to situations where the actor functions autonomously while in the field. In either case, the amount and type of control by the sponsor over the actions of the actor can be influenced directly or by actions taken by others.

The quality and reliability of communication between the sponsor and the actor will to some degree drive the ability of the sponsor to directly influence actions taken by the mobile worker in the field. Sponsor control may also vary with the number and variety of local influences on the nature of needed work.

Planning for control must obviously take into account the variety of situations the actor is likely to face when using the device in a mobile situation. Additional considerations related to control are security and risk. To what extent, for example, will the ability of the sponsor to control the actor’s actions be reduced if the device’s software is compromised through an exploit that prevents the device from operating as intended? Will it be sufficient to remotely shut down device’s operation? Or, is the risk such that a software exploit can completely wrest control of the device away both from the sponsor and the actor?

Technical issues aside, both security and risk must be considered together when planning simply because the actor is (usually) human and may be operating semi-independently “in the field” away from direct communication with the sponsor.

No matter what kinds of technical controls are put in place to prevent unauthorized access and display of sensitive or restricted information, for example, once the actor reads or sense that information from the device, the possibility then exists that it can be transferred to an unauthorized or unfriendly entity.

Also, the criticality of the remote work will also drive the manner in which control is implemented over remote work. It will make a difference, for example, whether the remote process supported by mobile technology is a medical procedure or an entertainment of some sort.

6. DATA

“Data” refers to the information needed by the remote worker to perform work, i.e., the processes associated with the job. Some of that information might be possessed in the actor’s memory, some might be stored in or accessible to the device to support work based decision making and actions, and some might be generated or assembled uniquely from a variety of local and remote sources based on input provided manually or via automatic means by local systems. In some cases some kind of real-time communication link may be needed with a remote data source or expert to provide the data needed by the actor for doing work.

In any case. the processes that need to be performed will drive the identification of the needed data and how it can be made available when needed. Some data may be visible or displayed to the actor, while other data may support automated processes that don’t require human intervention.

Just as the mobile actor belongs to and may need to communicate with a variety of “communities” while in the field, the actor might also need to to access environmental or locally available data that are provided by systems unconnected with the sponsor. For example, if the actor becomes accustomed to using public data linked to Google Maps to help locate and diagnose a problem, and Google Maps is not available, what is the backup?

7. APPLICATION

“Application” refers to software running on or accessible to the mobile device that, when combined with data and the actor’s judgement, supports needed decision making and work processes.

As available mobile devices become more powerful, so too can the sophistication, power, and specialization of mobile-available applications increase.

One characteristic of mobile applications (“apps”) and more traditional computer applications is that where the application and its data reside and execute may not be on the device but on a remote server located in the “cloud.” Increasingly powerful mobile devices can also provide more computing power and storage to the mobile user but also may drive the need to provide more bandwidth for accessing supporting data from a remote server. This in turn may drive the need for better/faster/more secure communications.

8. SUPPORT

“Support” refers to work the sponsor needs to do to ensure the mobile worker has the resources to do the work. Some support functions can be performed in advance and embedded in some form in hardware, data, or software. Other support may be needed in real time while the mobile worker is onsite.

One way to think about support is that each mobile worker may need direct involvement or availability of a centrally available resource person when mobile work is being done. If multiple mobile actors will be actively working at the same time and will all need support at the same time, how will this impact the number and type of support resources that need to be available in total?

9. COMMUNITY

For each task, groups of individuals may exist that have varying levels of involvement as users, customers, experts, or just as interested onlookers. In some cases a community may exist that is not directly controlled by the sponsor or the actor but which may have a potential interest or stake in the work being performed.

To what extent should that “community” be integrated into some aspect of the work the mobile actor performs? That is a question to which no standard response is possible. The value of communicating with this community before, during, and after the remote work is performed is, however, something that should be considered from a variety of perspectives, including cost, efficiency, and political expediency.

Also, location based systems are emerging that can provide identity and information sharing among device users within range of each other that share certain characteristics. To what extent can or should such “instant communities” be included in planning for mobile services? Again, no standard answer is possible but opportunities for improving mobile work through engagement with selected communities should be considered.

10. DEVICE

“Device” refers to the physical equipment required by the actor to perform the work. For simplicity’s sake we can think of one device as a portable computer, as a tablet computer, or as a smartphone. In some cases the device moves with the actor. In other cases it might remain attached to the work site, location, or device that is the focus of the work.

The device itself may only be the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of the technology used by the actor to do work remotely. Additional systems and equipment may be needed to support the work.

Some additional equipment such as diagnostic systems or repair tools may or may not have physical or electronic communication with the actor’s mobile device. Or, the mobile device may need realtime access to a remote database or application that operates remotely and is queried actively or via an automated process with the resulting information being communicated to the mobile device for presentation to and action by the actor.

One design consideration will be how best to take advantage of the capabilities of the mobile device. For example, will the mobile device be used to provide remote access to existing data or functionality that are already available via existing laptops or networked computers? Or, will the mobile device be used to support a re-engineered workflow involving potentially expensive changes to existing business processes?

11. COST

“Cost” refers to the resources — chiefly time and money — that need to be devoted to developing, implementing, and operating a mobile solution. The cost of buying the mobile device may be relatively small. Devices need to be procured, supported, and updated. Applications need to be developed for them.

Important questions include whether we are shifting costs, adding costs, or reducing costs. Another important question is “whose cost?” Some mobile solutions may require involvement of external networks or systems where costs are shared or where costs are borne by the sponsor.

Even if you anticipate a “free ride” on someone else’s network, you need to think about how long that “free ride” is going to last.

END OF PART 1. I WILL BE DRAFTING AND DISCUSSING PART 2 ON GOOGLE+ WHICH IS LOCATED HERE.

No Thanks, I Prefer Sharing WITH Friction

2011-09-26T15:45:03Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

In Whoops, I didn’t mean for you to read this Brian Solis explains Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” model. This gives people the ability, when they install a new Facebook app that makes such sharing possible, to decide whether or not they want their app-related behaviors to be automatically added to their Facebook timeline. This then enables Facebook followers to receive automatic notifications of these behaviors and provides advertisers with invaluable data on personal behavior and preferences.

The “poster child” for this new Facebook feature, which appears to be something like Facebook’s old “Beacons” experiment, is Spotify, a music sharing service that enables members to share their listening activities but which now requires Facebook membership to access.

Let’s forget for a moment discussions about privacy, persistent Facebook cookies, and the increasingly “walled” nature of the Internet. One issue that is important to me personally is that I prefer when people communicate with me that they do so having made an actual decision to tell me something.

Generally I don’t like automated announcements. It’s like my use of RSS. I remember years ago dutifully subscribing to selected blogs via a feed reader that aggregated titles from a multitude of sources published by people I shared some interests with. Over time, though, I found the feed-based reading experience overwhelming and tedious given that my interests and the interests of the people I tend to follow are so diverse. So I stopped following RSS feeds and started relying more on search and social media for current awareness.

It seems to me that this automation of social media via “frictionless sharing” could be a step in the wrong direction. Obviously I understand the value to advertisers of knowing what people are sharing with me and what I actually click on or read. But being of value to advertisers is not, ultimately, why I find online collaboration and engagement so appealing.

Again, this decision has less to do with privacy than with my own personal preferences about how I communicate with people. If I’m interested in hearing from you, I’d much prefer hearing from you, not an automated reporting system that doesn’t really understand the nuances of our shared interests.

My "Soundtracks 3" Playlist on Sept. 8, 2011

2011-09-08T16:37:05Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

I enjoy movies and movie soundtrack music. These are the iTunes tracks in my “Soundtracks 3” playlist:

Album	Track	Composer
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence	Stored Memories And Monica’s Theme	Williams, John
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence	Where Dreams Are Born	Williams, John
Bernard Herrmann - The Film Scores	Vertigo - Suite_Prelude	Herrmann, Bernard
Bernard Herrmann - The Film Scores	Vertigo - Suite_Scène D’Amour	Herrmann, Bernard
The Book Of Eli Original Motion Picture Soundtrack	Panoramic	Ross, Atticus
Comic Strip Heroes - Music From Gotham City and Beyond	Spiderman - Main Theme	Elfman, Danny
Comic Strip Heroes - Music From Gotham City and Beyond	Superman: Love Theme	Williams, John
Coraline	End Credits	Coulais, Bruno
Cowboys & Aliens - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack	Jake Lonergan	Gregson-Williams, Harry
Ennio Morricone & Nino Rota	Mission, The	Morricone, Ennio
Epics of the Big Screen	Feather Theme from “Forrest Gump”	Silvestri, Alan
Film Music 2009	The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button: Postcards / Daisy’s Bal	Desplat, Alexandre
Film Music Masterworks of James Horner	Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan End Titles	Horner, James
Great Movie Themes	Titanic: Main title theme	Horner, James
Henry Mancini: Greatest Hits	Theme from “Hatari”	Mancini, Henry
Inception	Old Souls - Hans Zimmer	Zimmer, Hans
Inception	Time - Hans Zimmer	Zimmer, Hans
Incredible Film Music Box	To Kill A Mockingbird - Suite	Bernstein, Elmer
John Barry: The Collection	Somewhere in Time - Main Theme	Barry, John
Leonard Maltin’s Favorite Movie Themes	Nightmare Before Christmas Orchestral Suite	Elfman, Danny
The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King	The Return Of The King	Shore, Howard
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers	The Taming Of Smeagol	Shore, Howard
MEMORABLE SCORES - Paramount Pictures 90th Anniversary	Saving Private Ryan - Hymn to the Fallen	Williams, John
Princess Mononoke Symphonic Suite	The Legend Of Ashitaka	Hisaishi, Joe
The Science Fiction Album	Mars Attacks	Elfman, Danny
The Science Fiction Album	Klingon Attack {From Star Trek: The Motion Picture}	Goldsmith, Jerry
Spirited Away	Nighttime Coming	Hisaishi, Joe
Spirited Away	Reprise	Hisaishi, Joe
Star Trek Motion Picture Overture	Star Trek Motion Picture Overture	Goldsmith, Jerry
Theme from “UP” (feat. Mark Northam)	Theme from “UP” (feat. Mark Northam)	Giacchino, Michael
The Tree of Life (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)	River	Desplat, Alexandre
The Tree of Life (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)	Skies	Desplat, Alexandre

Audit of the VA's Project Management Accountability System (PMAS) Implementation

2011-08-31T09:22:00Z

By Dennis D. McDonald

Here’s some light reading: the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General’s “Audit of the Project Management Accountability System Implementation.” Known as “PMAS,” the system was put in place in 2009 to provide better oversight of the VA’s troubled IT development projects. This was done in light of a history of cost overruns and failed IT projects at the VA.

Having been a VA consultant (in the area of social media), and having done a detailed review on my own of the PMAS’ initial guidebook issued by the VA’s CIO, I have some familiarity with the environment and the implementation challenges PMAS faced.

VA’s expenditures on system development are huge and complex. PMAS looked like an overdue dose of oversight and transparency. Having been responsible for developing project management offices myself, though, I could sense some of the difficulties to come. Unfortunately, and this report lays out some very damning findings without naming names, only two people were assigned to implement and manage PMAS operations. These operations apparently centered around a rather traditional “stoplight” format dashboard.

Most troubling was, according to the report, the unreliability of the data feeding the dashboard and the fact that baseline data could be replaced with current data, a practice which totally defeated the ability to track performance and accountability.

What’s the moral of this story? Evidently, providing serious oversight of multimillion dollar programs requires much more time, attention, and resources than the VA was able — or willing — to devote to the problem. Also, we can’t tell what, if any, were the political forces that also played a role in undermining the PMAS effort.

For example, were staff and managers of individual projects always completely forthcoming and cooperative in providing input data to the PMAS staff? There are incidents described in the report, for example, where troubled — and ultimately cancelled — projects were consistently shown to be in the “green” despite repeated problems.

Also, was it appropriate to create a “dashboard” process which, by definition, assumes availability of appropriate and timely data? Or would it have been more appropriate and effective to start out with less formalized and more personal reporting processes that would take advantage of modern telecommunication and conferencing so that program and project managers could interact spontaneously in real time? Such processes are time consuming and weigh heavily on senior management, but perhaps they should be attempted at least as an interim process. Even more significantly, were managers of targeted projects collaboratively involved in developing the PMAS approach? Had they been, would they have raised issues concerning the level of effort involved in implementing and operating PMAS?