Anyway, made me chuckle :-)

My trusty old Sony Vaio has become extremely slow and crashes very frequently – even after two complete reinstalls! I can’t get hold of a stable video device driver and as my iPhone is no laptop replacement, I NEED a new laptop…

At the same time, my fall back laptop (my daughters MacBook) has decided that as it’s now month 13 it’s time to break! It fails to complete the start-up process 95% of the time. Luckily I took out the extended cover and is in the hands of the Apple Genius Bar in Cambridge…

All of this has meant no easy blogging, etc :-( so against the advise of my Mac Guru (Guy Dickinson) – (He suggested I wait a couple of weeks to see if Apple announce a new version of the Macbook Pro) I rang Apple, confirmed they could deliver in five days, and placed my order.

Imagine my disappointment/frustration/anger when their website is now quoting a delivery date of July 12th!!! 14 days from the date of order!

Time to become an unreasonable customer…

Bullet one gets off to a really great start, suggesting you should first check to make sure you cannot get by with the tools you already have – All good stuff

It rapidly goes down hill from there on in. For me it fails to mention the most critical bit – GIGO…

Organisation that don’t have accurate, complete, timely, trusted, relevant, understood data, don’t manage data as an asset, they don’t have a culture of information, and therefore do not engineer Data Quality controls and monitors into every step of their data processing chain.

Organisations that don’t do these things are advised not to be ambitions about their ROI case for BI investment - Perhaps it does not matter - if you don't do the above, you probably don't do business cases... You certainly won't do 'BI' - but you will have shiny tin and new tools

I had the pleasure of such a discussion with Colin Rees (EasyJet) this morning. He observed that ‘people often confuse personal risk with Business risk’.

How right he is!

Not a bad start in the land of 2.0

I guess the vote in favour of hybrid embryo research means that our busy politicians and their advisors never had time to remove their blinkers, turn off their selective hearing, and take a few minutes to think about the non vote winning messages James Martin has for us in his book, ‘The Meaning of the 21st Century’.

I doubt anyone could read his extract from chapter one without having a slight ‘wobble’, (even the most pig headed capitalist or MP) before continuing with business as usual… (take the challenge now?)

Let’s hope that in between patting each other on the back for their seemingly small (yet potentially very dangerous victory), and filling in their next unjustifiable expense claim, that our illustrious PM and the 350 other ill informed short term fools, somehow find time to reflect on Martin’s words…

As Martin says himself, “The main theme of this book should be taught and talked about everywhere”

Take the 'wobble' challenge now

I then remembered a book I bought many years ago. It's that old it has that ‘old book’ whiff about it. The Great Transition by James Martin. It’s no longer in print, but you can get second hand copies on Amazon from £1.97 !!! It’s a ‘big’ book in more ways than one – I don’t have time to read it again now, but most of it looks like its as relevant today in the techies 2.0 world and the Business’s NewWorld. I have a few Eddie Obeng books in that category… I can’t help thinking it’s a shame that most of our Execs seem to have missed out on the learning offered by these authors.

A quick flip through the headings hits me – It’s all still very relevant. Me being me, I test this assumption out by flipping through the pages, and stopping – Page 97. A quick scan of the text highlights something that those who know (and of course, love) me would smile at:

“In a world of intensifying global competition and copycat products, a key resource is the capability to innovate. People who think differently are valuable; a challenge is to harness and use such originality. Corporations need the unique capabilities of loners as well as the collective, but often conventional capability of teams.”

(I’m reminded of a phrase Eddie Obeng uses. “Innovate, Dominate, or Die” – Indeed, it’s all very relevant!).

Martin then quotes the following from George Bernard Shaw:

"Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men"

The real reason why I chose to experience the ‘old book smell’ was that I am going through the now familiar cycle of reviewing the role title/description I use to define who I am and what I do (triggered by the new books I recently blogged about from Obeng and Stephens). When I first read The Great Transition I can remember feeling alignment with what he described as the new role of ‘Enterprise Engineer’ – “a fusion between Business Methods and IT Methods”. His vision, became my career vision (and frustration ;-).

For your interest, I have OCR’d Martin’s list of the capabilities needed by the 'Enterprise Engineer' (see below). It’s the sort of list you will read and then pause while you listen to the tumbleweed – It’s powerful stuff, so only read if you are strong enough to get in touch with your own personal realities.

And lastly, a quick search on the main job websites highlights the sad fact that the 'Enterprise Engineer' role never made it off the printed page :-( Perhaps this explains why many organisations are where they are today...

It’s a complex NewWorld and there is so much to get right and so much that can, and does go wrong. Most organisations seem to have lost the plot when it comes to forecasting, budgeting and planning, Business/IS strategy development, programme governance, vendor/SI selection and management, business process out sourcing, programme management, prioritisation, risk and issue management, impact assessment, programme and project delivery, performance management, business reporting, culture change, skills training, knowledge management, collaboration, etc.

Whilst fixing all the issues above is obviously too much for most mere mortals to consider at the same time, it is clearly unsustainable to have a situation where so many of the critical success factors (csf) which have had so much written about them in countless ‘lessons learned’ and public project post mortems, fall outside of IT’s 90% of the effort!

It’s got so difficult and complex that I understand some execs and senior managers are starting to show signs of having ADHD!

"They feel restless most of the time and have difficulty sitting still even in situations that are calming or relaxing to most people. They experience multiple short-lived thoughts that are poorly focused and "on the go all the time". Some people liken this to "a vortex" or "spaghetti junction".

Mood problems are very common, with a constantly unstable mood that fluctuates up and down from moment to moment throughout the day. One person described swinging between the "fog" of a distracted mind and the "fire" of irritable and angry moods. Individuals with ADHD are frequently impatient, cannot wait for anything and become easily frustrated or irritated." BBC

I'm sure these symptoms are not to be witnessed in your organisation!

;-)

As I suggested to DMP readers, perhaps ‘My top 3’ could be a topic you might have a view on?

I have read two books: Trademark 2.0 by R Todd Stephens, and The Complete Leader by Dr Eddie Obeng. Both of these books have made me, stop and think, experience that cold shiver as I move to that uncomfortable feeling of ‘conscious incompetence’ and then enjoy those motivational moments of thinking and planning the steps I need to take to get to move to ‘unconscious competence’ - as quickly as possible!

These are indeed interesting times…

The NewWorld (and for the techies who like to use terminology the rest of us don’t understand, the ‘world of 2.0’) is a place where the rules have changed. Learning about the differences between the OldWorld and the NewWorld, understanding the NewRules and then applying the learning, and adapting to this NewWorld, is difficult and at times very painful. On the other hand, Failing to learn and adapt is likely to be more painful and difficult – Choose your route!

Whilst many don’t exactly know where to head, or what to focus on next, there clearly is a growing realisation that doing nothing is not an option for them. The huge growth in personal blogs and the clamour to be ‘heard’ on the web backs up the premise in Trademark 2.0 that we need to create our personal online trademark.

The message is clear – you need to learn the ‘New Rules for the New World’ and get to grips with how you manage your visibility/trademark in the growing levels of online ‘noise’…

This leads me on to an enjoyable and timely catch up call with Dylan Jones (IQ Solutions) yesterday. Dylan is a good example of ‘the harder I work (in the NewWorld), the luckier I get’.

Dylan has put in an extraordinary amount of effort in to getting his Data Migration Pro portal/community idea off the ground, and it looks like that effort is starting to pay off.

According the portal, "Data Migration Pro is the first/only dedicated online community for all things ‘Data Migration’." In a short space of time it has reached 350+ members, looks like it’s been around longer than others, and includes new ideas and features which will no doubt become the norm in the online community portal space.

The relevance of this should be profound.

As more and more people start working out that in order to have a presence or a trademark in the NewWorld, they are going to have to find time to become an active online contributor. If you don’t contribute to the NewWorld, you don’t exist. It’s as simple as that.

What’s more, most of what you contribute has to be given away free (to begin with anyway). If it’s good it will be used by others, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get positive feedback, credited with the original idea, more ‘traffic’ and more ‘visibility’. If what you contribute is seen as ‘poor’ it could be ridiculed and will quickly damage the professional image, trademark or ‘virtual value’ you are trying to build. If you let someone down and they have a good web presence, you could be hit hard – be warned!

This is why we are seeing a significant growth in the number of blogs and the setup and participation in online communities. People want and need to develop their online voice, or their NewWorld trademark/persona…

I believe the ‘free’ to participate communities will surge ahead. As more and more people participate, the value to join will grow, and community closure, or possibly consolidation will occur where the cost of subscription outweighs the value gained.

I guess there is a danger of letting all this 'contributing online' consume your life - there is a balance to be found (says he typing this at 1630 on a Saturday afternoon!). Clearly, not contributing is not an option, but contributing and making money and having a life, are of equal importance (I think it’s appropriate to plug another of Eddie’s books here without fear of negative feedback ;-) Money Making Machines, you need to understand and follow these rules!).

The reason for this walk down memory lane was that having been dragged to every interview since, my one and only copy of the September 1995 copy of Business Age was starting to look a little tired and thought it time I digitised it. The relevance of the this particular magazine is that I/Daquam took a full page colour advertisement to drum up business offering data quality baseline assessments!

If you have read this far, you may be interested in the OCR of the text below. You can see the scanned advert here.

| View | Upload your own

On reflection, I'd add the 'trusted' dimension, but other than that, it still seems as relevant today as it did then!

If you’ve read any of Eddie's other books, you'll be familiar with its style, and if this is the book you have choosen to loose your 'Obeng virginity' with, then you could not have chosen a better one!

In approx 130 pages of large type and pictures, this book (Dr Eddie Obeng, co-authored with Christophe Gillet) quickly takes you through the fundamentals of what leadership in the NewWorld is; from both the leaders, and followers perspectives. This is followed by a self diagnosis tool, and a range of other invaluable tools and techniques that form the toolkit you will need to become a NewWorld leader.

1. If you have already woken up to what Eddie calls the NewWorld, and are conscious of the need to learn more about it’s ‘NewRules’, you’ll be very receptive to this concise and powerful book. Before you get to the end of chapter 4 you’ll be hooked on the drug of learning… Be warned!

2. If you are a manager or perhaps even a self proclaimed leader who has ‘good friends’ in category 1 above, this is the sort of book they might coach you to buy. If they are really really good friends, they may even buy it for you. Providing you’re big enough to swallow your pride and are motivated to work hard at the important stuff, you’ll recognise the importance of Eddie’s messages and tools, and will begin that wonderful process of learning to learn.

3. If you don’t fall in to the above, you’ll be an OldWorld thick skinned luddite, and as there is nothing you don’t already know, there is nothing you could learn from this, or any other book!

The impending financial crisis can only speed up the speed at which you will need to learn and adapt. I’d recommend you buy this book for you, and buy this book for your friends – you’ll thank me and they’ll thank you… And as for the category 3 managers, their destiny is very clear… ;-)

Time to go to Amazon…

The last time I read a book that made me think like this was ‘The World is Flat’ by Thomas Friedman, and that led me to change jobs and go and work for an Indian offshore company.

Please don't tell the wife I've been reading again!