I'm a LEGO Man Living in a Duplo World

This was aimed at business people, not developers.
The idea was to balance the past, client server world, with the new decentralized microservices one.
Delivered on the last day of IBM Think in Las Vegas.

I'm a LEGO Man Living in a Duplo World from Keith Brooks

Revenge of the Mail Migration from Hell

Learning about failure from the infamous Elon Musk and SpaceX.
SpaceX did not land all 3 rockets cleanly the other day and have numerous tests that failed along the way. They have even been compiled in one video. Even the great ones fail, that is how they get better.

Once in a while it is nice to write myself, and my readers, the finer point of failures and what we learned from them.

Keep in mind:

• we are all professionals
• we all reviewed the contract
• we all reviewed the specifications
• we thought we knew the people involved
• we had more than enough time to complete this by 12/31...2017

So in the interest of open, honest reporting, let's drop into hell, shall we?

Never get into a mail migration(ok, any serious project) that involves a 3rd party.
If you can't handle it all on your own, get a friend, a resource, someone on your side to handle whatever part you do not know. This alone may save you 1-2 hours A DAY on average during the project.

Date, or No Date, there is no wait and see
If you propose some dates for the cut over and the client is not comfortable with them, you better find out why upfront. And not just the easy reasons but the hard ones, like the training person isn't available for 6 months or the boss is on sabbatical for 2 months or no one explained that they would be giving out new hardware at the same time to people (phones and PCs) or well you get the idea.

Vacations Happen
Mine, yours, theirs and of course once the dates are in motion you look bad for taking vacation at the time they finally want to move everything. Which leads to...

Backups
Not data, that is easy. People. Techs. How many of us out there really have a good backup person in our organizations or that we can work with on minimal notice with enough knowledge of the solution and process at hand? I may be a better troubleshooter and am not talking about that aspect, but I am referring to the ability to holistically look at a solution in motion and keep it going while I/you are unavailable. This is one reason is document everything along the way and store it in Connections or a Notes db or Dropbox so if I can't be there to do it, someone can easily pick it up and run with it.

Caveat Emptor
Migrations of anything come with caveats. Data should be ok, folders, encrypt ions, repeating meetings, large attachments(like over 1GB) and numerous other items should be addressed and explained upfront to the customer.No, it will not prevent that horrible meeting where they claim you never told them, explained them or sent it to them, but you can try. Most clients really do not understand many aspects of the projects and even when explained in non technical terms they just say yes, yes and we all know the end will come back and we will explain it all over again.You are shaking your  head at this one or laughing because it happens nearly every time.

Leap Frog
Planned it all out, everyone agreed to the order in which the data will migrate and which date. Along comes someone and demands to get moved or needs it done before their vacation or just can't wait to be the first guinea pig on the new thing they did not get trained on yet because they hate the old thing.

It happens, in 30 years or so of projects this happens maybe once a year or 2. Acceptable, but frustrating too.

Karma however wins every time.

Next project was quick and easy, unexpectedly.

So here's to all of you far under water on a contract and know when it is done you will at least have good stories to tell your (IT) friends.

Have we shared ourselves into Silos?

As I look out across my 30 column wide Tweetdeck app it dawned on me that it has started again.

I am pondering when did we get back to this point. Not sure it can be nailed down to one specific inflection point.

Once upon a time there was a monolithic world of business and it was a top down approach of management over employees. Information was on an as need basis or a "pay grade level" basis. However you view it, or heard about it, it existed. It sucked!

But not to everyone, and not so obviously. Many people were happy to go on with their work lives as drones in the corporate world. Some people wanted a better way and nothing really provided a way out.

Along came the PC revolution and networks, people could share information and the work world seemed a little less monolithic. Maybe we were on the cusp of something at that time, maybe we weren't. The hope and promise was there, even if the technology was not quite there. Although for the time it was pretty damn near incredible.

And then we found the commercialized Internet in 95 when it was opened up for us outsiders to become our babysitter, how-to manual, gripe board, chat board, equipment drivers locator and a far cheaper way to stay connected to our friends and the people we love. Unfortunately it also helped us stay connected to work.

Openness was everywhere, and still is, but it came with a price then and now. Join me, login here, register with us, become a member, and more yellow brick roads to what we thought was more sharing and socializing all popped up.

If you didn't mind the mini-silos, you were fine.

I minded then, I still do. Evidently while I am not unique, I represent a smaller percentage, and definitely of Americans, that want to share more with people.  OK, maybe not everything, but still...

On average, 24 percent of the world says they share “most or everything” that they do. But only 15 percent of Americans admitted to sharing nearly everything online. - Mary Meeker, 2013 Internet Trends Report

I am very against silos, in business, in religion, in schools, and in life in general. I may not like, or agree with everyone, but we are all here for each other to work our way through the maze of life.

There is an app for everything and nothing. Probably the most interconnected app for people is Facebook or Twitter. Both provide connections to people and their thoughts but still the people using either app is inconsistent. I have friends who use none of these, one of these or all of these forcing me to monitor many places, if I care enough. In time new shortcut apps popup that help, but in some ways we are breaking into more pieces than we ever did before.

There are niche of niche products, discussions, even zip codes or buildings have the exclusive of exclusive. And for what purpose? So we can be separated and divided further.

You say, "No, you got it all wrong! It's customization, personalization down to every whim you have or search you perform. We live in the ultimate open ended world, not a silo."

I see that side as well.

Really.

I do.

People always had outlets, work, sports, pubs, friends, family, but now everyone else knows about it and likes you more, or less, depending on the things you post and join. Want a new car or house but don't want neighbors to know, good luck keeping it form them if they follow you.

It's all good in the end, let's just be careful out there.

SugarCon is Coming to NY and I am Speaking Again

Hard to believe it has been a year since Sugarcon 2012 but here we are and this time we are going to be in Manhattan. Yes, New York City at the Waldorf Astoria.

You can find more information about the event, including the agenda, here.

IBM are the big Diamond sponsors, which means I did not have to do my pitch on IBM integration with SugarCRM like I did last year.

I will be speaking on Wen. the 10th at 3:40-4:15pm slot under Customer Engagement Strategy.

This year's session is an update from last year's successful session,
Business Anti-Social: Why the Boss Doesn't Get It

This year is:

Business Anti-Social: The Boss Needs SugarCRM, Give it To Them!

After the huge success you had following last year's session, your executive now uses SugarCRM right? Probably not all of you won that battle, ready for this year's? You need to be doing more, faster. Did you get messages out before and after the storms hit? What does this have to do with CRM? Everything! You need to help your CEO look good to the outside world, not just help the sales teams with business development. What other ways can you help your company look better to the outside world? Come listen as we revisit the mind of the executive and provide a few options to keep them even happier with your efforts. Leave the session with a new song list and a better understanding of how to help your executives, and yourselves, but most importantly your customers.

See you in New York. If you are coming, let me know, and if you are in town and want to meet up let me know as well.

Apathy or Retribution - Silo's Part 3

Continuing on with previous posts about Silos and being an ACE or an AS we now stop to think about some reasons for the middle ground people.

The two extremes, one side uses everything and shares like beer on tap overflowing a glass and the other shares nothing and could care less. They both work in their own way and should be respected for they have made a decision.
Most of the world however, or 95% of it, if I can warp an old statistics class idea, is in the middle. Not committing to do or not to do or even try. Yoda would not be pleased. Mostly they are paralyzed by the fear of retribution should they go up against something or someone they do not believe in or trust. they may also be stuck in the land of apathy, uncaring too much of the information because it does not touch their little world (mini fiefdoms).

So now that you got here, how do you get these people to go to the other side without paying the ferryman?

 In a post from October, I wrote this:

Stop Using the F, S and C words to Explain Connections

What I did not touch on was the need for people to belong and feel connected to others emotionally which is why they may use Facebook or Linkedin. That emotional need does not exist in business for most people. It's their job and unless they are 100% into their job and company the same need isn't there, thus the apathy. And also they rightly presume this may be used against them, thus the retribution.

Now compare this to a person who blogs about the issues within an educational organization who is trying to reach out to people who are affected by the decisions and yet the same people do not want to speak out or comment for fear of retribution by the community at large.

Now how do you as a sales person help your vendor sell their social business solution into a company? We have seen installations get tossed aside because of lack of usage. We have read about solutions that served them well for years to be tossed for something new. We have even seen some people choose to turn off some options because they want to force employees to think differently, the cold turkey method.

Buy-in from employees comes when they see their leadership making the effort and leading the way and showing the benefits to the company which in turn benefits the employees, or it should. Only in this way can you stave off the apathetic and assuage the fear of retribution.
It is not an easy process to accomplish and  it takes time to spread this across, especially if your company has been full of Silos and fiefdoms for some time.

And There Rose a New King

It is said that the Torah or Bible could be interpreted in over 70 ways. More likely these days 100's of ways. In light of this idea, I want to start some posts that bring a business sense to what we can learn on a weekly basis.

So what business lesson can we learn from this week's Parsha or section which is read this week?

Chapter 1, verse 8 says "And there rose a New King (Pharoah) for Egypt that did not know Joseph".

Many times in business we face this situation, sometimes at a client, sometimes as an employee. In either case it leads to many questions and worries for everyone involved.

The need of the new leader to show their might or change of direction from previous management or regimes is filled with opportunities. The problem is how to deal with these changes. People on the whole dislike change. Employees are sometimes immune to it, especially when you are lower in the hierarchy. But what can you do to make the transition smoother for you and the new leader?

If you are in management, how do you want present your best foot forward? If the new leader is unknown you may only get one chance to get the discussion to go your way. If you are in sales, you face the same dilemma.

Naturally you want to present your projects or solutions to the new leader...but hold on a second.

Have you thought about what the new leader wants to accomplish? You know your projects or offerings but is that what they want to hear?

Since new leaders seek out quick wins and accomplishments, in addition to setting their own pace and personality on the business, think about how you can help.

Your projects may be nebulous but find that quick win! If you rely on the same old attitude or discuss how the project is a year long initiative or is a company wide effort you will not make them happy. Even long term company wide projects have short term goals and little things which will bring some benefit, put them in play.

If you are selling to the new leader, don't bring anything to the meeting except your ears and something to take notes. Your first meeting will set the future. Don't blow the opportunity by pushing what you are comped on or thinking the previous discussions will be continued. You can still steer the conversation your way but you need to first listen to the leader.

Many times when I am called upon to meet with clients for the first time or under new regimes, I ask the most basic questions around what the leader wants to accomplish, what are the limitations and what would make their daily life easier. You want to encourage them to lay out their mind and plans and understand them and show you understand them.

The next time you end up in this situation remember that the Pharoah in Egypt did not listen to his advisers and it led to his downfall so don't end up being the ignored adviser.

What matters depends on your viewpoint

Previous post had a number of comments. Some asked for more discussion to flesh out the snippets I tossed around.

So salaries do not matter. Money does. Yet, probably more than 95% of the world makes their money via salaries. And this is great if you are getting paid your value and you provide your worth to the company.

But what about the dead wood of your company? Why does that man or woman in sales exist still when all they do is keep messing up? They get a raise? And you don't? Why?

The reality is, if you take care of yourself, you will not get a benefit from your employer every time. Think like a small business and treat your job like one and you should do fine is just not quite the way of reality.

Companies don't care. In fact, one can argue, the reverse happens. Management does not like smarter people under them. The exact reverse of how they should view it. Instead of fearing these people, management should be happier because the smarter people will in turn help the manager get promoted and everyone becomes happier. What happens in reality is the management fears intelligent people, discourages them and their ideas, will trade them to anyone else in the company or just let them go..if they don't leave on their own first.

What happens when the person leaves? The manager gets more money in their budget, not for everyone's bonus, but for their own. Yes, Dilbert's boss lives on everywhere. Companies do not care about you as an employee. How do I know? Because you are not making any more salary than someone did 20 years ago.

In some cases jobs disappeared over time or business morphed into new technologies or merged but in other ways salaries really have not changed a whole lot. Were it not for the minimum wage levels, most people's jobs would be way below what they are paid now. Because they do not provide enough effort or value to the company and the company in turn may not view the role as important.

Call it PR, awareness or just plain bragging, if someone has no idea about what you do every day or why what you do is important, you may find yourself at the end of a "can we have your badge please" discussion.

If a manufacturer or vendor drops a product from their catalog, that isn't your fault. Staying on top of the news or direction coming from that vendor is your fault if you have not been letting your management know your findings. Sometimes this is against our own personal bias, for instance if you supported Symbian, you are now 100% dead. Could you have seen the writing on the wall for the last year or two? Yes, did you? Maybe. Did you tell your boss? Maybe. Did they listen? Doesn't matter, not your fault, but now what?

Do you get up Monday morning and change your ways? No, it's not that simple. Start with a little step, spend 5 or 10 minutes just writing/typing your thoughts and what you want or need. The power of goal setting, in text, writing, visibility or however it helps you has been proven time and time again. Your targets and goals at work mean nothing to you usually and so if you hit them or not makes no difference to you, aside from the job you have which may become precarious.

To think this job is the one you will be doing down the road is just not likely. Be open to change, recognize an opportunity, define yourself better and in turn get better recognition, and hopefully salary, at work or however you earn your money.