Beyond Messaging

Business as Usual

Modern life and modern business is so full of change that the very idea of "business as usual" seems quaint and out of date.  If you are not growing and changing, you can sure assume that your competition is!  There is this fear of the other company coming out with a new product, a cheaper way to make something, or a revolutionary way to interact with customers.

Let's think for a moment about business as usual.  Routines create efficiencies, processes in place ensure consistent results, and business as usual should indicate that all the process you painstakingly set up are working as planned.  Business as usual means customers are buying, being billed, and money is flowing into the bank accounts.  Business as usual means that employees have the tools and equipment they need to do their jobs.  It means no downtime, less frustrations, and less friction.

If your business is well tuned, has a great product, and great people, business as usual is going to make you money!  Interruptions and upheavals can cost valuable time and energy better spent on making customers happy.

So while your strategic thinkers are innovating and pointing out the new direction the company needs to go in, please don't forget to appreciate the profits that come with business as usual.

Free Granola Software acts like a Dimmer Switch on PCs to cut Energy Use by 30 Percent

via www.greenbiz.com

This looks like a great idea - the Granola software produced by a VA Tech spinoff company, regulated the voltage used on x86 PCs, servers, and laptops running both Windows and Linux.

If you don't already have a high end UPS doing this type of dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) this program is just the ticket.

Obstacles to Adoption of Collaborative Systems for Business

Here are some factors to consider when building an online collaboration tool for business.

 

Reasons people will not create content:

1. The "Information is Job Security" mentality.  Make fun of it as much as you wish, there is some truth to the idea that holding back certain key pieces of information can be a method for building job security.  Gatekeepers know that if they gain a reputation for being the only person who can get a certain task done, they will gain repeat customers for this task. I used to scoff at this behavior (being a person who happens to really love sharing information)  However, after being in the trenches of various corporate environments, I no longer scoff at the gatekeeper personality.  I have quite frankly seen that gate-keeping information does sometimes keep more job security.  This is going to be a factor of the corporate culture.  Does your company value personal achievements only, or does it value the people that make up teams that share information and support each other.  If your company only values or appears to value rock stars and people who seem irreplaceable, then your may have trouble convincing people to share the contents of their heads.  After all, part of the reason for capturing knowledge in a collaborative system is that it will remain after the person leaves.  For an employee to want to take extra time to populate a collaborate database, they have to have a certain level of trust that their contribution will be valued more than the fact of them being the only one who knows something.

2. KISS. If your employee takes a look at the workspace and is confused at first glance, they probably will never go back to it. It has to be easy and easy to understand.  Think Facebook.  If you expect your tool or project to take off, make sure that it is dead simple to use.  Busy people have a lot to do, and they can't take time to be trained to use a collaborative system.  It needs to just work, and look and act like tools they may already be familiar with outside the corporate environment.  

3.  Teams need to know they can have privacy for team workspaces and easily be able to tell which spaces are corporate wide and which are team limited.  Do provide some basic training to team leaders for the application so they can set their own security.  I think a proper system would list on the top of the screen what groups have access to the information.  Companies need to keep their intellectual property secure.

4.  No one wants to be the first person out on the dance floor.  We are extremely social creatures and seek to avoid embarrassment at all costs. The make our break of a collaborative system is if it "takes off."  I would strongly consider not only pre-populating some posts, but also make sure there are always fresh posts.  No one wants to post to a dead forum or workspace.  If I were the owner of a collaborative system just getting off the ground I would literally assign content population to a certain number of team members to ensure that there is some use.  Bribes Prizes for people who take the plunge and add their own content may be in order.

5.  People need a sense of ownership.  If it feels cold and disconnected from the people behind the posts, it has less chance of success.  I would have someone go around and take a photo of each team member so you can populate their profile page.  One of the most powerful aspects of electronic collaboration is to allow team members in various locations the ability to have a conversation without having to fly across the globe.  Have a photo next to your name is priceless.

6.  Disconnected systems.  If you want to use your collaborative system to help locate expertise in your organization you need to spend the time to link back end systems.  Populate user profiles with job titles, skill sets, and certifications.  Make sure telephone numbers, BBM pin numbers, email addresses, and other contact information is listed. Avoid duplication of data entry if possible.  Don't throw up a collaborative system out of the box with no links to the other corporate systems or its probably destined to be an orphan application.

Why You Aren’t Successful

There is no prize or recognition for having an idea that you weren’t able to execute. There is no Nobel prize for the people who almost came up with something brilliant but didn’t ever get around to writing it down or creating a paper about it.

The ability to actually complete things is what puts you in the running for wild success. The better you become at actually completing things on a regular basis, the more likely you are to achieve great things. The ability to finish is simply the price of admission, but it represents a significant barrier for most people.

via www.productivity501.com

Ok, I seriously LOVE this article. It says what I have been trying to say many times before but in a way that is so much more direct that I would put it. I am too nice - but productivity501.com calls it harsh and true.