Google for non-profits
Google has launched a site for non-profits with free Google tools to promote their work, raise money, and operate more efficiently
Bank-customer communication and blogs
Whilst I have been aware of Savings & Loans credit union's blog for some time, the Better Banking Blog has drawn my attention to RaboPlus's Executive Blog and its demonstration of the value of interactive communication with customers.
In the comments section on a post about Westpac's online banking downtime, RaboPlus's Head of Financial Services for Australia and New Zealand receives comments both about his site's own downtime and design and responds to both quickly receiving praise from the commenters.
There's no point in being defensive: if you're open about problems and show that you'll respond to comments you'll attract a favourable response.
Finding information
Here's the link between knowledge management and user-generated content...an excellent video
Does your business have a personality?
One of the first questions asked by brand advisers is "how would you describe your firm if it was an animal...or a car...or a person?" Is it a camel or a hippo or a tiger? A porsche or a volvo?
They try and express the character of your business graphically or through design.
Most often we see this on websites. Is your website modern and efficient? Or clunky and conservative? Does it have personality?
Community First Credit Union have tried to express their personality on their website through an online greeter (a concierge?) called Lisa. Is she fun, innovative or a failure?
Type "dance" into the question field and decide whether she's appropriate for a financial institution.
Demonstrating your expertise to potential customers
In the Corporate and Business Blogging session at the recent Australian Blogging Conference, 2 of the reasons given for a business to blog were to demonstrate your expertise and to show thought leadership.
During the discussion we talked about blogging policies and I said that I self-edit: I do not discuss confidential client matters and I do not talk about proprietary business methods I have developed.
The discussion moved on but I want to go back and discuss the importance of sharing information with (even educating ) potential customers.
It's long been my view that businesses (including doctors and lawyers) benefit by talking about what they do and by giving free information, whether it's building a cupboard, making cakes, medical information or administering an estate.
With information, potential customers are able to make some basic decisions: do they need your service/product or not? How do your services/product compare with others? Can they do it themselves? Do they need an expert?
I also believe in the value of collaboration with other like-minded people (see my wiki).
I believe that the best businesses are those who are willing to share information. Because by doing so they demonstrate that what they do is work with you from a common base and add more value to your relationship than if you did not have that shared knowledge.
Who would you rather work with? Someone who is willing to provide you with information and evidence of their expertise or someone who isn't prepared to communicate at all?
What do your employees think?
It's often said that a business's best marketers are its employees (and conversely unhappy employees result in bad service).
In a time when we have technological social networking tools are you giving your staff the opportunity and encouragement to publicly talk about your business? Are you monitoring what's being said about your business online?
Here's what happened when an employee of Lloyds TSB (a UK bank) read critical reviews of her employer: she posted a write-up about the trials and tribulations of being a bank cashier and ended with this:
Why do I stay - I enjoy the job, the staff and regular customers are
lovely. The bank are very flexible regarding part-time work,maternity
arrangements and are understanding regarding kids being ill swapping
days around etc. I suppose they need to keep the dedicated workforce
happy,as at lower levels it mainly consists of part-time women...
I'm not sure how long there will be traditional large banking
organisations. With the increase of internet banks, telephone banks and
supermarket banking. I believe their only chance of survival is to
provide outstanding customer service. So far they haven't been getting
it right. My impression is they have now recognised the need to change
and hopefully things will improve for the better.
This clearly shows an employee acting as advocate and the importance of not undervaluing your frontline staff. (via Bankwatch)
If you want to know what's being said about you online, sign up for Google Alerts.
What makes YouTube a great communication channel?
What makes a business video a YouTube success?
Looking at the blendtec videos gives you a good guide: they are funny, authentic, original and relevant to the product.
Groundswell reviews the blendtec story starting with one $50 video and the question: will it blend?
Fail fast, fail cheap
One of the lessons fom the fast-moving technology sector for new businesses or new projects is "fail fast, fail cheap".
This does not mean that you start a business with the intention of failing, but that you must have pre-determined measures of success and failure. By observing these you control your costs, and the losses you suffer if you fail. This is one of the hardest things to do for a project you are passionate about.
The BBC expresses this as "Fall forward, fast: make many small bets, iterate wildly, back successes, kill failures, fast."
April podcast
My second podcast is now available!
You can now listen to me while you eat your lunch (just turn up your speakers) or download it to your mp3 player and listen while you commute or go for a walk. Let me know what you think!
This month I discuss my collaborative compliance wiki, marketing, web 2.0 and communities of practice and what all that has to do with law, compliance and improving your business.
The podcast goes for 10 mins 35 seconds and is 9.69mb.
Our networked world
One of 2007's key technology trends is collaboration and communities.
We are able to work on a project online with colleagues and meet friends online.
We multitask a range of devices.
Forbes magazine's latest issue features Networks.
Sonme of the articles worth reading include:
- Seth Godin Your product, your customer (marketing in a networked world)
- John Chambers Guts and Glory (the technology revolution)
- Sherry Turkle Can you hear me now? (what sort of people does technology turn us into)
Australia's Global Information Technology Ranking
Australia's ranking in The Global Information Technology Report 2006-2007 has sparked a political debate about Australia's broadband network (both coverage and speed).
For the 2nd year in a row Australia is ranked 15th.
The Report uses the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) to measure the degree of preparation of a nation or community to participate in and benefit from ICT developments. The NRI is composed of three component indexes which assess:
- environment for ICT offered by a country or community
- readiness of the community's key stakeholders (individuals, business and governments)
- usage of ICT among these stakeholders.
Web 2.0 and wikis for business
If you're still wondering what web 2.0 means for business and whether there is an opportunity for you then it's worth reading some recent articles: PC Authority has a cover story on web 2.0 (including blogging, podcasting, social networking and wikis) and Business Week has recent stories on The Wiki Workplace and wikis for collaboration.
Business Week also has a video interview with Arun Sundararajan, Professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, about how wikis are changing businesses.
Online business models: banking case study
The internet has changed the way businesses communicate with customers and the way customers talk with each other about businesses they deal with.
The internet has been described as "disruptive": new business models cut out the traditional "middleman". Businesses have to find out what customers want and how to deliver it.
In a recent presentation at the LIFT Conference in Geneva, Colin Henderson spoke about how banks are changing. He begins the presentation with an excellent overview of the issues affecting all businesses attempting to cope with the new technologies and then gives examples of how some banks and credit unions have responded to the challenge of "open source banking".
Internet round-up: Blawg Review #100
One of the best ways to catch up with internet reading is to follow a "carnival" which rounds up a "Best of" in your interest area each week.
This week Blawg Review celebrates its 100th edition: there's a great range of reading and you're sure to find something of interest.
Business and Corporate Blogging
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation and the Queensland University of Technology will host the Australian Blogging Conference on Thursday 8 March 2007 at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane.
The program includes a session on business and corporate blogging. Registration is free so if you're wondering how blogging can affect your business, come along.
UPDATE 4 February: Conference postponed
Are You the Person of the Year? And how does that affect your business?
TIME has named "YOU" as the Person of the Year for 2006, provided YOU are a participant in the internet or create content for it: through blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos or any other form by which you share information and knowledge with others.
But, you say, I run a business, what's that got to do with me?
What TIME has recognised is that web users (including your customers, employees and competitors) have evolved from being an audience to being participants.
And that change is affecting a range of industries, not just media.
Web users tell stories to each other. They make recommendations about products and companies. They share productivity information and "life hacks".
They share videos, photos, music, anything that can be digitised. And then they modify it and share that. And news about all of this is sent automatically by RSS feeds.
Businesses use web applications to automate processes and get customer and employee feedback and share knowledge.
Some businesses are afraid of this new era of interactivity. Others will take advantage of it.
If you are interested but don't know where to start or how it will help you , give me a call and I'll discuss it with you for no charge. I'll even arrange a RSS feed reader with a set of blog feeds to start you off.
Or you can browse through the following links.
LINKS
- Top web apps in Australia
- Tom Peters' short video Brawl With No Rules (top of right hand column of linked page)
- Ross Dawson's video presentation on Web 2.0
- The Corporate Blogging Book
- Deploying a corporate wiki
- Why and how does explicit knowledge sharing make a difference?
Want to know more ? The Australian Blogging Conference will be held in March 2007.
Identity theft
The charging of the former chair of Hewlett Packard and 4 others with identity theft and wrongful use of computer data has turned a corporate ethics case study in respect of corporate spying and investigations of boardroom leaks into a reminder of the growth of identity theft in a digital world.
Identity theft is part of identity fraud, and specifically refers to the theft and use of personal identifying information of a person, as opposed to the use of a fictitious identity. This includes the theft and use of personal information of persons either living or dead.
So here are some resources for learning about protecting your identity and personal information:
- Dick Hardt's terrific video on Identity 2.0;
- Jon Udell and Phil Windley's audio conversation (podcast) on identity;
- How to prevent and respond to identity theft: a kit from the Australian National Crime Prevention Programme.
Corporate ethics: HP case study
While the Cole Inquiry was adjourned, I monitored the growing furore in the USA over Hewlett Packard's spying operation on its own directors, journalists and others, meant to identify the source of leaks of confidential information to the news media.
The company's investigation, aimed at tracing leaks to the news media from the company's board in 2005 and early 2006, came into public view three weeks ago as a result of deep divisions in the boardroom. It is also the subject of federal and state criminal investigations.
So far the chairwoman, general counsel, the manager of global investigations and the senior counsel and director of ethics have left HP and a Congressional hearing has been convened.
The investigations focus on the use of deception to obtain private phone records of directors and employees suspected of leaking information. Essentially impostors were able to gain online access to records of individual's phone accounts, a practice called "pretexting".
An account of how the investigation was conducted has emerged from the documents, which include memos, e-mails and handwritten notes from people with knowledge of the investigation.
The story contains revelations of spying, misstating legal advice received and boardroom divisions.
Technology risks: controlling USB connections
With the rapid acceptance of iPods, mp3 players, digital cameras, flash drives and portable hard drives (all with substantial memory capacity) there are a whole range of new devices with USB connections which could connect to a business's network through any PC USB connection and pose risks for that business. And that's not allowing for someone who really intends to copy files by using a File Transfer Cable.
I recently read that some businesses are supergluing their computers' USB ports to prevent access by such devices. But that shouldn't be necessary with USB security software such as Device Lock.
Rather than trying to regulate the type of device that could be attached to a computer network, it is more helpful to identify the risks that a business faces by allowing any uncontrolled device in its premises and to then manage those risks.
Why should businesses be concerned about devices which connect to their network to either gain access to their internal systems?
The risks include:
- unlawful use of a third party's intellectual property ,
- privacy breach ,
- misuse of company resources,
- breach of information and data security, and
- breach of confidentiality.
Do you have a policy on how your business deals with these risks?
Australian Customs Service offers compensation over Integrated Cargo System
Following the release of the review of Customs' Integrated Cargo System , ACS has announced it has begun to offer compensation to address difficulties experienced by the importing industry following the introduction of the Integrated Cargo System.
Customs CEO Michael Carmody said Customs had completed its review of 320 out of 433 claims received to date and would shortly begin responding to these claimants about the status of their cases. Customs is continuing to review the remaining claims received.
Understanding the Long Tail: the benefits of ecommerce
Have you noticed how music of the 60's, 70's and 80's is reappearing today? How you find out about books by a variety of recommendations, not just the bestseller lists. There is a huge amount of business being generated in the online book and music industries by the back catalogues of things that weren't hits.
In October 2004 Chris Anderson wrote an article called "The Long Tail". He argued that the mere availability of choice in an online world guarantees a sale of some items that wouldn't even get shelf space in a physical store.
That article has been expanded into a book, The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand.
The Times has recently published 2 extracts: Brave new world of a million niches beats the blockbusters and The ants have megaphones. So what are they saying?
They are worth reading. Here's a key quote:
There are three aspects of the Long Tail that have the effect of shifting demand down the tail, from hits to niches. The first is the availability of greater variety. If you offer people a choice of ten things, they will choose one of the ten. If you offer them a thousand things, demand will be less concentrated in the top ten.
The second is the lower “search costs” of finding what you want, which range from actual search to recommendations and other filters. Finally, there is sampling, from the ability to hear 30 seconds of a song for free to the ability to read a portion of a book online. This tends to lower the risk of purchasing, encouraging consumers to venture farther into the unknown.
Keeping things confidential
It may sound obvious but you can only claim that something is confidential if you keep it confidential.
A large number of reports of breaches of data privacy are based on events when confidential information simply wasn't kept secure: when filing cabinets were not locked up overnight, when files were left in the back of a car or laptops weren't password-protected.
How many times have you been in a lift when you see someone holding a file with private customer information displayed on the front? Most times it won't matter but if it is the phone number of a wife trying to protect herself from a violent husband or financial or property information about a customer then there could be serious consequences.
10 Spy Tips lists 10 ways in which information can be lost. People who want to access your information can do so with little effort. Most methods are not high-tech and rely on you doing things like leaving keys in desk drawers or discussing confidential matters in cafes.
Am I being paranoid? Read Paranoia by Joseph Finder.
UPDATE: 10 things you can do to protect your data
UPDATE 26 June: Australian IT reports that the details of 3500 customers from 18 banks, including names and account numbers, were lost when a classified computer dossier on Russian mafia "phishing" scams was misplaced by the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in April last year. A police officer with the AHTCC lost a memory stick - containing the dossier, between Sydney and London. The memory stick was not protected by a password or encryption.
Business and Web 2.0
Businesses are looking at the "next big thing" on the internet. It's called Web 2.0 but already ownership of that term is in in dispute, so let's call it collaboration and interactivity.
It's transforming the internet to the extent that traditional media companies are looking over their shoulders at what businesses are doing amongst themselves, without intermediaries.
In this podcast (mp3) Peter Day from the BBC discusses where it's all leading and what established businesses need to know.
See Tom Peters' short video Brawl With No Rules (top of right hand column of linked page)
Australian Customs Service: IT implementation review
The Booz Allen Hamilton review of Customs' Integrated Cargo System (ICS) has been released.
When the ICS Imports module was implemented on 12 October 2005 it resulted in severe short-term consequences for the movement of Australia's sea cargo. In the first days after implementation, a large proportion of containers were held by Customs on the docks, resulting in delays in imports in the lead-up to Christmas.
The review concludes that the causes of the problems were:
- Inadequate end-to-end testing of the system – testing with live data wouldhave highlighted many of the issues that manifested when the system went live;
- Quality problems with third-party software – many users experienced problems that were not ICS-related but rather were problems in the software they use to communicate with Customs. Customs has no means of checking their readiness.
- A lack of staged implementation – the “big bang” implementation provided no realistic fall-back when problems existed and no way of ensuring that the total end-to-end importation supply chain process worked correctly before widespread implementation;
- Inadequate training in the new system – many organisations were not able to train in the combined new environment of their third-party software and the ICS. This meant that these organisations were not sufficiently prepared and had not adapted their own internal processes to the requirements of the new system.
Customs has accepted the review's recommendations for operational changes.
Startups: can we create another Silicon Valley in Queensland?
Queensland is trying to broaden its resource-based economy through its "Smart State" technology-based strategy.
So Paul Graham's essay How to be Silicon Valley offers some interesting insights into the necessary ingredients for stimulating the growth of a Silicon Valley locally:
It wouldn't be surprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because you couldn't reproduce it in most of the US either. What does it take to make a silicon valley even here?... What nerds like is the kind of town where people walk around smiling...
A corollary is that you have to keep out the biggest developer of all: the government. A government that asks How can we build a silicon valley? has probably ensured failure by the way they framed the question. You don't build a silicon valley; you let one grow... For all its power, Silicon Valley has a great weakness: the paradise Shockley found in 1956 is now one giant parking lot. San Francisco and Berkeley are great, but they're forty miles away. Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl. It
has fabulous weather, which makes it significantly better than the soul-crushing sprawl of most other American cities. But a competitor that managed to avoid sprawl would have real leverage. All a city needs is to be the kind of place the next traitorous eight look at and say "I want to stay here," and that would be enough to get the chain reaction started.
you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds...
Smart people will go wherever other smart people are. And in particular, to great universities. In
theory there could be other ways to attract them, but so far universities seem to be indispensable. Within the US, there are no technology hubs without first-rate universities-- or at least,
first-rate computer science departments...
Graham operates a venture firm specializing in funding very early stage startups called Y Combinator. It also worthwhile reading his essays How to start a startup and Why startups condense in America.
UPDATE 7 June: Guy Kawasaki's post on How to kick Silicon Valley's butt argues that other places should aim higher than trying to recreate Silicon Valley. He lists things that other places can't do anything about as well as things that they should and should not do. Interestingly both Graham and Kawasaki argue that any place wanting to recreate/beat Silicon Valley should encourage immigration.
New Australian Guidelines for Electronic Commerce
Further to my post on website compliance, The Australian Guidelines for Electronic Commerce, were released by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer on 17 March 2006. More
How does your business website rate for compliance?
I recently presented a web seminar on risk management for financial services websites.
As the principles are equally valid for any other business website I thought I'd set them out here and invite comments.
I came up with 3 principles and 17 guidelines for developing a business website. Whilst some overlap they are a starting point. But they are not an audit checklist for specific legal requirements:
Principles
1. A business website must be compliant, it can’t just look good
2. It must look good (and be easy to use)
3. Incorporate risk management and compliance into development
Guidelines
1. Implement consumer protection and accessibility through good design
2. Avoid customer confusion by using well written content
3. Ensure there is adequate disclosure of key legal information
4. Provide security information to customers
5. Protect customer privacy and confidentiality
6. Know your customers
7. Be clear about third party relationships
8. Tell your story:use your website to report to your users about governance, social and environmental matters as well as financial matters
9. Use your website to communicate with your customers
10. Provide users with interactive tools and functions
11. Provide information for investors
12. Implement member service systems
13. Integrate legal requirements into the website
14. Develop an IT governance policy: know your strategic goal
15. Be innovative
16. Communicate with employees
17. Involve your compliance officer in planning
UPDATE 21 March: Jakob Nielsen's latest article is relevant to Principles 1 and 2:
"the biggest design flaws destroying business value typically involve:
- Communicating clearly so that users understand you. Users allocate minimal time to initial website visits, so you must quickly convince them that the site's worthwhile.
- Providing information users want. Users must be able to easily determine whether your services meet their needs and why they should do business with you.
- Offering simple, consistent page design, clear navigation, and an information architecture that puts things where users expect to find them."
Corporate blogging
If you run a business and are looking at different ways of getting your marketing message out and communicating with existing and potential customers, consider a blog.
As it is the holiday season, if you have a broadband connection spend a few minutes watching the video of presentations at the recent Lewis Industry Forum by Loic Le Meur, EVP of SixApart and Dr Jo Twist, technology correspondent for BBC Online, where they spoke about the impact of blogging on corporate reputations and on the way the media operates .
Le Meur gives some interesting case studies of the good and bad of blogging and emphasises the importance of conversations and collaboration through blogging. He notes the importance of keeping confidential things confidential and also in not assuming what blog readers will find interesting.
Jo Twist makes it clear that blogs are an important source of news for her as a journalist. She reads blogs to get the latest news and comments on issues from politics and business to disasters to oddities (she uses Bloglines to aggregate the RSS feeds of 122 blogs) . She emphasises the role of journalists as fact checkers: by interviewing people, taking photos and adding value to stories which may have first been mentioned in a blog. She emphasises that the role of journalists (at least those at the BBC) is to be accurate, not necessarily the quickest or first.
If you're a business wondering what blogs are all about, listen to these talks.
Australian Customs Service: IT Governance nightmare
The Minister of Justice and Customs has been playing down for weeks the severity of difficulties with the implementation of Australia's new Cargo Management Re-engineering computer system which tracks all incoming goods on our wharves and at airports. See this transcript of his interview with Alan Jones on 21 October.
The system reportedly ran AU$200 million over budget, went live despite known problems and without the backup of the previous system.
Amidst escalating costs of fixing the system and threats of a class action by importers, brokers and forwarders and ongoing congestion at ports the Government has announced the appointment of Michael Carmody, currently the head of the Australian Taxation Office, as head of the Australian Customs Service to fix the problem.
Electronic document retention guidelines
The US based Sedona Working Group has published its Best Practice Guidelines Commentary for Managing Information Records in the Electronic Age (pdf).
Whilst the document is US litigation focussed, its 5 basic principles have general application:
1. An organization should have reasonable policies and procedures for managing its information and records.
2. An organization’s information and records management policies and procedures should be realistic, practical and tailored to the circumstances of the organization.
3. An organization need not retain all electronic information ever generated or received.
4. An organization adopting an information and records management policy should also develop procedures that address the creation, identification, retention, retrieval and ultimate disposition or destruction of information and records.
5. An organization’s policies and procedures must mandate the suspension of ordinary destruction practices and procedures as necessary to comply with preservation obligations related to actual or reasonably anticipated litigation, government investigation or audit.
Such policies assume your organisation has a Code of Conduct and a compliance culture which will honour the Guidelines.
Recent cases in both USA and Australia have considered the importance of electronic records and the timing of their destruction. A well thought out policy will minimise suggestions that destruction took place to avoid the law.
The policy should be integrated with your other compliance programs including your privacy policy relating to the collection and use of customer data.
Queensland Public Hospitals Commission of Inquiry
The evidence received by the terminated Bundaberg Hospital Commission of Inquiry will be admitted by the new Queensland Public Hospitals Commission of Inquiry.
After a slight delay, the new Inquiry has established a website with the features of the old Inquiry's site.
Morris Bundaberg Hospital Commission of Inquiry and technology
It's now a matter of public record that the Morris Inquiry has been shut down because of bias against 2 hospital administrators.
Here are the reasons for judgment.(pdf)
This note is on an aspect of the inquiry that has not been discussed elsewhere: the use of technology.
From the day the Inquiry was established it maintained a website that I believe will become a model: it didn't just have the terms of reference, it had every ruling, press release, submission and, as hearings progressed, daily transcripts.
Early on the media asked for video access. Morris gave it to them (provided they didn't affect the privacy of witnesses) so that the inquiry was on every night's news and audio feeds were heard on the radio.
The use of technology gave the public confidence that the inquiry wasn't being held "behind closed doors".
Ironically the technology was used to shut the Inquiry down. DVD's of Morris' questioning of witnesses were tendered in evidence against him and were in the eyes of Justice Moynihan compelling evidence of ostensible bias. The DVD's communicated in a way that a written transcript can't. A transcript wouldn't have shown Morris descending from the bench to shake the whistleblower Toni Hoffman's hand at the end of her evidence.
The Inquiry's use of technology was a successful experiment to show that the law can improve its interactivity with its users.
Disappointingly all that's left of the inquiry is this screenshot (pdf).
How to prioritise problems
Although How to Decide What Bugs to Fix When is about software development, it offers some great guidelines generally on prioritizing work.
The author argues that you should regularly perform "bug triage" to keep control of your project. Divide your problems into 3 piles: Must Fix, Might Fix and Won't Fix (or Priority 1, 2 and 3):
- If a bug is a Must Fix, it must be more important than any bug in Might Fix and Won't Fix.
- If the bug is a Might Fix, it must be more important than any bug in Won't Fix.
- If the bug is a Won't Fix, it must be less important than the least important Might Fix bug.
No more than 50% of the bugs should be in Must Fix and if the pile is too big divide it into Must Fix this week, and Must Fix eventually.
Each pile can then be analysed for severity.
The key quote:
" the criteria for prioritizing work should be what is most important to the project and the customer. A team's commitment to serving the project goals over other desires is often the difference between quality and shoddy work."
via Rob Hyndman
Communicating with customers: blogging about your business closure
I am an advocate of using blogs to communicate with your customers. But I have just come across the first example of a business owner using his blog to tell his customers that he has closed down and to tell them how they can retrieve their goods.
Ifulfill was an internet fulfillment house (they deliver goods you order over the internet). In the owner's blog he confirms the business has closed, posts FAQ's and answers and offers suggestions for alternative suppliers (via Business Blog Consulting).
It's not clear whether the business is insolvent or not but here's the owner's explanation:
"The question everyone wants an answer to: what happened?
In a nutshell: rapid growth and undercapitalization. In other words, not enough money to grow as fast as we did.
So why didn't I give 30 days notice? I've spent 6 years building this company. We've had many problems and many successes. The entrepreneurial spirit dictates that you solve whatever problems you are faced with. I've always tried to do that; sometimes more successfully than others, but you have to have faith and believe that you can solve whatever comes your way if you're actually going to tackle the problems you encounter.
But then a point arrives where you have to finally throw in the towel. Until that moment however, you maintain the same faith and continue to believe that you can work out problems."
Interestingly he's left on the ability to make and read comments to his blog so you can see his customers' worry and concern.
It appears that it's an orderly wind down with the co-operation of his landlord.
UPDATE 6 August: Business Week has the full story and here's the consultant's response.
Emails, organisation networks and knowledge management: 3 questions you need to answer
Do you know who is emailing who in your organisation?
Do you know what they are emailing each other about?
Do you know how your organisation's emails are archived?
There are regular news stories about the need to write emails prudently and to have a system for their destruction (see here and here).
Even though Arthur Andersen's conviction for obstruction of justice by wrongful destruction of evidence relating to Enron has been overturned on appeal (as no criminal intention was proved), the discussion about the use of emails in Enron has provided an insight into the ways people communicate with each other inside organisations and who they communicate with.
In HBS Working Knowledge's How organisation charts lie the authors argue that :
Whether as a manager presiding over a department or as a member embedded within one, we are all dramatically affected by information flow and webs of relationships within social networks. These networks often are not depicted on any formal chart, but they are intricately intertwined with an organization's performance, the way it develops and executes strategy, and its ability to innovate. For most of us, networks also have a great deal to do with our personal productivity, learning, and career success...
Even in small, contained groups, executives are often surprised by patterns of collaboration that are quite different from their beliefs and from the formal organization chart. Getting an accurate view of a network helps with managerial decision making and informs targeted efforts to promote effective collaboration. Rather than leave the inner workings of a network to chance, executives can leverage the insights of a social network analysis to address critical disconnects or rigidities in networks and create a sense-and-respond capability deep within the organization.
In Enron's 1.5-Million Emails: A Window Into Knowledge Management? Bruce MacEwen quotes a professor of computer science who was interviewed in a NY Times story:
"Companies have organizational charts, but they reveal little about how things really work, Dr. Carley said. Companies actually operate through informal networks, which can be revealed by analyzing "who spends time talking to whom, who are the power brokers, who are the hidden individuals who have to know what's going on," she said."
Knowing who is talking to who and about what is important from the point of view of productivity, collaboration and knowledge management.
Knowing where your emails are can also prove important if you are a defendant in a legal action.
Recently JP Morgan Morgan Stanley was fined $2.1million for overwriting backup tapes containing archived emails after a judge ordered they be produced in legal proceedings.
Do you have policies regarding the use of technology (including email) in your office?
The world is flat: technology, globalization and economics
There's been a lot of buzz about Thomas Friedman's new book "The World is Flat" (ironically not available in Australia yet).
Here's an extract from a New York Times piece by Friedman
Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0
(1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and
flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward,
this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0,
you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part...
when the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray...When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate.
Friedman describes 10 "flatteners" and the opportunities and challenges that have arisen. And why he calls it a crisis.
See also Doc Searls' review from a technology angle.
Nanotechnology in Australia
I was impressed by a seminar on nanotechnology at the Brisbane Technology Park on Wednesday. It was jointly organized by BTP with Carla Gerbo’s Centre for Business and Industry and Future Materials.
This technology is no longer science fiction (eg Michael Crichton’s Prey) or an oddity (such as the nanoharp). It has real commercial application.
Professor John Drennan from the University of Queensland Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis gave us an indication of the size of particles involved: he showed us pictures of the head of a pin magnified 6 million times – we were able to see the atomic structure of bacteria on the pin head.
A nanometer is a billionth of a metre. The diameter of a strand of human hair equals 100,000 nanometres.
Peter Talbot from The Very Small Particle Company is actually manufacturing nano material. He has developed a cost effective process which currently produces 60 tonnes a year. His company has developed its first commercial product.
Rodney Appleby, the senior scientist at Orica Mining Services demonstrated the uses of nanotechnology in his field.
Resources
www.nano.org.au
http://www.nanotechweb.org
Nanotechnology: Brave Goo World? (from Australian Anthill Magazine)
Is there such a thing as a good call centre?
One of the most self-aware ads currently on television is ANZ Bank's ad for its 24/7 call centre.
It features a range of robots from old television programs (starting withThe Robot from Lost in Space) who pass the telephone down the queue ("your call is important to us") until it reaches the Dalek which screeches "exterminate".
According to this HBS Working Knowledge article there is a call centre that works. It looks at the processes of Sallie Mae in the US which looks after $100 billion in student loans for 7 million borrowers. It receives nearly 20,000 calls a day.
A sample quote:
One way Sallie Mae uncovers new trends is through a process called "hot topics." When agents notice a trend, they write a summary of it with examples and send an e-mail to management so that issue can be reviewed. Once a resolution is determined, a Knowledge Tool is created—a user-friendly online resource that agents can access for real-time information. The online system is a repository for the expertise of the entire call center. So by typing in a keyword from a caller's question, an inexperienced agent can retrieve all the information he or she will need to answer it.
I'd like to see that.
UPDATE : 5 May
This article from The McKinsey Quarterly discusses the metrics of call centres.
Corporate and Business Blogs
If you're an employer who wants to know more about blogs and whether you should let your employees write one, then I recommend you read Edelman's Guide to the Blogosphere (pdf) and this post on the interrelationship between businesses, weblogs and employees .
If you just want to know more about what blogs have to offer and want to read some samples then go to this week's Carnival of the Capitalists and Blawg Review (where my usability note is mentioned).
UPDATE: NY Times has this article: When the Blogger Blogs, Can the Employer Intervene? (via Between Lawyers)
Usability: how good usability can improve performance in your business
Are you sure that your new client induction system, knowledge management system, your accounting system or document production system is as good as it can be? Have you asked the users?
Jakob Nielsen writes a regular column on usability at useit.com
He is recognised as a leader in website and intranet design (eg navigation and search tools) and advocate of usability testing to improve user experiences and therefore site performance.
He believes that the principle of usability applies to any system which interacts with people, from fighter planes to cars to office software.
His column this week is about medical usability. He discusses a recent hospital field study which recorded 22 instances of how a poorly designed medication system resulted in patients getting the wrong medication. These ranged from poor readability and wrong dates to wrong doses. His article does not mention it but I recall recent publicity about an incident where the colour of labelling on a drug bottle had to be changed because it had been confused with a toxic drug in an emergency.
A key quote:
When it comes to user errors caused by bad design, there's a further problem as well: If the interface fails to provide adequate feedback, users might not even realize that they've committed an error.
How many of your office systems could be improved by asking your customers and staff to show you how they use them and problems they face?
As a bonus, the article then describes the writer's difficulty in tracking down the report used as the basis for the original New York Times story on the study.
The article is well worth reading as a case study, not just on your internal systems' usability but also in how to improve your marketing by ensuring newsworthy articles are accessible on your website.
UPDATE: Paul McKey mentioned today that Nielsen's partner, Donald Norman, wrote The Design of Everyday Things. Paul designs e-learning systems and is critical of programs that are compliance-focussed without offering a learning experience for users.
The Usernomics blog discusses "Usability in the news" . Its latest post points to an article on IBM developerworks about the design (or lack of it) of the US tax form.
Spam prosecutions by ACA
A Melbourne car company that text-messaged people after copying their mobile phone numbers from classified ads has been fined more than $6,500 by the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) under the Spam Act.
carsales.com.au Ltd was issued with infringement notices for on-the-spot penalties of $6,600 by the ACA for sending unsolicited commercial SMS messages in breach of the Spam Act 2003.
“The ACA believes that those people selling cars published their telephone numbers in classified ads only so potential buyers could contact them,” ACA Acting Chairman Dr Bob Horton said.
“They did not consent to receiving commercial SMS messages advertising a car sales website from a company they had no relationship with, and who collected their mobile phone numbers from the newspapers.”
According to the ACA, since the Spam Act came into force in April last year, the ACA has required 200 businesses to amend their practices to comply with the Act. Of those required to changes their practices, three were fined by the ACA for more substantial breaches, three were issued with formal warnings and one gave an enforceable undertaking.
UPDATE: a US spammer got 9 years' jail.
Use business email prudently
Yesterday I posted a note about record retention and electronic discovery.
Today I learned (via this WSJ article) that the Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher's sacking over his affair with a female co-executive was triggered by his emails to her which explicitly described their relationship.
The article chronicles the executives and politicians who have come to grief over indiscreet email communications.
The key quote:
As for e-mail -- well, unlike love, it is forever. You may think you've destroyed every last vestige of it, but it lives on, in some forgotten corner of some far-off server, waiting like Sleeping Beauty to be brought back to life by a zealous prosecutor or an overcompensated trial lawyer.
Put another way, would you be happy to see the email's contents in Google or on the front page of your local paper?
UPDATE: 12 March. This Business Week article gives a wrap-up of the story.
IT Governance: new Australian Standard
Standards Australia has issued AS 8015-2005 Corporate governance of information and communication technology.
The Standard is based on the draft last year discussed by me here.
The Standard provides principles for directors to help ensure that an organisation's technology is aligned with its business objectives.
Data Risk Management
You and your staff routinely work with electronic documents and data. Protecting the security and confidentiality of that information is important. A failure to take appropriate steps to protect the electronic data in your business could result in a release of sensitive information, the loss of customers or even the theft of your personal identity. To minimize the risk of any disclosure or loss of confidential data, you should understand where the risks are, and implement office management practices and appropriate technology to ensure all of your data remains confidential and secure.
From Practicepro, a legal profession insurer (via Jim Calloway) comes this booklet (PDF) which highlights the risks and provides a comprehensive review of various steps you should take to ensure that the electronic information in your business remains confidential and secure.
As supplements read these:
Valuable reading!
Creative Commons Licence launched In Australia
I attended the launch today at QUT during the Open Content Licensing Conference of Australia's version of the Creative Commons licence.
The Creative Commons system lets copyright owners (whether text, film, paintings, photos or other media) determine in advance whether their copyright works are available for use by others and on what terms. They can generate their own licence (using a pro forma without the need for lawyers) so that potential users do not need to ask for permission each time.
It does not change copyright law. It may not suit successful businesses or artists who earn significant revenue from their inventions. But if a creator or author is happy for others to "remix" or "sample" their work, then a Creative Commons licence will help.
How do you know what has been licensed under Creative Commons? The