I picked up the book Stumbling on Happiness last weekend while traveling to my cousin's wedding in Philadelphia.  The book caught my eye because it has an endorsement by Malcolm Gladwell on the cover (blink, The Tipping Point) and another from Steven Levitt (freakonomics) on the back. Daniel Gilbert begins the book considering the topic of 'prospection'.

Prospection: The act of looking forward in time or considering the future.

"To see is to experience the world as it is, to remember is to experience the world as it was, but to imagine -- ah, to imagine is to experience the world as it isn't and has never been, but as it might be. (p. 5)"

Today is my last day at BMC.

I could have never imagined all of the great people, projects, personal and professional challenges and adventures that I would experience, when in 1996 I stumbled upon 'the best little software house in Texas'. When I look back at the past decade I have spent as an employee here, I often think of Chico Escuela's famed line from Saturday Night Live about baseball. BMC has been 'berry, berry good to me.' It's been a fantastic decade of tremendous technology change and profound personal growth and I leave thankful for all of the great experiences I have gained.

May your imaginary tomorrows be all that you hope for! Thank you.

Charlotte, complexity and the CMDB

A few weeks back, I attended the ITSMF conference in Charlotte. On the plane ride over I was re-reading parts of an article in the New York times technology supplement.  The article discusses the media buzz (even movies) about the threat of hackers and indicates that, in reality, the biggest cause of downtime and outages is IT COMPLEXITY. This didn't surprise me, but I found it interesting because now IT's problems are being aired to the general public. 

The topic of complexity came up again when I was asking my colleague about what he thought about ITIL v3 as well. We were speaking about it because I told him we are discussing and researching doing some packaging changes to align our solutions with ITIL v3. He has already done his updgrade certification and cautioned me to be careful because he thought the move from ITIL v2 to V3 seemed pretty COMPLEX. Needless to say, ITIL v3 was a key theme at the show. 

Do you think ITIL v3 seems complex?

I started re-reading 'Crossing the Chasm' on the plane while returning from the ITSMF USA show in Charlotte, NC. I picked it up because I was thinking about a new project I have been working on with the BMC Atrium CMDB.  The CMDB is currently at the top of the Gartner Hype cycle.  That's exciting, but you don't have to be Geoffrey Moore to know that hype will only take you so far.  Ultimately, software vendors have to help customers solve real problems to survive and thrive.  If the CMDB is going to be the success it could be, it has to meet the needs of the mainstream market, specifically the group Moore calls pragmatists.

On page 42 Moore writes:
The Fortune 2000 MIS community, as a group, is led by people who are largely pragmatist in orientation. Business demands for increased productivity push them (IT) toward the form of the adoption life cycle, but natural prudence and budget restrictions keep them cautious.

This is the first time I've participated in an ITSMF event of any sort.  I can tell you that it was unlike many other tradeshows as there were far few T-shirt seekers on their weekly boondoggle.  I wasn't able to attend any of the sessions with my staff badge (although I tried), but many of the people I talked to exhibited the air of caution Moore alludes to.  They have things that work now and they don't want to break them. Most everyone wants to get there, but few know the best way.  Some innovators from companies you would expect to be leading are in production or are deep into their CMDB implementation now. The CMDB is moving into the mainstream now. The reason why the CMDB is so interesting is the promise that it holds to address the challenges IT is facing now to deliver Service to the business.  They need to reduce the cost of service, improve the quality of service and improve service responsiveness. Like ITIL v3; its all about service.

I spent a week in Maine from Aug 5-11 taking a course on timber frame construction at the Shelter Institute in Woolwich, Maine.  The class, Purely Post and Beam, taught by Pat Hennin and his family provides a practical and very hands on introduction to traditional timber frame construction from drafting, tool selection, cutting, sharpening and joinery to ultimately assembling a 24’X24’ post and beam frame that could serve as the core supporting structure for a small home (Later in the week, we took a house tour to see some of the homes they have helped build and we met a women living in the exact layout we eventually built).

What did I learn during this experience?  Most importantly, I quickly realized that building a timber frame home without power tools is a lot of work.  There are 120 joints in the structure my class mates and I erected.  Most of these were cut manually using very high-quality (i.e. expensive) chisels and slicks.  It takes practice and talent to use these tools well and patience and time to complete all of the cuts accurately (i.e. faithfully to the design) and precisely (i.e. how well the cuts are executed). Accuracy and precision were evaluated against a documented design plan for the building (the ‘cut sheet’).  The plans served as a road map for the team executing the design. Pat also showed us how modern power tools can be used to speed up the process. He alerted us of the significant potential risk of using ‘automated technology’ poorly (i.e. a circular saw can make a bad cut much faster than a hand saw).  The Hennin Post and Beam crew is skilled at both hand and power tools to ensure not just accuracy and precision, but also time to market and profitability.  (The school is part of a multi-faceted business that includes a store where they sell the tools of the trade, and a timber frame construction business that designs and builds timber frame kits for construction projects).

There are clearly many parallels between the worlds of home building and enterprise systems management.  First, is the power of having clearly documented and agreed upon processes.  The cut sheet tells the team what to do when and where, but may not specify ‘how’. That said, the ‘how’ is critical as well. Having skilled technicians who understand and can execute manual methods is a great advantage, but enabling skilled personnel with automated technologies is essential to maximize productivity and compete. The tools are a means to an end and when utilized properly they can ensure that ‘the house is built’ more quickly and meets the requirements of the end user (When asked during the class how Pat would deal with a particular construction problem, he responded ‘Well, it depends on who the end user is.” The implication as I understood it was that the quality of service he provides depends on who was being served)

Overall, I was very, very impressed and really moved by the spirit and commitment of the Shelter Institute team. In my brief time with Pat H I found him to be an inspiring individual with strong beliefs in the power of the individual. Yet, only by working together, effectively and collectively as a team could we have raised the frame on that Friday.  (I revisited their web site after writing this and saw that they do team building training as well.) 

Many thanks to the Hennin clan and the rest of the staff (especially Arturo for his personal assistance and guidance in the shop), for their honest commitment to teaching, building and living well! 

This week I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's blink.  It is a quick read and full of fascinating data and curious examples of the power and limitations of snap judgments. Gladwell dissects the process he calls 'rapid cognition' and helps us understand what happens in these first 2 seconds and the implications (both very positive and at time fatal).

We all make snap judgments. We instantaneously suck in data about our surroundings or a situation and make quick assessments/conclusions.  Think about how this applies to end-users or customers interacting with business applications or services? Certainly that is why availability, usability, and performance are paramount. Blink, your customer just left your web site. Blink. What does this thing do? Blink.  Why is this taking so long?

A couple of other quick recommends:

I’ve been reading Mark Cuban’s blog from time to time lately.  Today’s post on Internet vs. Intranet is interesting, especially if you are interested in software as a service or application performance.

Secondly, this weekend I want to check out the 2007 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) as featured in BusinessWeek this week. (Oddly, the article is dated July 30, 2007 even though today is the 27^th.  They must date their online content to coincide with their print issues.)

Have a good weekend.

The discipline of user experience (UX) is changing business. Apple is the shining star now, but the 'field' is becoming a focus in a broad spectrum of organizations.

Have you seen Mark Hurt’s Good Experience blog?  Start by reading the intro and then check out the short post about a Cleveland Clinic that just hired a Chief Experience Officer. 

I've been thinking more about the concept of a successful design-driven business strategy, innovation and user experience. How are other thought leaders defining this topic or ‘field’?  Well, the User Experience Network offers one interesting example:

UX is an important and rapidly emerging field concerned with the design of anything people experience: a web site, a toy, or a museum.

UX is inherently interdisciplinary, synthesizing methods, techniques, and wisdom from many fields, ranging from brand design to ethnography to library science to architecture and more.

I was thinking about this more when I scanned an article about William A. Wulf in this week's Science Times. Wulf just left his position as president of the National Academy of Engineering, the engineering arm of the National Academy of Sciences.  I paused when I read about how his passion for creative innovation began.

His innovation won praise from colleagues and a bonus in his check. But the real reward, he said, “was that moment of creation, that moment of seeing the problem and seeing a solution.” He said, “once you have had the creative thrill of designing something that solves a real human problem and that people use, it’s addictive.”

One of the reasons that being user-experienced focused is so hard is because user experience spans disciplines and organizations– design, engineering, marketing, support, services, and sales. It goes beyond simply solving a real human problem, to doing so in a way that is gratifying, fun, easy, etc.

It is June 29th, 2007, however this is not another blog entry about the iPhone.

This week I was clicking through a presentation on ITIL v3 from the ITIL V3 Global Road Show and paused on a section discussing the importance of design.  If you've been reading my blog at all since I started writing well over a year ago, you will know I am a big fan of design and simplicity. There are some great quotes on one slide (64):

“Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department.” -- Tom Peters
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” -- Steve Jobs

“Good design is the most important way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.” -- Samsung CEO Yun Jong Yong

“Your products run for election every day and good design is critical to winning the campaign.” -- Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley

“Design's fundamental role is problem solver” -- Fast Company

Design may not be the first thing that engineers think about, but iit is a characteristic that many if not most innovative companies share. I read this article in Business Week about Steve Job's central and very personal role in Apple's successful design-driven business strategy.  Click the link on BusinessWeek/Boston Consulting Group's list of The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies, and you will see many names that I have referenced in this blog: Apple, Toyota, Microsoft, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, IKEA … The article quotes designer  Thomas Meyerhoffer (who evidently designed the Apple Attachmate PDA??) who makes clear that Apple’s success is “about the whole experience, the whole interface.” The article rightly reasserts that "good design is not just skin deep". The 'interface' is not just a screen, it is really spans all points of interaction with customers.

PS - Check out Meyerhoffer’s surfboards.   

It is almost lunch time too…and Friday. 

Following the launch I just led for BMC, I’ve been watching other launches in the market place.  Curiously, I noticed that both the Iphone and Michael Moore’s new movie SICKO both premier on June 29, 2007.  Just a coincidence I’m sure.  Anyway, I haven’t had early access to either, but have read a bit about both.

What about the Iphone?  It looks absolutely fabulous in the advertisements.  Apple understands the magic of design and advertising, but I was skimming an article on the Iphone and the author was discussing the controversial fact that it lacks a physical keyboard. Evidently it is quite a controversy online. (Did you see John Dvorak’s “Time to Short Apple?”) I know I would be fine with a graphical/touchscreen keyboard, if it does what it is supposed to do as easy and well as a real keyboard.  I generally keep my text messages short anyway.  Steve Jobs has been making a lot of good calls since his return to Apple, so I bet it won’t be a flop. That said this same article talked about Jobs’s insistence that a computer mouse should only have one button.  I am all about KISS and ‘less is more’, but one mouse button is one too few for me.  I even like my scroll wheel. 

The ‘right’ amount of functionality is a classic challenge for technologists and technology marketers.  Simplicity is essential and too much is almost always bad, but too little won’t pay the bills (I’ve managed and marketed both fat and ‘thin’ products.)  The market will start voting on the Iphone in less than 2 weeks. 

If you’re an early adopter you can even use your new Iphone buy tickets to Moore’s new documentary on the health care and insurance industry.  Evidently, this launch is not without controversy either as Moore is being investigated by the U.S. Treasury Department for a visit to Cuba during the filming of his latest movie.  What do I think about this?  No comment.  I’m hungry.

Prague in May…I hear it is beautiful.  I’ve been to Prague, but never in May.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to BMC User World 22-25 May 2007, but I was very involved behind the scenes, especially with the press event we held there to talk about BMC’s latest announcement on the evolution of BSM.

BMC announced BSM enhancements for IT Operations (remember the special project I have been working on?).  The announcement focuses on new products and significant new integrations that offer IT Operations a pragmatic connection to BSM Value. The reason this is important is because these enhancements promise to help our customers address a major culprit in customer dissatisfaction and defection – inefficient and inadequate problem detection, isolation and resolution.

Customers and/or business users simply don’t care how impressive your statistics are for performance and availability of individual IT infrastructure components. And they shouldn’t.

Two things they do care about are: Immediate access to business services when they need them, and fast completion of tasks and transactions while using these services.  I’ve written about this before and BMC as a company is continuing to invest to assist customers with this challenge.

To meet business users’ needs, you have to broaden your perspective. In addition to looking from inside the IT infrastructure out, you must also look from the outside in — from the perspective of your internal and external customers. That’s the only way to experience service levels the way users experience them, and manage service delivery accordingly.

There’s more to this announcement – a lot more.  If you are interested, please visit: www.bmc.com/bsm4itops

Not sure if you saw this story from Investor’s Business Daily last Thursday?

http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/070517/tech01.html?.v=1 

The article is simple, calls out BMC as a major name in the emerging end-user management segment, and highlights the increasing business pain of poorly performing software and the need to look at problems from the user standpoint.

The costs of poorly performing business applications are high.  Do you have visibility into these business-limiting issues?

BMC has solutions that help IT operations teams proactively gauge end-user availability and performance, providing quantifiable measurements on the health and status of business services from the end user perspective.

By the way, I had a meeting with JP Garbani from Forrester while I was in Nashville last week. 

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.

I was working and attending the Forrester IT Forum in Nashville, TN last week.  Well, actually it was held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort.  (Not sure what the great appeal is of this giant aquarium/hotel, but I won't go there.)  One of the highlights of the show for me was watching and listening to Bob Beauchamp, BMC's President and CEO, deliver the Wednesday morning keynote speach.  (Forrester has just published a report which places BMC clearly in the leadership position of the BSM market.) Bob's message in a nutshell is that IT has been like the Cobbler's children.  Businesses have applied technology to make nearly all business processes more efficient and effective and now need to get their own house in order to position IT as a key driver of business value. 

The conference was centered around the concept of moving IT to BT. 

BT =  Business Technology. 

Forrester analsyts urged IT leaders to focus on business results and innovation -- not just on IT maturity. 

According to Forrester: IT Excellence = Maturity + Alignment + Innovation. Business Technology = Pervasive technology use that drives busines results.

IT's role is to smooth the evolution to Business Technology (BT) and to invest in business innovation to accelerate that move.  IT has to leverage its role as a change enabler, but can't do that until they get their own house in order.  Good enough, will no longer be good enough in competitive global markets.  Pervasive technology has to drive positive business results.  I emphasize positive. For example, Friday I tried to change my flight calling American Airlines 800 number.  The voice recognition/interactive service made me laugh.  At times, I was amazed how advanced voice recognition technology has become and then when 'it' didn't understand me a few times I noted my dissatisfaction with this highly automated and impersonal service.  Too much technology can be dehumanizing and bad for business. Finding the right balance will be a key challenge as IT becomes BT.