Craig Bailey on Microsoft

I had to shake my head when I read this Accenture survey on the demands of the Millennial Generation. The usual ‘demands’ of wanting to choose their technology, insisting on state-of-the-art technology, not wanting to seek corporate approval, requiring new communication channels, etc all came up.

It seemed odd that a survey like this would appear after all the economic changes of late.

Turns out that although the results were published in November, they were based on a survey conducted back in June this year. How times change*. I’m guessing if Accenture conducted another survey, the ‘demands’ of Millennials would be more like the rest of the workforce at the moment: ‘please give me a job, I’ll do anything to prove myself’.

Anyway, that isn’t the main reason for this post. The item that interested me was the survey’s results regarding email. Introduced as ‘coming to the end of email as we know it’, the survey reports that Millenials only spend between 7.7 to 9.5 hours a week on email. That’s roughly 1.5 to 2 hours per day. What this means is that the relative newcomers to the enterprise are spending approximately a quarter of their day on email.

Where am I going with this? Simply this: I’ve long held that most email is an inefficient use of time. Whilst some activities are well managed via email, many (perhaps most) corporate functions aren’t. In fact, in my new role at nsquared, email is one of the things I’m actively looking to reduce, and replace with far more effective means of communication. But - as this survey highlights - that’ll be a tough job, given that in most businesses even new employees are trained from day 1 to surrender a significant chunk of their day’s energy to email. 

How can we overcome the email mindset?

(via Jane McConnell)

* Although even in June I’d contend the writing was on the wall.

Amazon’s CTO – Werner Vogels – has been awarded the Information Week Chief of the Year title. He’s quickly given the credit to his team of course, legend that he is.

Now, it’s easy to be cynical of awards – it seems that sometimes companies/twitter abusers/magazines/etc just create them as a marketing device – but regardless, it’d be hard to disagree with the decision in this case. His humility (if you’ve been reading his blog for a while), ability to see the future, and downright scary intellect are  pretty impressive.

Here’s how Information Week describes Werner:

“Amazon's 50-year-old CTO has emerged as the right person at the right time and place to guide cloud computing--until now, an emerging technology for early adopters--into the mainstream. He not only understands how to architect a global computing cloud consisting of tens of thousands of servers, but also how to engage CTOs, CIOs, and other professionals at customer companies in a discussion of how that architecture could potentially change the way they approach IT.” (Source: Information Week)

Here’s how Werner describes Amazon:

"In my eyes, Amazon is probably the world's largest distributed system." (page 3 of article).

Yep, thanks to you it is.

Werner has been edging into my *heroes* list for a little while now – joining the likes of Jonathan Schwartz, Bill Gates and lately Ray Ozzie.

I thought I’d try to simplify my previous post on how to survive in tough economic times.

Here’s how I see it:

During the good times (eg when every second IT company is planning an IPO) you can focus on features. Features are really all about comfort and convenience, and in good times people lap them up. They are the equivalent of luxury extras on cars (eg heated seats).

During the normal times (eg when businesses are focusing on profitability) you need to be selling benefits. Benefits are about speaking the customer’s language and helping them run their business better (eg how to cut costs, improve sales, etc). They are the car equivalent of being economical and reliable.

During the tough economic times (eg the period we find ourselves in now) the focus turns to results. Results are about guaranteeing that any dollar spent will return more than a dollar in the near future. Finding an equivalent in the car industry is difficult, but probably equates to clever financing options, comprehensive warranty and road side assistance programs, etc. (As an aside: The inherent inability to guarantee any result or return is one of the reasons the automobile industry is going to have such a tough time over the next few years).

This isn’t to say that the three states are mutually exclusive. There’s certainly still a place for talking about features in the current market, but the focus has to be on results.

In terms of IT, our thinking (as software company owners and employees) needs to be on how we can guarantee results and return for our customers. Customers will pay for guaranteed results. Why? Because every dollar they spend will result in more than one in return.

So, from now on, make sure every product or service you provide to your client base spells out how it will give them more in return than they pay for (I mentioned a few examples in my last post).

One other thing: you shouldn’t necessarily follow the leaders. In my opinion Microsoft, Google, Apple and others are all still caught up largely in features and benefits in their marketing. It’s not until you get into their case study sites that you start to see any talk of results. This is both a mistake and an opportunity for them.

You may recall my post ‘The Death of Gen Y’ back in May when I talked about the coming IT crash. In that post I also suggested attributes of companies that would survive during the tough times. And I think those points still stand. But let’s consider an additional area...

First, let’s find an opportunity and analyse it. Take the following Gartner report for example.

Last week Gartner released a report looking at the uptake of online communities. In it they estimated that by 2010 more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies with a web site will connect to or host some form of online community (here’s the link)**.

As a web company, or online community ‘vendor’ you might think this is good news. And a good opportunity for sales.

But that would be to miss the main point of the article. Read through it carefully and you’ll find the real opportunity in paragraph 3:

“However, establishing an online community isn’t without challenges. Gartner predicts that by 2010, more than 50 percent of companies that have established an online community will fail to establish mutual purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values.”

No, the real opportunity is working out how to ensure an online community is successful. The technology behind the site (eg your fab product) is probably irrelevant.

Results are king

The companies that will survive - and in deed flourish - over the coming months and year(s) will be those that can guarantee results. Features, and even benefits, will be largely worthless in an environment of cost cutting and wary spending. Results will be king.

So, consider carefully how you position yourself, your company and your products and services.

ROI

Return On Investment (ROI) is one of those terms that gets thrown around in marketing material. It’s often unsubstantiated and meaningless.

But for the company that can simply & clearly explain their ROI offering, and guarantee it, there’s plenty of opportunity.

Take advertising as a simple example. It’s no revelation that advertising spend will be the first thing that gets slashed in many companies. Why? Because much of it is un-measurable. So, the advertising budget will be constrained to areas where the return (eg it might be measured in conversions) is directly measureable and pays for itself (ie there’s a guaranteed ROI). Thus moving from: ‘providing a range of advertising processes’ to: ‘guaranteeing a pre-determined result metric via advertising’.

Take a company’s web presence as another example. There’s going to be very few companies simply wanting to ‘boost their web presence’. Instead, companies will want a proper return, whether that’s measured in traffic, unique visitors, new members, qualified leads, product downloads, whatever. Anyone can provide a web site, but how many can ensure a result? Thus move from: ‘providing a web site’ to: ‘ensuring a web based result’.

Common sense

Of course, this must just seem like common sense. But take a minute to consider most companies around (I spent some time analysing a few over the weekend) and you’ll be surprised at how many are still peddling features, instead of results.

Ask yourself this: what result does your company/product/service guarantee? If you can’t think of one, then it’s time to take action.

Be excited

There’s plenty to be excited about in the short term. Tough times clear away the mediocre and leave the excellent free to dominate. Now might be time to check your company is in the latter category.

(**We’ll leave aside for now the fact that much of the report was prepared before the crash, and thus would need to be re-evaluated in light of recent events.)

A great little post by Grant on how to deal with 'Blockers'.

I loved the anecdote about a company policy for running virus scan on everyone's machine at 11am daily.

Further to my post about career plans for developers at Elcom, I wanted to mention the approach of encouraging staff to build their personal profiles.

It can be summed up in this attitude:

Your job (as a developer and employee) is to be so good that you are being chased by head-hunters all the time.

My job (as Technical Director) is to make the work environment so good that you don't want to leave.

I feel this is a sensible approach, for a number of reasons:

Firstly, I don't want staff who aren't improving. Rather I want them continually pushing themselves to do bigger and better things. Momentum must be maintained. If we aren't improving, then realistically we are going backwards...

Secondly, the better skilled they are, the better the result for Elcom.

Thirdly, the better well known they are, the more well known Elcom becomes.

Fourth, the better well known Elcom is, the better the caliber of candidate we can attract to join and grow Elcom.

Keeping a great team in place is a tricky thing, and I'm not claiming to be an expert at it. But in case you think that encouraging developers to be head-hunted is a crazy notion, here's a few tidbits I've observed over the years.

The job market is tight

The first is that the IT market is very tight. If a developer wants to find a new job, they won't have much trouble. And *some* recruiters are becoming more ruthless and unethical by the day...

So, if you assume that your staff will stay on board simply because they can't get another job - you are deluding yourself - either that or they are so bad that they really can't get another job and you should have fired them ages ago anyway!

Feeling valued

The second is that most developers want to feel as though they are making a contribution that is both valuable and valued. (Note: This, sadly, is the reason many look for another job - they feel a sense of being valued when some other company offers them a job). Thus, by encouraging developers to better themselves, and perhaps become well known in the community, we are encouraging them to feel valued.

We're people after all

Thirdly and most importantly, developers are people. Sure, they are an asset, resource, body, project plan item, etc too. But the important thing is: we as people grow via our relationships. At work we need to remind ourselves every day that our relationships with our colleagues are what affect our morale, productivity, generosity and ultimately longevity in a company. Common sense I know. But easy to forget in the over-worked, email deluged, constantly interrupted hours between breakfast and bed time.

Have I missed something obvious? Please leave me a comment.

Part of my brief at Elcom is to look after all the developers (ie people management). This is something I enjoy, especially when seeing developers grow and improve themselves.

During November and December I sat down with each of my staff and started preparing their career plans. It is their responsibility to work out their goals and aspirations, it is my job to facilitate that happening (within reason of course).

The process involves preparation by the developer (approx 1 hour), then a chat with me (1-2 hours) and then some updating of notes, consolidation of ideas, etc.

During the chat we cover everything, including likes and dislikes, books, training, aims and goals, money, gripes, and then finish with some KPIs.

I thought others might be interested in how we conducted the process. Attached is the Career Plan brief, which outlines the method. I've included my original one, which has a few problems.

Based on feedback from the team during the process, I will be updating it to fix a few things. For example, the doc has various time frames that it asks about which can be confusing, however my point is this: when setting goals we often over-estimate what we can achieve in 1 year, but under-estimate what we can achieve in 3 years. So we need to have short term and longer term goals continually in mind.

The file is a Word document. Feel free to take it, improve it, use it if useful to you and your role. I'm open to any comments and suggestions you have...

Download here

(Here's the books we have ordered so far, here's the ones still to be ordered)