Last week I had the privilege of meeting one of my clients face to face at her office. On-site visits aren't routine for me, so I usually picture my clients in a work environment very like my own.
What struck me immediately was the sheer volume of paper in her office -- in file cabinets, stacked on top of file cabinets, stacked on desks, tacked to bulletin boards. There were organizational phone books on desks and organization charts on bulletin boards.
This was so different from my day to day working environment. We have a clean desk policy at IBM, and the few boring pieces of paper I have tacked to my bulletin board are clearly labelled "NOT IBM Confidential" (Dilbertesque, I know).
More importantly, in my nine years with IBM, I have come to depend on the IBM application we call Blue Pages, which is now the Profiles feature of IBM Connections. Profiles is our organization chart, phone book, and skills directory all in one. It is online, navigable, customizable, and searchable. You can see the management chain of any employee all the way up to Ginni Rometty. You can browse the organization chart to find contact information for anyone who works for IBM, worldwide. If someone leaves IBM, they are out of Profiles within a few days. If someone is hired into IBM or transfers within IBM , the new position is reflected within a few days.
I am in Profiles every day, multiple times a day. I couldn't do my job without it. Who works on Notes Traveler who can answer my client's question? Bill isn't responding to my request, he's offline, I'm not getting an out of office reply -- who's his boss? What's Doug's mobile number? What timezone does David live in -- is it too early to call him? Who is that person who just pinged me by Sametime? Who are these people in the meeting I've been invited to -- what role do they have?
Being able to collaborate across distance requires being able to find the people in your organization you need to collaborate with. For a small organization those paper organization charts work. Once you get over a few hundred co-workers, in multiple buildings or across multiple timezones it gets a lot harder to make those connections. Having the ability to find out who works here is essential to unlock the power of collaboration.
Executives, no matter which company they work for, often say "our people are our most important asset". If that's true, shouldn't an inventory of those precious assets be available to every employee?
Beth Benoit | 27 April 2012 04:35:20 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
Professional Facebook and Personal Facebook. One way to have fun AND keep some things quasi-private.
In my part of the Software Business, we are encouraged to use social media. My email signature has links to my twitter feed, my linkedin profile, and my blog. It does NOT have a link to my facebook profile, nor will it -- in spite of the email signature generation tool's encouragement to provide it. I consider facebook to be "fun", not professional. That's its charm; it's like CNN except about people I know and usually not about disasters.
I was shocked to hear on the news that some employers are commonly asking for facebook login credentials. If that isn't illegal, it should be. It's illegal to ask if a prospective employee is ethnic, disabled, healthy, pregnant, or how old they are. An employer has to ask permission to run a credit check and a drug test -- though the results of those are allowed to influence the hiring decision. Asking to login to a prospective employee's facebook account during a job interview -- that's like asking to see photo albums, read personal letters to friends and family, read a summary of the person's medical file, get a list of all organizations the person is interested in, see what online games they like to play, find what kind of humor makes them laugh, and what kind of people they know.. It's like going into a person's house and going through ALL their possessions, and their family's possessions, and even their acquaintance's possessions.
I'm pretty sedate with my facebook posts; My rule is I don't post anything I wouldn't want to see on the front page of my hometown newspaper. However, I've met a number of IBMers who have gone even further. They have two facebook accounts -- one professional, one personal. The personal one is limited to a small circle of "real friends" -- people they are intimate with, who can be trusted not to give them a hard time about a risque joke, and who already know their political persuasion and religious affiliation. Then there is the professional one, which is more public, with very different privacy settings and very different content.
It's certainly an interesting concept, though not one I want to put into practice -- linkedIn, twitter, and my blog are enough social media presence for me! I have no illusions that my facebook content is private -- I've shared it with a wide group of people after all. But I also don't regard it as part of the public record.
I foresee a decade of very interesting lawsuits and laws as we try to sort out social mores about private and public!
Beth Benoit | 6 April 2012 05:02:53 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
For the last five years our local Boy Scout Council has hosted a Math and Science Merit Badge College, giving boys exposure to careers in math, science, and technology. For five years, I've been counseling the American Business merit badge at this event, and this year added Entrepreneurship. Inventors often end up starting their own company, and having exposure to Business is good for anyone.
Both American Business and Entrepreneurship require the young man to start a business; to earn American Business he has to run that business for a minimum of 90 days. To me it is always amazing to spend time with these young men; they are inventive and so creative! This year, besides the usual lawn mowing businesses, we had a ghost-writer, a trading card business, a home concierge business, a fresh egg business, an auto detailing business, and a cupcake caterer. The most memorable (and profitable) we've ever had were the young men who picked up "broken" lawn mowers or gas grills on trash day to repair and sell, and the one who ran a convenience store from his locker. If you ever doubt that a free market economy works, come with me to meet these boys!
It is also amazing what interesting and incorrect notions these young men have about business. Like anything really important, those misconceptions aren't expressed until a certain level of mutual trust is established. Without that real time face to face connection I have never have heard that the Government tells you who to hire, or that Sole Proprietors don't have to pay taxes, or that anyone under the age of 18 doesn't have to pay taxes on earned income. That teachable moment wouldn't have happened over the phone. As nice as video chat is, I'm not sure we would have gotten there over a video connection.
The most serendipitous event last weekend was after my last field trip was over. The young man who is starting the cupcake business was car pooling home with me, and I decided to stop at my family's favorite bakery. This bakery does amazing wedding cakes, and all their baked goods look (and taste) amazing. While I was picking out a cake, the Scout asked me "how do they make that swirl on the cupcakes?" I said to the baker helping me "this young man has a question for you" and the next thing I knew she had grabbed an icing bag and was demonstrating on the counter how to make that swirl and explaining how to keep it from toppling over. She also gave him some pointers on fondant sculpting.
It took her maybe 3 minutes to have this conversation with the Scout -- but his parents tell me he is still talking about it. That chance encounter may have been the spark that changed a life. I have no doubt this Scout is going to start that cupcake business, and earn his Entrepreneurship badge. And I'd say it's pretty good odds he'll have started his own commercial bakery in another 15 years too. Steven, you can count on me to be there on opening day!
Beth Benoit | 30 March 2012 05:58:49 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
My local PMI chapter's February meeting was about Cloud Computing, with two different speakers coming to talk about Cloud.. Since my job is helping IBM clients execute a transformation project to Cloud, I looked forward to the evening.
The first speaker took me entirely by surprise -- his topic was the project management tools available out on the cloud. The advantage: everyone on the team can get to the data from anywhere. And they're inexpensive, just pull out your credit card.
Now, I admit, I was woefully unaware of the tools he described. But then, I work for IBM, and IBM is a stickler for security controls for confidential data. Project data and client data is, by definition, company confidential data, not to be disclosed or risked in public settings. I would be more likely to go sky diving than to put my project data on a public multi-tenant website that had not been approved by an IBM security expert. and blessed by my management. In writing.
The speaker asked how many people were already using these tools: to my surprise, more than 50%.
His challenge was "if you're not using one of these already, why not?" One brave woman blurted out:: "Security". No one else seemed particularly concerned about that, including the speaker.
What I took from this is if a tool works, teams will adopt it...even if caution is advisable. Project teams tend to be focused on the goal, not the risks. Project managers need to remember the risks.
Beth Benoit | 9 March 2012 04:49:25 PM ET | | Comments (2) | Permanent Link
This week our family did our first two real college campus visits. It was an eye-opening experience for all of us.
The first campus was busy, vibrant and the people there went out of their way to welcome us as visitors. When we ate in the local cafe in the Student Union, there was a constant buzz. We saw plenty of technology -- smart phones, computer labs, laptops, lab equipment -- but there was a lot of personal interaction too. The place had a happy energy to it in all the places we visited.
The second campus our oldest teen summed up like this: "People don't talk to each other here"
His summary took me by surprise, but then I realized he had nailed it. We'd been in just as many buildings and seen plenty of students. But none of the students were talking to anyone else. Except for a few freshman in the Architecture building hand-building models. everyone was staring at a computer screen. Even the students we saw on cell phones seemed to be listening, not talking. When we ate lunch in the Student Union almost everyone was staring at a screen and sitting alone.
Our youngest teen went up to the second floor of the Student Union, because he heard there were more food choices up there. It was a dining commons -- and according to him, that appeared to be where all the extroverts on campus were clustered. That was the only place he saw with an energetic buzz to it.
Wikis and communities and activities are great for collaboration, especially across widely disparate time zones. Sometimes real time collaboration, by voice, by video, or in person, is the only thing that will do. That's where the communal creative spark happens that we all crave to be a part of. It's why teams still need meetings.
And that's why you won't find an IBMer willing to give up their Engage e-meeting, their Sametime client, or their teleconference number. They're the three must have collaboration tools everything else builds from.
Beth Benoit | 24 February 2012 05:09:45 PM ET | | Comments (2) | Permanent Link
I allow LinkedIn to send me a short weekly newsletter of interesting technology news. This week, there was a link to a story about a company in France, Atos, which plans to eliminate internal emails over the next 18 months; of course the title of the news story is much more provocative: Tech Firm Implements "Zero Email" Policy
http://news.yahoo.com/tech-firm-implements-employee-zero-email-policy-165311050.html
Now Atos is not small, about 74,000 employees. They're also worldwide, so they're spread across time zones. They calculate the average employee gets 200 emails a day, only 20 of which are useful. Another 40 are SPAM.
You have to read the whole article to get to the interesting bit which is, well, how are they going to do this? They've managed to eliminate 20% of the daily load in six months just by encouraging the use of instant messaging. Not bad! Just stating the goal and blessing the alternative tool clearly made a difference.
They're also evaluating other collaboration tools, such as wiki's, and file sharing tools. Nothing magical in this -- there are lots of collaboration tools available, it just takes picking good tools and having the determination to change the corporate culture to make their use widespread. They do have to be good tools, though. People won't put up with useless or hard to use tools for long. And whatever you pick, it better work well on a smart phone.
Atos, I wish you well. Keeping the focus on collaboration rather than the inbox is the way to go. Good luck!
Beth Benoit | 9 December 2011 03:29:06 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
In 2010 I took and passed the PMI certification test, enabling me to sign my business correspondence as Beth Benoit, PMP®. Like most certifications, this one requires care and feeding: specifically 60 Professional Development Units every three years. I've finally learned that going to the local PMI chapter meetings is a relatively painless way to rack up a PDU or two every month.
This month's topic was on running effective virtual meetings. Some of the statistics were interesting, though I'm not sure I believed all of them (45% of people admit to dozing during virtual meetings? Really?) I liked some of the speaker's ideas for wamup/gathering topics. I was glad when she abandoned the plan to show us interactive features of WebEx, as I'm unlikely to be using that at IBM!
Where things got stirred up was when the mute button came up. She asked us to stand up if we used the mute button. About half of us did. The speaker was firmly of the opinion that no one should ever be on mute, because their attention would wander, they'd start multi-tasking, etc... She wanted everyone fully present in her meeting. If they were somewhere noisy, she'd allow them to use mute, but talk to them privately later about finding a quiet place to participate in the meeting in future.
Well, I disagree. And judging by the buzz in the room, I wasn't the only one.
Ensuring audio quality is one of the most important things a virtual meeting moderator can do to make a meeting productive. It is exhausting to listen to static, beeps, echoes, wind, barking dogs, sirens, typing, and the conversation in the cubicle next to Lenny in Austin. Once or twice a year, somebody puts the virtual meeting on hold while they take another call, and everyone gets treated to muzak. Any of these inevitably leads to multiple rants of "if you're not talking, go on mute please!". And, "whose line is that?" Attention gets directed to the noise, not the topic. Every meeting moderator should know the key-sequence to mute all lines, and know the key sequence for individuals to un-mute themselves one by one.
In my world, we have road warriors, customer calls that have to be taken, sudden pickups of sick kids, people who have to work-at-home to supervise construction, cubicle dwellers...in short, it's rare that any of my virtual meeting participants have a regular quiet environment. I know there's a fair amount of note passing going on by Sametime if the meeting is at all controversial...so there is definitely typing going on; I'm all for that, it often helps us cut to the chase and get things done.
The best way to keep people from multi-tasking or day-dreaming in a virtual meeting is to make it easy to listen, have a plan, keep on topic, keep it fun, and start and end on time. At least, that's been my experience. Your mileage may vary.
Beth Benoit | 28 October 2011 02:40:03 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
This is traditionally a quiet work week in the United States. Lots of people are on vacation, and for most parents the back to school paperwork drill hasn't gotten up the full head of steam yet.
Imagine my surprise when one morning this week I had 200 new email messages. All with the same title, but from different people I had never heard from before.. What was going on? It looked like a major emergency.
This was a wonderful study in human nature. An IT team had recently upgraded a tool that probably thousands of IBMers touch, most of them on an infrequent basis. The IT team did the sensible thing, and generated a mailing list to notify everyone who had access to the tool that there had been significant changes.
The disaster began when one person used "reply all" to say "please take me off this distribution list." Another person thought that was a good idea, so they did the same thing. And then the next, and the next,....
After about a dozen of these messages, the first "Please don't use Reply All" emails entered the conversation. The stream of "take me off too!" emails continued at a rapid clip for the next two business days, punctuated by ever more frenetic emails along the lines of "People, PLEASE don't use Reply all". One person thoughtfully sent along pictures showing what the Reply Button looked like.
The IT team tried to take control, and sent out instructions on how to be removed from future messages. However since the title looked like all the other messages "RE: Upgrade to:....." no one read it, because by this time we were all deleting the messages without looking at them.
Like natural epidemics, this one eventually ran its course. Thankfully! But hmmm, next week when everyone on vacation returns to work -- I give it even odds that we'll have another outbreak.
Beth Benoit | 2 September 2011 03:15:53 PM ET | | Comments (2) | Permanent Link
Last week my family flew to San Francisco for our vacation. Whenever I'm travelling, I'm interested to watch people using technology. I noticed when I checked on our flights the night before that there was an option to download our boarding passes to a smart phone. Interesting, I thought.
When I got to the gate, I actually saw two people use their smart phones at the scanner to board. Wow, I thought. Those people are gutsy. I wouldn't want to be stranded at the gate if my phone had a problem.
My 15 year old didn't think that was risky at all. "Mom, for a lot of people their phones are their LIFE. They depend on them for everything." Five minutes later, as he's suggesting it's time his phone was upgraded, he tells me how his phone has these "weird glitches". And his best friend's brand new phone does as well. Remarkably, this causes him no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.
The engineer in me says technology is getting better all the time and why not rely on it; the project manager in me says if there's something you DON'T want to have happen, make plans to make sure it DOESN'T happen. Like being at the gate unable to board your plane on your non-refundable ticket.
Maybe I'd use a smart phone to board my plane...but I bet I'd have a paper copy in my purse, just in case.
Beth Benoit | 24 August 2011 11:48:10 AM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
The good news is, my new team is consolidating in a single block of cubes instead of being scattered across two floors and three buildings. Which will be nice, to actually sit next to people I work with.
The bad news is, that meant I had to move. That's not terrible. I have less than 3 boxes of stuff in my work office, it doesn't take long to pack or unpack. It took longer to figure out how to order the boxes to move than it did to pack the boxes.
The really bad news was that I found out a week before my move that my new office did not already have a telephone in it. We have a very nice VOIP phone system in the building. Most of the time, I really like them. Till I had to get one delivered. I quickly found the instructions, accessed the appropriate Notes database, and opened a ticket requesting a phone in my office. Whew, just in time I thought.
Day after move day, no phone in my office. Well, I LIVE on the phone. It's the majority of most working days. This is a disaster. The first day, I went home. (Well, I forgot my power cord too.) After that, I found my USB headset, and started using Sametime Unified Telephony again for everything. And thank heavens, because.....
....3 days after move day, still no phone. Finally the phone arrived, from Georgia, expedited delivery. Hooray! But wait, it needed to be programmed before it could be used Another ticket. Another 2 days go by.....
As I write this, I can see my phone is rebooting itself, Hopefully I'll be able to login to it tomorrow. In the meanwhile, thank you Sametime Unified Telephony. If I hadn't had the ability to make my business calls through my computer, I would have either been working from home (bad for the diet) or finding empty conference rooms (which is nearly impossible).
Beth Benoit | 12 July 2011 05:40:14 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Permanent Link
