Adventures in home working

I really like this idea by Alan Lepofsky, he’s asking his readers to share things that they need to get done during their normal working days. 

There’s no mega business processes here, just the simple stuff that fills most of our time and is often still poorly optimised despite much investment in IT over the last couple of decades. The trouble is that most of this investment has gone into automating repeatable tasks and as a result these tasks largely don’t exist any more. What’s left – and what people spend most of their time doing – is hardly touched by the ERP, CRM and PDM systems.  This so called information work is still pretty much left to email, Microsoft Office, file shares and clumsy collaborative workspaces and portals.

So Alan good luck, I think it’s really valuable to think in these terms rather than asking people which features they want in existing products.  I tried something similar a while back when I documented my personal information lifecycle practices and an older version here.

This whole topic relates closely to one of my concerns, which is the gulf between an individuals perception of the importance of investing in their productivity and that of their employer,  this is probably my best post on that topic, it’s certainly the oldest.

Just by chance I came across a vision document for the Chandler open source Personal Information Management (PIM) client application which has a very innovative design and ambitious plans for sharing, extensibility and cross-platform support.  Even if you have no interest in Chandler as a product I recommend you have a read because it includes some really useful concepts that might help you assess the capabilities of alternative products.  Take this extract as an example:

Who says that the lines between emails, events and tasks are clear? Users need to manage their information according to project, not according to application. Chandler offers heterogeneous collections, able to contain any kind of Chandler item as well as resources that might otherwise live in random places in the file system. Naturally, searches can also cover all application areas at once or alternately be limited to specific kinds of items.

More subtly, we believe it’s powerful to allow users to not only put their peanut butter and chocolate in the same cupboard, but also to mix their peanut butter and chocolate together in the same item. We call this stamping, as in “I want to stamp this note as a message” or “I want to stamp this message as a task”. The user adds email-ness or task-ness to the pre-existing item without creating a separate item. Consider some of the possible use cases for this:

• An incoming email leads to an ill-defined task. Rather than have to create a task and try to decide exactly what it is and what to call it, just stamp the email as a task to be sure to come back to it later.
• A co-worker has to be notified about an upcoming event. Rather than create a mail and give it a subject then copy information from the event to the email, just stamp the event as a message and fill in the “To” field.

Stamping replaces the flagging feature that traditional email clients often support. Flagging is tantalizingly close to being useful for many people but lacks the ability to define due dates or detail to explain why something was flagged. Since stamping an email as a task is just one click, it’s as easy as flagging and doesn’t force a series of decisons. All the user has to know is that there is probably something to do, sometime, and stamp as task. Later the user can remove the task stamp, assign a date, or add more details to the description of what has to be done.

The image in the sidebar shows an event that was stamped as an email, adding “to” and “from” fields but keeping the same subject, body, and all the event attributes.

Some of these ideas seem to have found their way into Notes Hanover and it’s activity explorer.

Watch the Microsoft demos and the offline capabilities of SharePoint look really slick, but dig into the details and you find that it’s not as rosy as you first thought, in fact in some areas, like Excel 2007 integration with SharePoint 2007 it’s actually worse than in the 2003 products.  To get a much more balanced understanding of just what to expect and what the alternatives are check out this really useful webcast.  It’s sponsored by Colligo who sell a best of breed Offline SharePoint solution, but its not a sales pitch.

One of the more interesting business trends is increasing mobility and how it will change many lives, it’s certainly changed mine allowing me to work from home, out walking, from cafes and restaurants and hotels.  So I was pleased to find this very interesting open survey on this critical dimension of knowledge work on this blog,  you can complete the survey here:

Survey :: http://tinyurl.com/sjsar
Password :: GMWS2006

Complete results are instantly available to you when you complete the survey instrument. It takes a scant 10 minutes. I found some very interesting trends in the survey results. Could you please share your responses?

Note: the survey summary is anonymous and does not include answers to open-ended questions.

I just saved the results as a PDF file and I will be having a good read through on Monday.

I have just come across a post by Eric Mack describing a customer who was considering scrapping Lotus Notes,  it didn’t take long for Eric to help them realise just how much value Notes was and could deliver to them. 

I told  them that I thought they should switch away from Notes. I offered to help them make a shopping list of what they would need to purchase to match their current capabilities.
Half way through helping them with the shopping list, someone said, “But our [Lotus Notes system] already does all of that.”

We often forget in our rush to adopt new tools just how good the ones we have already are, if only we put some effort into learning how to use and then exploit them. 

It’s coincidental that I have a few recent posts on the same topic where I look back on the value of email and networked file systems when used correctly, compared to collaborative workspaces when used inappropriately and also the fact that Excel 2003 could already do many of the things I like most about Excel 2007 but just didn’t know how to do.

I use my blog as a personal knowledge management tool.  Every day I collect up 20-30 blog posts, web pages, PDF files etc to read.  They are all there on my Tablet PC as different tabs in Maxthon, the following morning I read them and then for those that need some sort of action I add them to Maxthon groups like For action, To watch, To blog, etc. 

For action stuff I work through when I get chance and it tends to be software to download, emails to send etc

To watch stuff is self explanatory,  the only twist being that I try and download stuff to watch onto my Tablet so that I can watch it when I am at a loose end, waiting to pick the kids up from swimming for example

To blog stuff, is anything that I find really interesting and want to remember for later,  I find blogging it much more useful than just tagging it because not only do I remember it but I get to think a little about the context and how it links to other things I am interested in.  Of course the spin off benefit is that I get to share it with others in my company and beyond.  I also post stuff on my blog in answer to questions that people ask me, it’s more efficient than email.

I find this usage model for my blog very effective,  in almost every conversation I have now – after writing a blog for 3 years – I tend to illustrate the point I am making with a few links to articles I have already written,  it makes me seem super efficient!

There are many more uses for blogs in the enterprise, some of which I have described on by blog already,  but this post by Martin provides an excellent overview and of course Rod Boothby has consistently excellent posts on the topic.

By the way,  for any of you wondering at the number of posts today – I have just got back from holiday and have an hour to work through my “To Blog” lists before I go swimming!

For the last few weeks I have been testing an iMate SP5,  I had high hopes for it thinking it would be a great complement for my TC1100 Tablet.  My main requirements (with scores) were as follows:

• small enough to take anywhere *****
• worked great as a phone *****
• seamlessly receive push email in the background without impacting mp3 playback ******
• basic calendar, mainly used in day view ***
• ability to lookup people in company address book for email and phone numbers  X
• mp3 playback of mainly podcasts and recorded conference calls ***
• rock solid stability ***

Overall conclusion:

I really liked it, but won’t be keeping it.  In the end it just doesn’t compare with the Treo 650 which with a few important additions is optimised for me to be the perfect device.

Detailed conclusions:

The SP5 is a compromise device,  if you start out wanting a great phone with a well integrated contact address book then you are onto a winner.  The fact that you also get calendar integration and email are real bonuses.  Because I have a Tablet I hadn’t expected to use the SP5 to send emails - I have never been very comfortable with a keypad – but the SP5 has well integrated voice email functionality so I ended up using that a lot whenever I needed to send or reply to email.

Size – great, very small and light, keys are a reasonable size
Sound – the external speaker was very loud,  much louder than the Treo,  sound via the headset was ok too.
Battery life – reasonable – about one day of intensive use
Stability – I have had to restart it on average once every 5 days, once because it completely froze and all the other times because it slowed to a crawl.
Bluetooth – not tested
Storage – Mini SD card, under battery.  Not very easy to change but I used a 1GB card and so it was fairly roomy, drag and drop of files made it easy to add/delete files without taking the SD card out of the device.
PC integration – ability to copy files to and from the SD card was very reliable,  I copied hundreds of MB’s at a time without a hitch, application installation was quick and easy.  I actually didn’t need to use ActiveSync as all my sync was wireless via OneBridge which is just as well as I had an issue with Active Sync, caused by using Windows 2003 Server.
Speed – just acceptable, no where near as fast as the Treo, switching between applications was painfully slow at times.  However music always played just fine
Launcher – I dislike the fact that I can not control the order in which the applications appear, but otherwise it works ok
Buttons – rubbish there are not enough hardware buttons and no modifier keys to make the few buttons it does have dual use.  I really like hardware shortcut buttons on my Treo so this was a big usability issue for me
Wifi – never got it configured, not sure what I would use it for
Phone – great, I think the signal strength was better than my Treo, the speaker phone was loud and easy to use.  The call history is good, quick redial is good.  I particularly liked the fact that you could do a type down search against the call history.
Contacts – great,  but I really wanted directory lookup, which didn’t work in my configuration – OneBridge GPRS connection to Lotus Notes.  I particularly liked the type down search
Email – great for reading, even with the small screen emails were easy to read.  Wireless synchronisations worked well, ticking away in the background.  On the Treo OneBridge can not run in the background with an mp3 playing without causing the mp3 to stutter every 10 seconds or so,  so I had to use on demand sync.  Great for sending email as well provided you already have the person in your address book, or are replying to an email.  In both cases sending is only viable if you are a keypad wizard or – in my case – you are happy to record and send voice notes.  I think voice notes are fantastic and seem a much better idea than sending terse emails that are easily misinterpreted
MP3 player – I really didn’t like Windows media player,  it’s handling of podcasts is poor, its library management is fiddly, the lack of a slider to skip backwards and forwards in long podcasts was annoying, the headphones were ok, but I really missed the ability to use the button on the headset to control the media player.  On the Treo you can use Headset control to turn any wired headset into a remote control.  I tried 3 or 4 alternative media players Pocket Player was the best but it’s no where near as good as Pocket Tunes on the Treo.
IE – ok if you are really desperate to browse the web,  but obviously the screen size and slow speed make it a real challenge.
Task manager – rubbish, but then I don’t use task management in Notes, so I never really used it
Calendar – poor – the day view is pretty good,  I personally hated the week and month views but I am sure others must use them for something.  Creating personal appointments works, but you can not create meetings, invite remote attendees and have this information sync to Lotus Notes.
Voice Notes – I had high hopes for the voice notes function, but the quality was very low and their was no hardware button for it.  I use CallRec on my Treo and this is amazing well integrated, especially if you make most of your voice notes whilst listening to podcasts or music like I do.  It also records phone calls.
Camera – pretty good, much better than the Treo as expected.  I am a big fan of good camera’s in phones I think they are incredibly useful, especially with good desktop integration like that promised by OneNote
RSS reader – I tried out NewsGator Mobile.  I had very high hopes for it,  the usability and speed were acceptable and I think it would have saved me a little time at my desk because I could use it whilst queueing etc.  In practice as it was a beta I found too many bugs in the synchronisation to be able to use it much.

SP5 vs Treo 650

I have used a Treo 650 for over a year so when I was asked to test the SP5 it was only on the condition that I could keep the Treo in case the SP5 failed to impress.  I knew the Treo would be hard to beat!  What surprised me was how subtle features made the Treo the better SmartPhone for me, and also how good the low cost/free software is for the Treo.  It seems obvious to me that the developer community has taken to th palm platform and the Treo in particular with great enthusiasm and fixed many small usability issues.  

The SP5 wins over the Treo in only a few areas:

• Smoother multi-tasking, in particular this is noticeable with the email background synchronisation that never seems to affect other functions of the device.  On the Treo OneBridge in particular causes mp3 playback to stutter
• Smaller and lighter, the Treo is not a small device, however you do get a keyboard!  However the weight really affects me now as I have a couple of great clip in cases that are very easy to use, and get close to the dock in case experience of the Blackberry.
• Voice notes/Email integration,  this is very slick and easy to use on the SP5.  Definitely a feature I will be requesting on Treo.
• PC integration, especially the ability to drag and drop files from the desktop.  I use Card Export on the Treo to do the same thing,  but it’s not as reliable or as easy to use

The Treo wins over the SP5 in all other areas,  but particularly worthy of note:

• The media playback experience, especially for podcasts and recorded events
• The larger screen and keyboard, make reading longer documents easier
• The touch screen, means that more functions can be surfaces for easy access, on the SP5 you have fewer features and the few there are are hidden away behind several menus
• The voice recording, this really is very slick on the Treo,  as I do a lot of my research on the move,  I listen to a lot of podcasts, conference sessions, analyst briefings, recorded conference calls etc on my Treo.  Using headset control I can pause/play/skip them with a single headset button click and now with CallRec I can record snipets from them, or record notes for myself – ideas, web sites, book names etc – with a single side button click.  If a make or receive a phone call my media player auto-pauses and restarts after the call and I can also record all or any part of the call with a single side button click as well.

I must have been asleep during May because I missed the announcement of this tool, which is an add-on to Office SharePoint 2007 and also includes a client component that allows an individual to control the information from their local Email folders and IM that they want to submit to SharePoint search so that it can be mined via SharePoint people search.  Microsoft certainly seem to have taken privacy concerns seriously and also used a lot of social networking smarts as this snippet from their blog shows:

When you run the KN client for the first time on your local machine, you can choose which Microsoft Office Outlook folders are included in your local analysis. (The KN client supports either Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007.) After the KN client is done with its local analysis, it will recommend keywords and contacts for you to act on. The word “recommend” here is very important in that KN is only recommending keywords and contacts. It is only you who can decide what to accept, edit, or reject before your profile information is published to the server. You can also decide at this point whether or not you are willing to help your colleagues in an anonymous manner.

 

Once your profile information is published to the server, when your colleagues use SharePoint Server’s search facility to try to find someone with a particular area of expertise or particular contacts, the KN server responds to the query with personalized results that are displayed according to social distance and inferred relationship strengths, which were calculated by the innovative algorithms that we’ve developed.

 

So, KN can save you significant time when you’re trying to find the right people to connect with. It also allows you to choose the information you want to selectively share with your manager, your immediate workgroup, your colleagues, or your whole organization.

Definately looks like this is a blog that’s worth subscribing to.

Activity centric computing is central to IBM’s personal knowledge management and collaboration vision and this paper lays out some of the underlying concepts that we will hopefully see start to emerge in the Hannover release. The following snippet from the paper lays out the challenge IBM is trying to address:

The “big picture” is the activity. But working through to completion of the activity involves people in many kinds of interactions and the use of many different file types, communication modes and outputs such as emails, instant messages, phone calls,  presentations, spreadsheets, documents, meetings. These don’t interoperate, and their outputs live in different containers and locations. Some of the outputs are in forms that might be posted to a team workspace if one has been created; some are never shared effectively. 

People try to get organized, but it isn’t easy. There are folders for email, folders for documents, folders for photos, folders for videos, No folders for instant messages, etc. Whether working on individual or team projects, participants must remember and mentally hold in context the many related outputs and exchanges that advance the work. That is, the humans must provide the adhesive that glues the whole project together.

 The paper sums up with this vision:

“Right now, the ‘glue’ that associates tasks and objects within an activity remains in the users’ heads. But if we’re able to create and save the thread of an activity, we should also be able to preserve it as a pattern that others can reuse when performing the same or similar activities. In effect, people will be writing their own programs for executing business processes at the same time as they execute the processes. It’s going to make capturing best practices a lot easier for organizations, and it has the potential to change the way organizations think about programming.”

having taken a good look at Office 2007 and in particular Groove and Outlook I don’t think Microsoft will have anything approaching the sophistication of this concept for a while,  so it will be interesting to see if IBM pull it off and start winning over the hearts and minds of their users, in the same way they have with system admins and IT managers.

Rob Boothby has written yet another excellent paper on the subject of web office, which is his term for a collection of web based tools which are rapidly disrupting established business systems for knowledge workers, key elements of the toolkit include not surprisingly blogs, wikis, social networking, search, podcasting/event recording, web email, instant messaging, presence and IP telephony.  Rod concludes the paper with 5 compelling reasons why business needs to take this seriously:

There are five reasons why any senior executive needs to start thinking about Web Office now:

1. Web Office technology will make partnering and out-sourcing more efficient by creating a platform that can seamlessly support virtual ad-hoc teams. Thus, it will quickly reduce your costs.
2. If you have any competitors using Web Office technology, they are going to have a significant productivity lead over you. Web Office will be as big and important as email, and you wouldn’t imagine running a business today without email.
3. Your new hires are already using this technology. The MBA class of 2006 has lived and breathed the web since they were in high school. If you don’t provide company endorsed solutions, they will end up using tools that are available on the open Internet until you do.
4. Most importantly, Web Office will help you to increase the pace of innovation within your organization. As I explained in my last paper “Turning Knowledge Workers into Innovation Creators”, constant innovation is the only business strategy capable of producing a stream of above average profits. To achieve constant innovation, senior executives need to bring everyone into the effort. Web Office is the ideal tool to help achieve that goal.
5. Web Office is cheap. You will get a lot of bang for your buck.