Month: May 2005

InfoWorld Website Redesign

Matt McAlister writes how the site combines both freeform and structured tags:

What I like most in this new architecture is that the related links are now driven by del.icio.us. Our edit team is tagging content in del.icio.us. The engineers are pulling down the del.icio.us RSS feeds. And then we create matching logic based on the common tags. We also link back out to del.icio.us pages via the tags for the article on display.

This is a first step with several more ideas for leveraging tags coming soon. We need a more densely tagged data set behind us before some of the other plans can become real. The accuracy of the related links will also be a little shady, I’m sure, until we get more sophisticated with our tagging. But we’re all excited about the possibilities for the site now that we have these tags. New ideas seem to crop up daily.

Our lead engineer Derek Butcher defined this problem in an interesting way. “Structured tags give you low precision but high volume. Freeform tags give you high precision but low volume.”

Business Week on Blogs

Business Week had a cover story on blogs recently: ” How does business change when everyone is a potential publisher? A vast new stretch of the information world opens up. For now, it’s a digital hinterland. The laws and norms covering fairness, advertising, and libel? They don’t exist, not yet anyway. But one thing is clear: Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they’re losing control of it.”

BlackBerry and Competition

WSJ writes about Research In Motion’s BlackBerry’s success and the challenges it now faces:

Awakened by RIM’s achievement, tech giants and hungry upstarts are responding with an arsenal of gear aimed at cracking the BlackBerry’s stronghold. Consumer-electronics companies such as Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are rolling out competing e-mail devices. Meanwhile, rivals are providing network software designed to intercept or block the revenue RIM generates from handling wireless e-mail traffic.

RIM now faces a classic technology-industry problem: Young companies that launch popular products aren’t always the long-term winners. Netscape Corp.’s Web browser was superseded by a late alternative from Microsoft Corp. Google Inc.’s Internet-search service eclipsed early offerings by Yahoo Inc., and now Google itself faces intensifying counterattacks.

For RIM, which started life developing electronic signs for auto plants, the challenge is particularly acute. The still-nascent market is being attacked by a phalanx of competitors at multiple points along BlackBerry’s food chain. Companies are developing software that allows wireless e-mail to work on a series of rival hand-held devices. Others are creating networks to handle e-mail traffic in competition with BlackBerry.

Today, 100 wireless carriers sell BlackBerry hand-helds and service and 80 more will start this year. RIM’s 120,000-square-foot plant in Waterloo, which works round-the-clock, isn’t big enough. RIM recently agreed to take over the leather factory next door. For its fiscal year ended Feb. 26, 2005, RIM had net income of $213 million on revenue of $1.35 billion.

Meanwhile, a host of companies are pushing wireless e-mail networks as BlackBerry alternatives. For example, Good Technology Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., says it has signed up more than 5,000 organizations for its rival system, which runs with gadgets that compete with the BlackBerry.

The NYTimes writes about Microsoft’s plans:

With Windows-powered mobile devices lagging behind the Palms and BlackBerrys of the world, the Microsoft Corporation has brought an electrical engineer from China – a master of the strategy game Go – to put them back in the race.

He is Ya-Qin Zhang (pronounced yah-CHEEN jong), 39, an experienced computer systems researcher who helped start Microsoft’s Beijing research laboratory in 1999. He was tapped in January 2004 to come to Redmond, where Microsoft is based, to lead the turnaround of the Windows Mobile software business, which has hemorrhaged money for years.

Now the first results of Dr. Zhang’s efforts are scheduled to be unveiled at a conference May 9-10 in Las Vegas at which Microsoft plans to introduce the next version of its Windows Mobile software, code-named Magneto, with new productivity and multimedia features.

Industry speculation is that Microsoft has been fashioning the software as a ” RIM-killer,” a reference to Research In Motion, the Canadian company that dominates the corporate hand-held computing market with its BlackBerry.

The Feature adds:

It would appear that the proxy space — where products like RIM’s servers act as a go-between for corporate e-mail servers (generally Exchange) — is becoming commoditized, and separate vendors are focusing on different types of users and different geographic areas. Seven’s approach, for instance, is a white-label system operators can have embedded in phones that’s aimed at small companies and so-called prosumers. RIM’s got a lot of strength with larger companies, but perhaps not as much with individual users. But these different targets should provide business for both companies — and of course be a boon for operators.

The juggernaut, of course, is Microsoft. Its latest Windows Mobile release incorporates push e-mail, but the real money for the company is in middleware and servers, as its ActiveSync server licensing deals indicates, dictating its slightly more friendly approach. But what’s interesting is how device manufacturers are licensing as many of these different technologies as they can so as not to alienate any potential users; and how companies like RIM, once dependent on its own devices, are licensing the technology to them.

This results in a lot of control being in the carriers’ court, and will make a winner out of companies that get their backing. Operators around the world have been beating down RIM’s door, hoping to take advantage of the data-traffic and ARPU boost BlackBerrys deliver. Seven’s happiness to take a back-seat role also wins them favor, and an operator with offerings with RIM technology for corporate users and Seven for smaller users could be a winning combination.

VCs and Open-Source Software

The New York Times writes:

Venture capitalists are again embracing open-source technology companies. JBoss, which offers a layer of software for controlling Web applications, was one of 20 such businesses that raised $149 million in venture money in 2004, according to estimates by the research firm VentureOne. At least three open-source start-ups raised $20 million last month alone.

A big difference between then and now is the increased adoption of open-source software by corporate users. Another is the relative success of Red Hat, an open-source start-up that went public in 1999 and makes money by selling enhancements and maintenance services to corporations using Linux.

Red Hat has become something of an inspiration to open-source businesses and their investors because it shows that it is possible to base a lucrative services business on giveaway software. Red Hat also gives its customers a guarantee that a long list of popular applications will work on its edition of Linux.

TECH TALK: Good Books: What Great Managers Do (Part 2)

The central point in Marcus Buckinghams new book The One Thing You Need to Know : … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success is that great managers understand the differences in the people they are managing and work on bringing the best out in each one of them. In an interview with ComputerWorld, he said:

The job of the leader is to rally people toward a better future. It’s externally focused, optimistic, ego-driven. Leaders see the present, but the future is even more vivid to them. The key skill is to cut through individual differences and tap into those things all of us share: fear of the future and the need for clarity.
The role of the manager is very internally focused: to turn one person’s talent into performance; to ask, “Who is the person? What is his or her unique style of learning? What unique trigger must I squeeze to get the best out of him?” The challenge is to find what’s unique and capitalize on it. It’s really different but hugely important in a company. It’s a role that’s been undervalued.

People think of managers as leaders in waiting, but these are two very different abilities. The manager’s role is catalytic. A great manager speeds up the reaction between the talent of people and the goals of the company. When that role is not valued, reactions are slowed down. If you want to know the future of a company, look at the quality of the managers.

Many IT managers would love it if all programmers thought alike, but a great manager knows that’s absolute bunkum. A great manager figures out who’s the knight, the queen, the pawn. He coordinates all those very different abilities and contributions into the service of the overall plan. He builds a team out of individuals.

Great managers talk about strengths -not things you can do well, but things that strengthen you. They’re appetites as much as abilities – things you’re drawn toward. A weakness isn’t something you’re bad at; it’s something that drains, bores or frustrates you. An IT manager ought to be able to find out, for example, that this person loves to pull together and stay till midnight to meet that deadline. That urgency, passion, camaraderie makes him feel alive. Others need to go step by step and see the timeline and stick to it very religiously – never get behind the eight ball.

In the IT world, where it’s “Do it for me yesterday,” it’s pretty important to know which of your people love that pressure and which are drained by it. If crunch time weakens you, you can’t learn to love it. You can do it once or twice and then you’ll quit — psychologically or physically.

Watch to see what people are drawn to. Managers more often focus on weaknesses, but great managers know that will get you incremental improvement. If you invest in strengths, you get exponential improvement — a much better return on investment.

This is what Buckingham has to say about learning styles:

Analyzers crave information. They love preparation and role playing. They take a task apart, examine the pieces and put it back together. They want to absorb all there is to know about a subject before they begin. They hate mistakes. Don’t expect them to wing it; give them the time and the tools to prepare.

Doers learn by trial and error. Preparation bores them. They want a quick overview of the desired outcomes and then they’re good to go. Start them with a simple task and gradually increase the complexity until they’ve mastered their roles.

Watchers like to see the total performance so they can learn how each part relates to all the others. Formal education and preparation leave them cold. Let a watcher shadow a successful performer so he can see the big picture.

As Drucker said, Leadership is the lifting of a mans vision to higher sights. Taken together, the three books by Drucker, Welch and Buckingham help us do just that.

Tomorrow: The Marketing Playbook

Continue reading TECH TALK: Good Books: What Great Managers Do (Part 2)

The Lost Art of Note-Taking

Working Smart (Michael Hyatt) writes about his style of taking notes which almost mirrors mine. He also outlines the rationale:

1. Note-taking enables you to stay engaged. The real benefit is not what happens after the meeting but during the meeting itself. If I dont take notes, my mind wanders. I daydream. As they say, the lights are on, but no one is home. However, when I take notes, I find that I stay more alert, focused, and actively involved. My contribution to the meeting is thus more likely to add value to the topic under discussion. This is why I take notes even if someone is officially taking minutes.

2. Note-taking provides a mechanism for capturing your ideas, questions, and commitments. Not everything can be resolved in the meeting. Some ideas require incubation. Questions require further research. Commitments require follow-up that cannot be done until after the meeting. Regardless, note-taking provides a way to capture the content of the meeting, so that I can processes it after the meeting.

3. Note-taking communicates the right things to the other attendees. When someone takes notes, it communicates to everyone else that they are actively listening. It also communicates that what others are saying is importantit is worth making the effort to record their insights. If you are in a leadership position, it also subtly establishes accountability. Your people think, If the boss is writing it down, he probably intends to follow-up. I better pay attention. As a leader, your example speaks volumes. If you take notes, your people will likely take notes. If you dont, it is likely they wont.

World of Good

[via ZooStation] Global Social Venture Competition just announced the winners. First prize went to World of Good: “World of Good’s new line of globally sourced fair trade gifts and accessories brings ethically sources handcrafts into the mainstream retail market and aims to generate sustainable livelihoods for thoughts of artisans around the world. During 2004, its first year in operations, World of Good established sourcing partnerships with 70 fair trade artisan copperative in 20 different coutnries around the globe and increased sales for all of them. Products are sourced under fair trade guidelines that generate employment for women and disadvantaged communities, promise a living wage and promote social and economic development. Just months after World of Good installed its first in-store kiosk, our products are flying off the shelves in over 55 reatil locations, including bookstores, yoga studios and 14 Whole Foods Bay Area stores. World of Good’s 2004 run rate was over $400,000 in sales and its products have turned significantly faster than retail industry averages while generating markups of 100% for both retailers and World of Good. World of Good projects its 2007 revenues to be over $20 million.”