deal architect

More on the “future of work”

In my book trip to Europe last week, there was plenty of discussion on the future of work and what it means to countries like Ireland, immigration etc.

This week at a GigaOm event the focus was much more on the mode of how we work and where we work from (home, coffee shop etc). Check out photos of the event courtesy of Josh Hayes

The diversity was brought out by the panel I was invited to:

• Fabio Rosati is one of the savviest people in the market about trends in temporary/contractor employment in his role as CEO of eLance for almost a decade now.
• Lukas Biewald described how clouds are meeting crowds and allowing him and his customers to massively scale their talent needs at CloudFlower.
• Evy Wilkins reminded everyone there is still that important talent source called employees. Her company doyoubuzz is on a mission to spice up boring, Word based resumes.

Our panel was preceded by a talk by Mary Hamilton of Accenture, a reminder that big outsourcers are still a major talent source and source of employment for many. Following our panel was a talk with John Hagel, who spends time on communities and their impact on talent pools in his new book, The Power of Pull.

So, we touched on employees, outsourcers, contractors, crowds and communities – part of our expanding talent landscape. Kudos to Surj Patel, the organizer of the Bunker session for allowing such a wide diversity of discussion in a little over 2 hours.

What I particularly enjoyed was the detours our panel took in unexpected ways – thanks to Sameer Patel, the moderator and questions from the audience. Fabio touched on the need for an advocacy for the  contractor who works from home, likely struggles with healthcare issues. There was a discussion on how different generations are handling this breakdown of the traditional “job”. I mentioned MTV and how its young talent have adapted to  a “gig based” employment model.  Another thread touched on connectivity and collaboration infrastructure as work moves to talent, not the other way round.

Finally, as I looked at the elance website, it is good to see them credit Prof. Tom Malone at MIT for his coining the term “elance” in 1998. I was pleased to include his current work in my book as he and his colleagues breakdown the “genomes” of crowds and communities – what makes them tick. The author of the seminal 2004 book, The Future of Work continues to think ahead for us about the “next gen” future of work.

Weekend Stuff: The Polymath Pilgrim Progress

The Polymaths have been making their way around the world.

a) This one made it to Leonardo Shikida in Brazil in good shape.

b) This one arrived to Harish Malani in India “severely jetlagged”. Barnes and Noble generously offered him a discount of a whopping $ 4 if he would keep the torn and soaked fellow!

c) The 5 below and 20 others traveled in my Delta baggage on my trip to Europe last week since amazon in the UK told me just before I left they could not deliver in Europe for another 3 weeks. To avoid the fate above from moisture in the cargo hold, they were packed in gallon freezer bags. They are now being well taken care of by Pat Phelan, David Terrar, Bertrand Duperrin and others in Dublin, London and Paris.

 

d) Of course, Martijn Linssen in Amsterdam had his arrive while I was there – because he had smartly ordered from amazon in the US, not amazon in Europe.

e) 14 of them barely made it across the state, forget the ocean. The USPS delivered back the cover (yes, just the cover) of a box. It had an ominous sticker “Received without contents. Jacksonville, FL NDC” so somewhere between Tampa and Jacksonville something bad happened to them. Or may be something good. On eBay, some used copies are selling for almost 3 times what amazon is selling them new!

Dear reader, do you have a Pilgrim’s Progress tale to report?

More tenets for the next-gen analyst

Good friend Ray Wang lays out his 7 tenets of starting a new analyst firm - it’s a nice summary of his own decision process as he exited Forrester and what he has learned since. I would like to contribute a few more based on my book experience over the last year about what a next generation, “polymath” analyst firm should aim for

a) Look way beyond IT 3LAs

Three letter acronyms define old school analysts. They package neat categories of technologies. The real world needs solutions which often cut across categories. Not just IT categories, cleantech, biotech etc. We need a new generation of polymath analysts which follow the path of Kleiner Perkins which over the last few years (as my book describes) has aggressively moved past its roots in information technologies into clenatech or that of Intellectual Ventures formed by ex Microsoft CTO, Nathan Mhyrvold  whose interests are in computer hardware and software but also more ambitious ones, including as its website says “ advanced medical procedures, digital imaging, nanotechnology, nuclear energy and advanced particle physics.”

b) Focus on innovation and solutions from “buyers”, not just “vendors”

More and more so-called “buyers” are increasingly “tech vendors”. BMW’s cars have millions of line of software code and hundreds of sensors. Hospira does not just sell IV fluids, it has an infusion system with scanners, complex displays and sophisticated algorithms. GE delivers technology to aviation, healthcare and many other industries. My book has many such examples. But the traditional industry analyst has not recognized this blurring of who is “buyer” and who is “vendor” of technology.

c) Scour the world

They are snippets of 1-2 paras in a 400 page book, but I have been impressed how many oohs and aahs I have heard from readers about the sections on Macedonia and the Amish of rural Pennsylvania. Technology innovation is not just happening in Silicon Valley and big cities and the next-gen analyst will dramatically expand his/her geographic reach.

d) Showcase the voices of many

One of the other traits of a traditional analyst is the summarization of multiple viewpoints into a market position. It shows up as glib lists – could be “best practices”, it could be the top 5 vendors in a magic quadrant etc. The problem with that is you often lose the “nutrition” readers can find in the source data. One of the most challenging things I had in my book was how to “sanitize” the voices of 150+ innovative people, products, places profiled. In the end, I took the ego-bruising approach of allowing them to speak for themselves. The result is a much richer product for the reader. They are smart enough to create their own “top 10” list from the book based on their industry, geography etc.

e) Work in multiple roles

The book has many perspectives on how “the nature of work” is evolving with mobility, telepresence etc. The traditional analyst is comfortable being an analyst – where the average customer interface is a 30 minute phone call or a 2 hour vendor pitch. The next generation analyst will be far more flexible – he/she work on short term consulting assignments, moderate conversations across multiple clients, be the interface for a client to the growing world of communities and crowds.

The coming New Polymath world opens up opportunities for, well, a new generation of Polymath analysts. Scary and exciting times, ahead.

A Polymath European tour

Last week was a whirlwind of book events across Europe - in Dublin, in Amsterdam, 2 in London and in Paris. Befitting a book on Polymaths it was diverse in many aspects.

The venues: What a choice - do you present at a room like this at the Hempel in London or would you rather move the meeting outside to an even more pleasant location like this? The Cafe de La Ville in Paris has been called one of the best bars in the world. The Library Bar is one of Dublin's best pubs. The Capgemini office was in a tech complex to the Southeast of Amsterdam - which contrasts so nicely with that old world capital. The Tuttle Club reflects the spartan, but funky, style of a start-up incubator that is the Centre for Creative Collaboration.

The audiences: In Amsterdam, it was a group of seasoned outsourcing executives. At the EuroCloud event in London, it brought together several software and cloud computing executives. In Ireland, the focus was on what all the innovations in the book meant for "the future of Irish work". At the Tuttle Club in London, the tone was more about what it means for social networks. Two of the events were on Friday evenings, and I was really appreciative people took time out of so many alternative options to come listen about the book.

The small talk: It was great to spend time with the organizers of each of the events. John Peavoy provided a nice contrast of tech startups in Cork versus other parts of Ireland. Martijn Linssen provided a perspective on how much cleaner Amsterdam has become compared to my last visit. David Terrar described his upbringing in London and the innumerable rock concerts he has been to. He really should write an encyclopedia on the "British Invasion." Bertrand Duperrin contrasted Miami, a city he enjoys visiting with the South of France.  I was meeting most of these people for the first time, but there was a certain camaraderie as if we had known each other for years. In Dublin and Paris, they also warmly welcomed my wife.

The "Grand challenge": All the organizers (I need to also thank Pat Phelan, Phil Wainewright, Lloyd Davis and the folks at FinancialForce.com for their sponsorship of the events) faced a common challenge. July is vacation season in Europe. They did an admirable job organizing and publicizing the events. The audiences were smallish, so each of them apologized. No reason to. Couple of years ago, we could not have organized such a tour at all. It is a testament to the power of social networks that we could - and the viral exposure they brought to the book in the last couple of weeks has been huge.

Gartner stops short of calling them "evil empires"

Extract from my new book:

As we know, the 1990s were a chaotic time for Russia as the Soviet Union’s centralized, defense - heavy infrastructure was gradually torn down and replaced by decentralized, commercial enterprises. Seth Ravin describes his work there blandly as “ defense conversion, ” but it was dangerous work where he faced kidnapping and death threats.

He is now into another type of conversion — going against what some would call today ’s “ evil empires"

This blog readers have, of course, heard about Seth, Rimini Street and low payback from software vendor maintenance dollars since one of its first posts in March 2005. Now, Gartner finally acknowledges it in the code of conduct for reasonable, predictable maintenance costs developed by its global IT council.

I would love to see Gartner put some teeth behind this code. Have the guts to call out IBM, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft and others as they violate those principles. Its analysts hear about them in client calls all the time. Here are some I cited in a recent article and Ray Wang discusses here. Gartner could easily anonymize the client names but share them with the world.

Not that I expect Reaganesque behavior from Gartner. Given these software vendors are also some of its biggest clients, the language will likely be ambassadorial and likely take years to show much progress. Better to have the "converter", Seth in tow...

The future "future of work"

John had just returned from a trip to Italy. His sisters, each a year or two older had come back from similar trips to Portugal, Egypt and Turkey. His cousin was headed to Amsterdam today, and another was describing her trip to the US. They are my wife's Irish nieces and nephews. The more I saw of them this weekend and heard how they comfortably glided around the world, and importantly, how they financed their trips, the more I thought of my discussion with Joe Garde of IrishDebate.com during my book talk in Dublin on Friday.

Joe had pointed out how the Irish are the "glue" in many enterprises around the world. He then introduced me by Twitter to Frank Hannigan who called it "cultural middleware" - something which allows the Irish diaspora outside Ireland estimated at 20X the population in the island to thrive. 

At the book event, Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association had in turn talked about how she tells young Irish not to get "addicted". No, not Nancy Reagan's version - this is addiction to a salary. She wants young Irish to be comfortable as entrepreneurs, and in communities and crowds as they increasingly become talent sources for enterprises - not just seek out jobs in multi-nationals and local large companies.

How will the Irish "glue" need to evolve to be relevant in the technology Polymath world I describe? Will labor mobility matter as much in a world with telepresence and digital collaboration where work moves to talent, not the other way round? Can the Irish Diaspora continue to work in a world increasingly wary of immigration? How would the Irish themselves react to the next wave of Polish, Filipino and other mobile work forces eager to show the world they can similarly be the "glue"?  Will the next generation of Irish continue to flock to institutions like the US FBI, which has over the generations depended heavily on them? Or will John and his siblings and cousins heed Joan's advice more and avoid larger employers? 

While us middle aged folks fret about those issues, my wife observed over the weekend how optimistic John and her other nephews and nieces were. Sure the Irish economy is not in great shape, but nobody seems to have told these young ones. A corporate job in New Jersey, a start up in Ireland, a community role in the SAP SDN ecosystem, a job in a beach hotel in Turkey. The choices are limitless.

The more I present on my book, the more I am fascinated by how much of the discussion gravitates towards "future of work" implications. Hope to explore these aspects more in a GigaOm "bunker session" in San Francisco on July 28 and on the Bill Kutik Radio Show on August 4.  And I hope to join Joe on one of his IrishDebate shows in the next few weeks. 

John had just returned from a trip to Italy. His sisters, each a year or two older had come back from similar trips to Portugal, Egypt and Turkey. His cousin was headed to Amsterdam today, and another was describing her trip to the US. They are my wife's Irish nieces and nephews. The more I saw of them this weekend and heard how they comfortably glided around the world, and importantly, how they financed their trips, the more I thought of my discussion with Joe Garde of IrishDebate.com during my book talk in Dublin on Friday.

Joe had pointed out how the Irish are the "glue" in many enterprises around the world. He then introduced me by Twitter to Frank Hannigan who called it "cultural middleware" - something which allows the Irish diaspora outside Ireland estimated at 20X the population in the island to thrive. 

At the book event, Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Association had in turn talked about how she tells young Irish not to get "addicted". No, not Nancy Reagan's version - this is addiction to a salary. She wants young Irish to be comfortable as entrepreneurs, and in communities and crowds as they increasingly become talent sources for enterprises - not just seek out jobs in multi-nationals and local large companies.

How will the Irish "glue" need to evolve to be relevant in the technology Polymath world I describe? Will labor mobility matter as much in a world with telepresence and digital collaboration where work moves to talent, not the other way round? Can the Irish Diaspora continue to work in a world increasingly wary of immigration? How would the Irish themselves react to the next wave of Polish, Filipino and other mobile work forces eager to show the world they can similarly be the "glue"?  Will the next generation of Irish continue to flock to institutions like the US FBI, which has over the generations depended heavily on them? Or will John and his siblings and cousins heed Joan's advice more and avoid larger employers? 

While us middle aged folks fret about those issues, my wife observed over the weekend how optimistic John and her other nephews and nieces were. Sure the Irish economy is not in great shape, but nobody seems to have told these young ones. A corporate job in New Jersey, a start up in Ireland, a community role in the SAP SDN ecosystem, a job in a beach hotel in Turkey. The choices are limitless.

The more I present on my book, the more I am fascinated by how much of the discussion gravitates towards "future of work" implications. Hope to explore these aspects more in a GigaOm "bunker session" in San Francisco on July 28 and on the Bill Kutik Radio Show on August 4.  And I hope to join Joe on one of his IrishDebate shows in the next few weeks. 

Dublin kickoff to European book tour

A stone's throw from historic Trinity College in a place appropriately called the Library Bar we convened. You could feel the ghosts of Joyce and Yeats and Shaw and Goldsmith in the hallways. Dublin's glorious literary history provided a nice kickoff to the Europe tour of The New Polymath. 

So nice of John Peavoy and Pat Phelan (who is profiled in the book for his company's MAXroam which is shaking up the global mobile roaming market) to take time away from their families in Cork, a couple of hours away, to host the event. And those who came enjoyed a cerebral evening focused on a wide range of technologies and the implications for the Irish economy. I particularly appreciated Joe Garde of  IrishDebate.com and Joan Mulvihill of the Irish Internet Association staying even further for a drink with my wife, Margaret, who grew up in Ireland. 

I leave Dublin for the next stop in Amsterdam having made some new friends and with plenty of invigorating thoughts from the evening. And yes, I can confirm the Guinness does taste better when it is drunk within walking distance of the Liffey!

Processor Magazine on Third Party Maintenance

quotes me and others on the continuing battle for customer choice in enterprise software.

As I re-read what I had talked to Bridget, the reporter about, it struck me the biggest single reason to continue to pay maintenance to the software publisher is to qualify for regulatory updates. How ironic then that the big enterprise software vendors talk about "proprietary IP" when the regulatory spec is by definition public domain. 

Come meet us on the European Book Tour

Courtesy of the hospitality of a number of European bloggers I am doing small book events in various cities over the next few days. Please join us in for innovation conversations and raffles for free copies of my book.

16^th Dublin http://bit.ly/dyuVlV

21^st Amsterdam http://dlvr.it/2d3K9

22^nd London http://bit.ly/bDIWay

23^rd morning London http://bit.ly/NTl

23^rd evening Paris http://bit.ly/a17hbk

Social CRM: The inflexion point

In the “social” chapter in my new book, I was honored to have Paul Greenberg talk about the social customer and the fact that he/she increasingly “controls the conversation”. He succinctly talked about “customer referral value” versus “customer lifetime value”.

I also included examples of how Avon, Starbucks, P&G and PepsiCo are leveraging social networks for new revenue sources.

Having said that, I recently read two sobering blogs.

One says we would be better off if we assumed the value of a Facebook fan is zero! And the other talked about anger and denial in 87% of corporate executives when it comes to SCRM.

What gives?

Here’s my take:

a) We need more positive SCRM stories

Seems like everyone has heard of David Carroll’s guitar incident with United Airlines. And Kevin Smith and Southwest. And Ann Minch and Bank of America. In each case the corporation comes out looking sloppy at best, evil at worst.  And we expect them to embrace this customer?  We need way more positive corporate examples of SRCM than we have today because the negative ones are giving the social customer a whiny image in many corporate halls.

b) The barrier for the “social” moniker for vendors is too low

Every startup has social in their business plans, and plenty of legacy ERP, CRM, collaboration tech  companies are spray painting the social color on their products. Jeremiah Oywang calls it the Cambrian era in the evolution of social CRM – species appearing at rapid speed. Add to a) and we have too many immature vendors chasing a cynical customer base.

c) Social Channels = Buzz, Traditional Channels = Bulk

Time for social CRM fans to get realistic. For a long time. the bulk of revenues for most industries, even as they adopt social CRM, will come from brick and mortar stores and bag carrying sales forces. Let me give you a personal example. As I wrote recently I have leveraged social computing, communities and crowds in 10 aspects of my book process – from content creation to editing to marketing. Yet, 80% of my initial book sales are coming from traditional bulk sales from case studies in book and  speaking opportunities. Those channels order in chunks of 20, 50, 500 – the social customer in 1-2 units. And get this - my publisher reports those bulk sales to nobody. In industry after industry that is how business works. Is that a failure for social CRM? Not at all. But, let’s not forget traditional channels generate majority of sales but have no correlation to Twitter follower counts or blog page views and other metrics we covet in social world.

d) We need to show some “tough love” to the social customer

We have been sending confusing messages to the social customer for years. We have told them “We want your “attention”, not your money.” “You are entitled to free – someone else will pay us for your eyeballs.” “We need to “engage” you.” Time for some straight talk. Hey, social customer, if you want to be truly influential, start “spending more money”. Conversations are fine, but commerce pays the bills.