deal architect

Le Sacre du Printemps

Spring is in the enterprise software air. 3 signs this week were about transition and optimism.

Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Workday presented to the same CIO audience I did at Stanford this week. He did it without slides in a dinner chat. They should have recorded it. It was one of the best talks I have heard about the winter we are leaving behind in enterprise software and related implementation and IT infrastructure.

Narinder Singh, co-founder of Appirio was a guest in the audience. He told me about the $ 60 million Series D funding led by General Atlantic. It comes with a heavyweight director in Gary Reiner, former CIO at GE. That’s a transformational investment to startle the brain-dead systems integration world.

Salesforce.com announced Site.com, a content management system for our new social and mobile times. Importantly, this blog post promises to move the conversation from TCO to TCC – Total Cost of Change.

All these rites of Spring make me optimistic. Been a while since I felt excited about enterprise software.

My heroes have always been…

I was invited to present on themes from The New Technology Elite to an Innovative CIO executive session at Stanford. It attracted a wide set of CIOs and other IT leaders from various US, Brazilian, Dutch, Indian, Saudi Arabian and other companies. I organized for the first batch of hardbacks to be delivered to the class direct from the bindery.

I was requested to sign copies at the end of my talk. I turned the tables. I opened my talk with the statement that CIOs and other IT staff are the least appreciated folks in the tech industry, especially in the heart of the Valley where we were. So, I applauded for them, and told them I would be honored if they all signed a copy of my book for me.

I know it sounds hokey. But I genuinely meant it and in other talks, I have asked CIOs in the audience to stand up and similarly saluted them.

By the way, the talk went well and I did sign a number of copies. I will share the presentation shortly on SlideShare.  My talk was a small part of an amazing agenda that David Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, Brian Lillie, CIO of Equinix and Prof Baba Shiv of Stanford. the program leaders put together. They had sessions with innovation thought leaders, VCs, and technology execs (Aneel Bhusri of Workday did a dinner talk) and hands-on innovation sessions including one with the famous d school at Stanford and another on Prof. Shiv’s pioneering work on the “instinctual brain”  The setting itself on the wide open Stanford campus and the meals overlooking the picturesque courtyard in the Schwab Center provided even more inspiration.

It’s good to see IT leaders given time to think big. As Willie Nelson saluted his heroes and their “slow-movin dreams” I salute mine with their dreams for much faster business impact.  

More New Florence

on the innovation blog

The Toto Washlet

Impossible Chemistry

The Old Farmer’s Almanac

Google’s HUD Eyeglasses?

The Octo-GL-Mom

In a previous incarnation, a vendor in Long Island had accumulated or developed at least 4 different versions of General Ledgers. Of course, these days there are several vendors who can make similar claims. And with their multi-tenancy plans, Brangelina must surely be envious of their tribes.

The multi-tenancy claims led to a giggly conversation among several EIs this weekend. I think they were trying to keep up with colleagues at SXSW in Austin.

Mega-tenancy, uber-tenancy, exa-tenancy, mega-penancy were some of the terms bouncing around before Last Call was announced.

I have a suggestion: Multi-pregnancy. 

More Innovation

On the New Florence blog

Nano Quadrotors

Psychedelic Bean

The Online Pinboard

Long ride for some gum!

Travel adjustments

As I had lunch with my daughter a couple of days ago and she excitedly described various trips she has coming up, and as I get ready for my own travel this week, I thought about the subtle and not so subtle travel adjustments I have made 18 months into my health recovery.

Think long and hard before you say yes to a trip

2.99 million Delta lifetime miles. 1200 lifetime Marriott lifetime nights. 7 years in row Southwest Companion Pass (100 Credits a year) and many expired miles and hotel credits on other travel companies are proof I said yes to many trips I should not have. Don’t even try to guilt me about my carbon footprint. Now I am much more careful before I say yes. Speaking engagements, must attend industry events, key dates on consulting projects are the only ones that make the cut.

Avoid multi-city weeks

4 cities in a day. Round the world in a week. Yes, done both a few times. Multi-city weeks are often unavoidable  – April and May have a couple planned. You are really pushing the travel Gods to make so many moving parts go right in a tight interval. Besides, it often involves a lovely redeye flight:)

Avoid planes without wi-fi

Southwest used to be my preferred domestic airline. Their slow wi-fi rollout has taxed my loyalty. In the end their aisle seat (I mostly qualify for A seating), on-time performance and frequent non-stops still wins them the business, but my writing has increasingly become Web dependent for research and validation, so that dead time is annoying. 

Avoid rental cars

People bitch about airport security as in TSA. Over the last decade, more frustrating is that airport security considerations have pushed car lots to remote spots. That additional shuttle time and hassle makes me much more loath to rent cars. Another subtle point – my doctor told me to be cautious about too much Bluetooth headset usage during my recovery. Rental cars without phone calls are even more dead time than planes without wi-fi. Wired headphones, you say? I lose them with alarming frequency. I may have to go back to a BlueAnt portable speakerphone. Or maybe not after you read the next point

Watch the expanding travel bag

So, I now pack some compression stockings and medications for each trip, but more vexing is the sprawl of travel electronics. Laptop (soon to be an UltraBook) and Android phone continue to deprive my iPad and Kindle of their frequent flyer miles. It’s not just the devices, its also the charging gear and accessories like MiFi and USB storage and speakerphone that makes travel planning more complex.

Home adjustments

I saw a segment on how Mitt Romney is much more relaxed on the campaign trail since his wife Ann accompanies him. I have enjoyed Margaret joining me on several trips (advantage Southwest with their free companion perk). In reverse, I have loved the additional time i have had with my beagle, Peanuts with my reduced travel. Indeed, he has led me to open up my second office – on the deck under the oak tree. I wrote much of my new book in that space with Peanuts nearby chasing squirrels and birds.

This may be the year I break the Delta 3 million miler club. Like Clooney towards the end of Up in the Air, I am not sure I am proud of the accomplishment.

The IBM tightrope

BusinessWeek’s recent column on IBM is meant to be generous, but it highlights the chasm between how Wall Street appreciates it for steady results and how many customers see it as stodgy and un-innovative as I have written here and here

Here’s how big the disconnect is. In my new book, I have a section on Warren Buffett

Can any industry hide from technology-driven disruption? Some would argue the legendary investor Warren Buffett has done well by staying away from investing in tech companies (or those susceptible to technology-driven turmoil). In his words, “In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats”

Well, Buffett invested in IBM late last year, and an IBMer reading that excerpt from my book proudly sent me a note about Buffett. He missed the irony. Buffett invested in IBM because it has a predictable business model like Coke or GEICO.

But CIOs don’t like the predictable annual IBM charges on DB2 licenses, SAP application management and data center charges especially when they benchmark against declining SaaS and Amazon storage charges.

That is the tight rope IBM has to walk. Predictability from old assets, versus growth from innovative, new assets.

Modesty as a Technology Elite attribute

The core of my new book is about 12 attributes of what I describe as the industry’s elites. 12 adjectives – 3Es, 3Ms, 3Ps and 3Ss - made the cut: Elegant, Exponential, Efficient, Mobile, Maverick, Malleable, Physical, Paranoid, Pragmatic, Speedy, Social, Sustainable. (The TOC and links to excerpts are here). Each attribute has its own chapter – the first half has 5 to 7 cameo examples of that attribute, the second half is a fuller case study. So the Elegant chapter focuses on Human Centered Design, Google’s Doodles, Jonathan Ive of Apple, John Lasseter of Pixar and others, and the case study is Virgin America and how it has redefined the flying experience with technology. 

One attribute I had on my long list was “Modest”. I had a case study identified, but struggled to find 5 to 7 cameos for the first half of the chapter. Let’s face it, it’s an elusive attribute in our industry where vendors send you press releases for every obscure award they qualify for:)

The case study I had identified was Cognizant. Even though it has qualified for just about every tribute (Fortune’s Most Admired Companies 4 years in row, Harvard Business School case study etc etc), its attitude is best represented in a quote, CEO Francisco D’Souza made in The New Polymath “ While I was in awe of the bigger Indian firms, I am glad they were
not that impressed with our brand. In fact, for our first decade I think
we stayed under their radar.”

He still likes flying low.

You go to their customer events and as I wrote here “Very few Cognizant sales pitches. But a very wide agenda and a relaxed atmosphere for its clients to learn and mingle with peers.”

I interviewed Sukumar, their CIO for the new book, and he very modestly described a “Social Design” project his team was working on.  A year later, you are starting to see hugely impressive results such as 500%+ productivity improvements for each associate from each application of what has been branded One Cognizant.  As I got an update from him last week he seemed uncomfortable with the kudos it is starting to receive.

While Modesty did not get its own chapter, I do end the book with this:

Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, one of the most revered football coaches, was quoted as saying: “Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.”

Unfortunately, technology, with the riches and recognition it brings, also seems to bring plenty of arrogance. Coach Bryant’s words are more good advice for building an elite technology team.

More New Renaissance

on the innovation blog

Aviation Art

Digital Menu Boards

The World Economic Forum Top 10 Technologies

Heathrow Airport’s Pods

Apple’s other product

While all eyes and ears were on the iPad 3 yesterday I was more impressed with how Tim Cook is gradually winning over hearts - last month with Wall Street and yesterday with a broader audience.

In the last 6 months, I have heard so many times “let’s see how Apple does post-Jobs”. No disrespect to Jobs, but that is disrespecting to what Cook has built.

The numbers in this ZDNet blog are testimony to an amazing operational engine he has been building for almost 15 years. My book research on Apple took me behind many of these numbers into its supply chain, retail ops, App Store ecosystem, cloud infrastructure and so on.

25 billion: The number of iOS apps downloaded worldwide. The 25 billionth was said to have been downloaded in China.

315 million: The number of iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) sold in 2011

172 million: The number of “post-PC” devices that Apple sold in 2011, which turned out to be 76 percent of Apple’s revenue.

110 million: The number of visitors to Apple Stores globally during the fourth quarter of 2011

100 million: The number of iCloud users since the cloud-based service launched to Apple customers last fall

62 million: The number of iOS devices sold in during the fourth quarter

15.4 million: The number of iPads sold during Q4 2011 alone

585,000: The approximate number of apps in the App Store. More than 200,000 of these are custom apps for the iPad.

Honestly, version 1 of my book was heavily Apple centric. I had to rewrite it to reflect more of the industry’s tech elite. I am glad I did and the book  now showcases HP’s supply chain, Google’s green initiatives, Facebook’s hyperefficient data center and so much more. 

No question, though. Tim Cook deserves all the kudos he will increasingly get going forward.