Archive for November, 2009

Inc. captures some of the essential thoughts from Drucker… including some you might not have come across…

Zen: In 1998, when the writer Harriet Rubin interviewed Drucker at his home forInc., he showed her this passage from a book on Japanese art: “The Zen-inspired painter seeks the ‘truth’ of a landscape, like that of religion, in sudden enlightenment. This allows no time for careful detailed draftsmanship. After long contemplation, he is expected to be able to seize inner truth in a swordlike stroke of the brush….” Similarly, Drucker achieved enlightenment through quiet observation, waiting patiently until he saw an idea whole, then rendering universal truth in the swift space of a sentence. Thus was the essence of the master.

Finally capturing up on some links and reading… a chunk of interesting research here about trust in social networks:

• Professional decision-making is becoming more social
  • Traditional influence cycles are being disrupted by Social Media as decision makers utilize social networks to inform and validate decisions
  • Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online; however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.
• The big three have emerged as leading professional networks: LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter
  • The average professional belongs to 3-5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are among the top used.
  • The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks
• Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools
  • Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users
• Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person
  • Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% – combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust)
• Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years
  • Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions
  • Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three years
• Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational
  affiliation
  • Younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.
  • There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet

There is more information here on Don Bulmer’s blog: Everyday Influence: SNCR Research Reveals Social Media’s Impact on Business and Decision Making

The WSJ laments the lack of user driven choice in business. There are some simple reasons for this:

1. Cost. Most enterprise systems cost a fraction of consumer systems on a price/feature basis. And you’ve got procurement to thank for driving costs down – the the corresponding class of device.
2. Manageability. The average help desk call is somewhere in the range of $30 of cost to Enterprises (at Dell we can drive this lower than $15 through automation). And that’s based on a narrow range of systems. Imagine what happens when the diversity increases exponentially.
3. Commonality. This drives productivity. The same power adapters, connectors and docks make for better productivity. Diversity increases complexity.
4. Security. A common environment eases security management issues. For most Enterprises, good security is dependent on standardization.

These are just a few of the reasons you have that grey or black system that looks like your colleagues. So what’s coming?

1. Choice. As companies out-task to people like Dell the image of what is running on your system – and in fact the entire management of that system – the ability to drive choice goes up.
2. Virtualization. We aren’t far off the virtualized notebook or PC. You will log-in to one part of your hard disk for all of your personal stuff and do as you please. Then into another part to get to work. Imagine this in reverse where IT installs a work partition on your home system.
3. The IT Stipend. Imaging starting a new job, They give you a stipend of say, $1500 to spend on your technology. You pick the mix that best suits you and your job.

So, Consumerization is happening and will continue to evolve – not just for your work PC but also the broad range of technology you interact with in your daily work.

Is amazing… even if I do say so…

Dell Adamo XPS from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

I’m constantly astounded by how broadcasters continue to prevent the expansion of rugby globally. Here we go again. Major games kick-off this weekend. Australia vs. England. New Zealand vs. Wales. Both are likely to be incredible games.

So, where to watch them in the US. They only shot for a quality session – it seems – is to head to a pub that might have a Setanta feed. Or, pay $19 and chance your luck with Setanta-i – a service I’ve largely experienced as unreliable.

Rugbyzone weren’t able to secure rights to broadcast on the Web. And Setanta on TV is all but dead in terms of the Fall tours. (They are playing delayed coverage on Sunday evening – and the point is what..? All the hot footage will have made its way to the web by then.

Aside from all of us that follow teams like the All Blacks and the Wallabies,there are over 60,000 players registered with USA Rugby; including over 20,000 high school students. The 570 clubs in the United States are governed by seven Territorial Unions and 37 Local Unions.

I get this isn’t probably a big enough audience to warrant mainstream TV broadcasting but come on… there’s this thing called the Internet. Why prevent rugby being broadcast there and reasonable prices across multiple sites? And its not like we are short on channels…