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May you have a wonderful 4th and survive with all your fingers.
Over at gapingvoid Hugh MacLeod posts about a set of questions he received from a friend about social media. I found all the questions and responses interesting. The one one question and response that stood out was #10:
10. Additional Comments?
One more thought, which pertains directly to your client. I firmly believe that the line that separates social media and ERP is going to start getting VERY blurry, and really soon. I can see a not-to-distant future where even the larger ERP solutions are built around social software, not the other way around. And I can see that day arriving in under five years. We live in interesting times.
Sorry, Hugh but I think your are a bit off on this one. Sure ERP vendors will start offering social software as part of their solutions in the next 5 years. But think about from the view point of the folks in the market for ERP solutions. That group of people have driven large ERP vendors to provide guarantees that versions of their ERP solutions will be viable for at least 5 years. The market requires ERP vendors provide these guarantees due to significant costs of major upgrades. So, the adoption cycle for existing customers will drive the adoption of radically different ERP solutions beyond your 5 year horizon. Now I agree that the principles and techniques that have driven the adoption of social software in the consumer market will be adopted over time in enterprises of all sizes.
The reality is that enterprises today are just now getting platforms that enable them to realize visions of Michael Hammer and the like. ERP solutions are complex animals that could never be built around social software. What I believe is that social software coupled with process re-engineering will create huge efficiencies and value for enterprises. All this is dependent on a well abstracted ERP platform, in simple terms it will be all about services (API). Social software has a long way to go before dealing with things like GAAP, complex logistics, Financial reporting, transactional integrity, inventory management, production planning, global regulation, process execution, the list goes on and on. I believe social software has the power to make all these things more efficient and effective.
ERP platforms will remain the core of enterprises for years to come. The smart enterprises and vendors will have ERPs with comprehensive and integrated social software. ERPs will become like utility services doing very complex and important things, social software will create information liquidity, efficiency and transparency within and across business processes.
Ed Batista has a post about Maj. Gen. Jeff Hammon’s response to an article by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling titled A failure in generalship in the Armed Forces Journal. The article was called “blistering critique of the Army brass,” by Greg Jaffe of the Wall Street Journal.
On June 25, The New Yorker published a story titled The General’s Report by Seymour Hersh. The story details what happened to Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, who lead the army investigation into Abu Ghraib. (via tompeters.com)
These articles are examples of how not to deal with critical information. Leaders must embrace both positive and negative information. There is always a short term cost of negative information, but reducing transparency within the organization to minimize the impact of negative information is WRONG. The reduction of organizational transparency will carry a larger cost over the long term, than that of the negative information. Reduced Transparency results in less trust, increased transactional and operational costs.
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Creating global platforms for product development can be complex. One way managers deal with this is through Product-Technology Roadmapping.
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The Albright Strategy group papers covering roadmapping
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Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet
Economics & Culture, Media & Community, Open Source
The Department of Defense News Releases feed allows technology to present a view of the the Iraq War that news does not. This feed contains the public press releases of the names of the casulties in Iraq and Afghanistan. I for one find this feed to be filled with nothing but loss and sorrow. I consume a fair number of RSS feeds and this is one feed that makes all others trivial.
If you are anti-war here is a feed of information that only motivates one to fight for an end even harder.
If you are supportive of the Iraq war you should subscribe to this feed to ensure that you have a clear understanding of the impacts of your support.
A feed that pains my heart to read.
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I created my own Simpsons Avatar. This is Tom the Architect in Springfield. I can’t say I did a great job, but its close. Get your own Simpsons Avatar here.
I have thought about this a great deal. The degrees of abstraction are endless. I have thought about it from a systematic perspective, from a social perspective, from a business perspective and so on. The answer I come to consistently is NO. Now let me explain.
The guiding point is: You cannot serve others any better than you serve yourself. I am not saying, if I want my friend to have a nice car, I must first have a nice car. Nope, what I am saying is, if I want my friend to have a nice car, I must first have the ability to give a nice car. At a personal level the actions we take that define us, are the foundations of our interactions with others. The personal side goes down a deep meta rabbit hole and is best left for another time.
The part that is more plain is from a business and systematic perspective. I had previously written “A provider cannot deliver a continuity of experience greater than the continuity of experience the provider has internally.”
You cannot manage a customers inventory any better than you can manage your own (definitely if you are using the same systems, people, and processes).
Do you think Ford could build cars for toyota better than they could build Fords, uh Nope.
Do you think that the U.S. can run a country any better than we run the U.S., uh Nope, just look at Puerto Rico (Usually worse).
If you have variability in your business process when you share those processes with your customer, guess what they get the same degree of variability.
If your email system sucks when you use it, it will suck when you host it out for your customers to use.
Do you think that Google employees have better mail services than Gmail users, I bet they do, but all services being equal I bet its darn close.
The reality is the systems, people and processes we use internally will never generate better results just because your using them on someone’s behalf.
Tom The Architect 