Collaborative Thinking

Organization Next: Managing the Networked Workspace

The Human Capital Institute is offering a webinar sponsored by Cisco that will air on April 26, 2011; details below:

Organization Next: Managing The Networked Workspace

Social, economic, environmental, and technological forces continuously transform the relationship between organizations and employees. The traditional “workplace” is disappearing, courtesy of globalization, communications, the consumerization of IT, and recent market upheavals. In its place is a “workspace” that is more social, more virtual and more mobile. This new workspace is also more transitory, as employees skeptical of lifetime employment find themselves increasingly joined by contingent staff and outsourcing partners. Also – given the ascent of a new generation of workers raised in this connected, global reality – we can no longer rely on old assumptions on how work best gets done.

The type of agility necessary to achieve breakthrough levels of innovation and growth will rely on people and the ability of the organization to leverage the network of relationships that inter-connect them. Leadership teams must develop collaborative operating models responsive to market and stakeholder needs – including those of its “employees”. Such transformation creates an environment where people are managed not by sight, but by trust and commitment.

If you are involved in business transformation, strategic talent initiatives, organizational development and learning strategies, or any role involved in human capital management and employee engagement, this webcast is for you!

Don’t miss these webcast takeaways:

• How should my organization position and ready itself for change?
• What type of capabilities and collaborative operating models are needed?
• How can the strengths each generation brings be leveraged?
• How can communities and social networking contribute towards a more agile and high-performing organization?
• What role will technology play in this transformation?

 

Comment moderating

Just a quick note - I turned on moderation for comments just to reduce the amount of spam I have been getting lately on blog posts. For comments that have a normal looking name and are "on topic", you can expect those comments to show up, regardless of whether you agree with me or not - I'm just looking to reduce the noise. So if you are not something named "cheap calls", "excel training", "free essays" - then you pass the first test. If any link is to something relevant (not promoting something off topic), then that's even better. And, if the comment has to do with the discussion - that's great - you're in.

Collaborative Thinking: New Policy, New Voice

Since the acquisition of Burton Group by Gartner, I have been pretty busy becoming acquainted with new colleagues and reconnecting with former Meta Group co-workers. It has been a hectic past couple of months and my blogging activity has unfortunately taken a back seat. As we integrate the research teams, I had a normal workload of documents and preparations for our Catalyst Prague event on top of the orientation and on-boarding activities. February-April has been more than just a little busy. As things return to a more normal pace, there are a few updates I wanted to share:

• Gartner has a strict policy on personal analyst blogs when it comes to the topic of IT. Analysts are encouraged to join the Gartner Blog Network (GBN) community as the preferred outlet for sharing our thoughts and interacting with the public. For more information on GBN, see Gartner Blog Network FAQ and Gartner public web participation guidelines.
• Gartner also has policies on analyst participation in external events. There is a strong emphasis on maintaining objectivity. To adhere to that policy, I've discontinued my participation on the Enterprise 2.0 Advisory board. I will however still be participating in the Enterprise 2.0 conference but in a role as moderator or speaker.

Once I am setup to blog on GBN (no date established yet), I'll cross-post some links here so readers/subscribers can continue to follow my thoughts on IT. I will also post on the Burton Group Collaboration and Content blog (again, sharing the links to those posts here) during the transition phase since that blog is still an acceptable platform. As for Collaborative Thinking - the Gartner blog policy pertains to IT so I will continue to share my thoughts on the non-IT aspects of social computing and collaboration (perhaps more academic, touching on the non-IT aspects of social structures, group formation, communities, networks, etc). I believe that sharing links to other articles can also continue. And of course, you can still follow me on Twitter @MikeGotta.

Somers Relay For Life

This blog is almost entirely about my professional activities with some insight to my hobbies and other interests. However, once a year I take a moment out of my "analyst life" on this blog to post something that pulls our entire family and our local community together:

Once again the Gotta family is involved in the Somers’ Relay For Life walk-a-thon (being held on May 30-31, 2009), to benefit the American Cancer Society (ACS). Cancer has touched many of our family members and friends over the years.

My wife Cathy is working hard scheduling entertainment for the day and is coordinating activities for the young adults walking throughout the night. My daughter's Meg and Rachael are the captains of our team, “Waving Good-Bye to Cancer”. Denise will join us when she returns from Scotland (semester abroad). Our team consists of 5 adults and 10 youth that range from 16-23 years old. We are currently involved in a variety of group fund-raisers such as bake sales and bottle/can drives. We are also reaching out to our family, friends, and other people in our lives for a donation. Your contributions are more important than ever before given these tough economic times. Families rely on the ACS to help fight this devastating disease.

Please help in whatever small way you can to help make our Relay For Life walk-a-thon successful. You can make a gift by following the links to either Meagan’s or Rachael’s personal donation page. Information on how to make an offline (postal mail) donation can be found here. There's also a widget located in the upper right corner of my blog that you can click on as well.

Pictures from last year's effort. This shot is a little blurry but it was a wonderful moment as people wrote their memories on the bus.

The Gotta family and the rest of the Waving Good-Bye To Cancer team very much appreciate your generosity. Thank you!

And now, back to our normal programming...

Dear SageCircle

1. I apologize if I ever misspell a word, or post an phrase that is grammatically challenged on my blog again. Please accept this apology for any past transgression that fails to pass your opinion on what constitutes acceptable blog writing.

2. If you are going to reference one of my blog posts and use it to represent an opinion, please get the sentiment correct. Dinging someone on a spelling or grammar error may be great sport (as you did with some other analysts), but one could argue that taking the lines "I was thinking how it might evolve differently... " and "there are lots of better options but I was just thinking out loud..." and portraying them as "somewhat negative" to suit your own purposes (selling your own services) is a perhaps worse that an honest typo.

3. If you understood my post (apparently you did not), and the nature of social media, then you would have understood the flow that occurred from the blog post to the Twitter stream conversation and why it made sense to go back to the blog post to capture that idea and recognize the contributor. The ebb-and-flow of adjusting perspectives based on the conversation is kinda (oops, sorry for the spelling here) basic to social media which you claim to understand. 

4. I find your recommendations inadequate. First, if you knew my coverage area (you do watch us don't you?) - you would know that I do not cover consumer technology. So why would Cisco ever anticipate a blog post on the Pure Digital acquisition coming from me? The only reasons I posted a blog entry was because I was "connecting the dots" between a consumer announcement and how that might derivatively impact Cisco's WebEx and UC efforts.

5. I do not "shoot from the hip". Again, if people are supposed to find you credible and buy your services - no one who knows me in this space would label me that way in terms of how I analyze my research areas and share my opinions on Collaborative Thinking.

6. "Give them the sound bites you want them to release." I'm actually chuckling over that one. Really - do you think we're that simplistic...

7. I encourage all of my AR contacts to follow my blog as well as my Twitter stream. My blog does indeed reflect my thinking, positions, recommendations, etc. I try pretty hard to be as accurate and transparent as possible and share as much as possible. I do not say one thing on my blog and something else in my written research. If you lined up my research and blog postings in chronological order - there is a consistent and evolving narrative. When I am trying to capture a thought or start a conversation, I will share posts that I try to couch as "thinking out loud" - the point is to socialize ideas, etc.

8. My conclusion: people might want to re-think how well you know the analysts you supposedly watch and the level of understanding you have regarding social media. Clearly, you do not know me, or my coverage areas - and based on this post, I am skeptical that you understand social media.

9. I did spellcheck this post - just had to admit that...

Why Social Media Can Represent a Real Challenge to AR Teams

SageCircle has previously commented on the growing importance of social media in the analyst relations ecosystem and the need for teams to become engaged.  The growth in blogs and the increasing use of twitter provide a method for analysts to broadcast their opinions without the “filtering” and “editorial restrictions” that are part of standard research reports.  The lack of any review cycle by either vendors or the firms themselves allows for very timely posting, but can represent a real challenge to AR teams. 

Last week Cisco announced an acquisition that quickly prompted several divergent analyst opinions, which could also have benefited from some proofreading.

• Van Baker posted rather negative commentary on his Gartner Blog Network blog closing with “While the purchase may be pocket change for Cisco it is still likely to be wasted money for Cisco.(sic)”  He noted his post on twitter which certainly drove traffic to the blog post.
• Joshua Martin posted a speculative but generally positive post on his Yankee Group Blog stating “This scenario is all well and good. It will improve the value of Cisco’s devices while promoting it’s (sic) ecosystem.”
• Mike Gotta of Burton Group posted a somewhat negative report on his personal branded blog (not Burton Group) that was later updated to a rather positive position because of a twitter comment he received. The comment was not from Cisco.
• A day later Ted Schadler of Forrester authored a relatively positive post (and then corrected his typo) saying “It wasn’t a surprise to see networking expansionist Cisco buying Flip”

Now this is not to single out Cisco, but it was a recent example of things we have seen repeatedly.  All this blog activity was done within hours and without the filtering of the “research process” or the scrutiny of the firms’ Editorial departments.  So how should an AR team react? 

Several important best practice process steps come to mind:

• Know the analysts in your market that use social media regularly and ensure they have the company position and key messages the moment the news breaks. These analysts, unlike their non-social media using colleagues, are likely to “shoot from the hip” in order to get something posted quickly and won’t give you a call for details. Give them the sound bites you want them to release.
• Know the commentary the moment it occurs. Have alerts and feeds that inform you when your analysts, your products, or your competitors are mentioned in social media as well as traditional research.
• Know your AR team policy for commenting on blogs or twitter. Can you quickly post a response that corrects inaccurate statements or counters uniformed opinion? How is this stated in your AR Strategic and Tactical plan?
• Track social media as part of your analyst perception trends metrics. Unfiltered social media might closely approximate the verbal commentary analysts are providing during client inquiry where it is having revenue impacts.

Why Social Media Can Represent a Real Challenge to AR Teams « SageCircle Blog

Bracketology: My NCAA (Women) Tournament Picks

The Women's brackets are easier to pick in some ways - the power teams should definitely make it though to the Sweet 16 and until they play each other, the Elite 8. You don't see teams from nowhere get too far in the Women's brackets. But the games between the lower-rated teams are a coin toss - making it harder in some ways than the men's tourney. But I'm pretty sure that this will come down to UConn and Oklahoma for the final with UConn winning - pretty obvious. Some chance perhaps that a Baylor or Louisville slip by Oklahoma but that's a stretch.

Bracketology: My NCAA Tournament Picks

Hopefully this graphic displays clearly - my heart is with UConn but I'm not convinced they can get by Memphis or beat whomever comes out of the other brackets (in my scenario, Pitt or North Carolina). I'll be rooting for UConn all the way though.

Some upsets that I predict:

USC over Boston College. I actually think USC could be a sleeper and even get by Michigan before they fall to Kansas but I decided to go with Michigan - I might regret it.

Maryland over California. I just think the ACC is tougher and that Maryland's style will give California problems. But I can't see them getting by Memphis.

Temple over Arizona St. I just never trust any Arizona team to win when they are supposed to and Temple seems to have a decent shot this year.

Non 1-4 ranked teams that might make a run: No one would be surprised if any 1-4 ranked team made a run to the Final Four - but how about 5-16? These teams might make the tourney fun this year: West Virginia, USC, Temple, LSU, UCLA.

What about those 1-4 ranked teams? I think Missouri and Xavier might prove me wrong re: getting to the Final Four. Memphis could get to the championship game I suppose but tough to see them beating either Pitt or North Carolina in my bracket selections.

 

Dear Microsoft

I was having a very productive day yesterday when a Windows Update pop-up informed me that important updates had been installed on my computer and that a reboot was necessary. This was a pretty normal event - I have Windows Update set to automatically install updates. So I closed down my applications and proceeded to reboot my system (a 6 month old Dell E6400 running Vista (business). As the system tried to reboot, the infamous "blue screen of death" flashed before my eyes and the system through me into a start-up recovery program. I selected some of the options to fix the reboot problem, check memory and other functions. This entailed multiple attempts at rebooting - followed each time by the same wonderful blue screen.  Eventually I settled on a system restore to get to a stable version of the operating system. After another blue screen the system finally seemed to correct itself and Vista came up. This took a couple of hours elapsed time followed by another hour or so running chkdsk and other tasks (like backing up my file changes made that day) to correct any problems.

Trying to debug the problem, I noticed that the update history told me that the installation failed (BTW, I already knew that) with an error code of 80242016 for the Cumulate Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 For Windows Vista (KB961260).

This afternoon - yep, you guessed it. Windows Update is back again telling me that I need to reboot (ok, yes I should have reset the auto-update to not automatically install things - duh). My system has not yet rebooted. What I find interesting is that in the update status, it is telling me that the install is pending but the update failed - this time with an error code of 80242014.

So - beside being a little upset at myself for forgetting to change the auto-update setting - I have a question for those Microsoft folks that read my blog. BTW, I've pinged my own internal help desk group to help me figure out what to do next to stop/remove the update - but until then there is this sense of impending doom ... I am so looking forward to repeating all the fun I had yesterday.

But my question is: why - if update status is already saying that the update is in error - why would it still be pending and trying to force a reboot? If it already knows that there is an error - shouldn't there be an obvious option to cancel the reboot? The greater question of course relates to why this update is causing my system to blue screen and throw me into a very unfriendly (from a user experience perspective) start-up recovery program.

Once again - I've backed up any file changes I've made today - I'm pretty sure that I'm in deep do-do again. BTW - the "get help for this error" is really kind of useless - just thought I'd let you know that as well. Oh, and BTW - please update the TechNet phrase for this security bulletin: "Known Issues. None."

Books that might be worth reading

Although summer is winding down, I’m adding these two to my reading list:

The Power of Momentum: Companies That Build Their Wave and Ride It

Published: August 20, 2008 in [email protected]

How can a company deliver continuous, exceptional growth, year after year? J. C. Larreche, a professor of marketing at INSEAD, answers that question in his book, The Momentum Effect: How to Ignite Exceptional Growth. According to the author's research, momentum-powered firms delivered 80% more shareholder value than their slower rivals. "Momentum leaders are not lucky -- they are smart," he writes in the following excerpt. "They have discovered the source of momentum and, with it, the beginnings of a smarter way to exceptional growth. Managers often talk about 'riding the wave.' Momentum leaders aren't that passive. They live by this motto: First build your wave, then ride it."

Momentum. Most businesses get it at some point -- the impression that everything they undertake succeeds effortlessly, as if they're being carried along by a tailwind that increases their efficiency and propels them on to exceptional growth.

Some hold on to it. Most don't. Slowly, imperceptibly, the tailwind turns around and the momentum disappears, without anyone quite realizing what has happened. The company is still growing, but not as strongly as before, not as efficiently. Everyone's maxing out, but it seems like there's molasses in the works. Sound familiar?

The Power of Momentum: Companies That Build Their Wave and Ride It - [email protected]

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching'

Published: August 20, 2008 in [email protected]

In their book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackhoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today's education system is seriously flawed -- it focuses on teaching rather than learning. "Why should children -- or adults -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can?" the authors ask in the following excerpt from the book. "Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?"

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught."
   -- Oscar Wilde

Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without its being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant.

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching' - [email protected]

It's that time of year

When the family heads to Cape Cod. For the next week, no computer – just books, newspapers, beach and seafood.

Where we’ve stayed for the past 15 years or so…

So no blog posts for a while.