Latest Posts
I'm pleased to announce that last night the Artemis Web Team successfully launched the new website for CATA (Capital Area Transportation Authority) at
www.cata.org. This project is to date is one of the largest efforts undertaken by the Web Team and will add a great new feather to our caps for its combination of user-centered design, accessibility compliance, e-commerce capability and trip planning system integration. Congratulations to all members of the Artemis Web Team for coming together to create a fantastic new website for this high-profile client. Well done!
In today’s global world, collaboration is a critical tool for new ideas and innovation.
Collaboration encourages scientists from one side of the world to partner in real time with scientists on the other end of the world. It allows a manufacturer or a consulting company in Bangalore to sell not just products, but high-end services in the United States. It enables Google—one of the darlings of the tech sector—to have its California employees work alongside thousands of co-workers at Google China on a single product.
This has occurred because today’s communication infrastructure has evolved to a level of sophistication that has impacted every industry. Information and communication technology platforms have evolved and been accelerated by the proliferation of high speed Internet and technological advancements.
These advancements have helped “flatten” the world, making widespread collaboration possible. Today, email, text messaging, video conferencing and instant messaging are standard teamwork tools. Social networking (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) is fast becoming a new innovative way that high performing teams are creating new value today.
There are examples of successful collaboration in various industries:
* Software: The open source community has leveraged worldwide collaboration to deliver innovative software that competes with software developed and owned by multi-billion dollar entities.
* Medicine: Collaboration enables a specialty brain surgeon in London to perform surgery on a dying child in Zaire, Africa.
* Academia: The most creative research and concepts—neuroscience, cybernetics, biomedical engineering—have come out of interdisciplinary research and collaboration between different fields of study.
Instead of the classic command-and-control model or one-person “hero” model, where teams depend on one individual for success, today’s winning teams are the ones that share information, communicate effectively, are location-independent and leverage the best collaboration tools.
Why? When a team’s composition and/or location is diverse, the richness of the team and its ability to develop innovative solutions is greatly enhanced.
In the same light, teams with multi-disciplinary talents are the most productive in the workplace. Teams with multi-cultural backgrounds have a creative edge. Teams with the best tools, technology and processes for sharing ideas are the most effective. These teams will consistently out perform their counterparts, who may even have a higher level of individual talent.
New business models are being created as a result of mass collaboration. For example, Google recently released a version of Google Maps that uses a new Web business model called “crowd sourcing.” Google invites mass collaboration from disparate users—in this case, allowing anyone on the Internet to correct the geo-location (latitude, longitude) of any address on their map—who gradually contribute to data aggregation or system improvement.
So, they are getting data entry work done for FREE! The same can be said of Wikipedia’s existence, which is another classic example of “crowd sourcing” and mass collaboration.
One of the newest tools that we use for collaboration is Twitter. Based on a remarkably simple idea, Twitter is a service for friends, family and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you doing?”
This social networking tool allows users to send updates or "tweets" (text-based posts up to 140 characters long) to theTwitter Web site via a multitude of methods (SMS, email, IM, phone, etc). Twitter allows us to carry out a private or group conversation over the Internet and mobile phones simultaneously, with seamless integration between team members using different systems.
Our sales team uses Twitter to maintain a group dialog all day long—a much more efficient solution than email, which might get lost or overlooked. Messages can be delivered via phone, text message, IM, email, orany transport mechanism supported—based on your choice or the person you “follow” on Twitter. (To follow Bunmi on Twitter click here.)
Twitter is just one example of how the flattening of the world can be used to our strategic advantage.
The days of phone communication (which can be disruptive) and email (plagued by information overload) are passing. With Twitter as part of your communication and collaboration platform, you determine how you want tobe reached; you respond at your own pace; you provide updates to people proactively. It’s quite easy—after all, you have to keep it under 140 characters!
In today’s world, you can’t afford to isolate yourself. Collaboration using Twitter, or tools such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) is the way that organizations, teams and companies will continue to innovate in the future.
Over the next few years, any team’s success will depend on its ability to embrace change, support an entrepreneurial discipline and willingness to adopt a culture of collaboration. This shift towards innovation through collaboration will have enormous ramifications for managers, customers, partners and employees.
Come along—it’s time to work together.
In a twist of fate, the growth in Michigan’s population that occurred as a result of high paying jobs back in the good ol’ days is the same thing that is hurting us now.
The auto industry’s growth was driven by a few very large companies which have a tradition of being very bureaucratic, political and non-agile. People employed in Michigan over those darling years naturally adopted a big company type of culture—high expectations from the establishment, low sense of individual impact, and a low tolerance for risk and growth.
Contrast this environment with that of today’s typical start-up company, where each employee quickly comes to understand that their contribution can make or break the company.
In the new model, it’s about the employee who is delivering the most value for the least money. Information is now more important than seniority—you get paid for what you know, not how long you have been around or if you went to college.
Michiganders should be ready to adapt to this change. But we will need to make some major changes, and make them quickly.
The world has changed drastically in recent years. We are entering a totally different phase of economic dynamics: the “experience” economy. This new economy is driven by talent, and combines products, servicesand a unique customer experience.
Talent and knowledge are the currency of this new economy. Some people call it the “Starbucks economy” where, as a company, you have to sell more than the features and benefits of your solution. You have to stage an experience!
Staging an experience requires everyone involved coming up with out-of-the-box ideas. Knowledge workers are expected to think, innovate and present new ideas that help their company innovate.
In Michigan, entrepreneurship is not in our fabric anymore. We lost it a long time ago. It will take us at least a decade of rebuilding to regain the throne.
I believe we can do it. I also believe it will be very hard and painful. Hard work and pain are good. We learn more from pain anyway—it’s the best tool for motivation.
As an illustration, picture a child that grew up in an environment where getting two, bare-bones meals a day was a huge accomplishment. When such child is in an environment where there is plenty, he or she is very likely to hold on tight and do everything to not go back to the past.
This may be why a lot of foreigners tend to be very successful when they relocate to a new country. America was built this way. It is because their past is full of pain, inconvenience, sometimes poverty. When they come to a new environment, they have an open mind. They have no expectations; they are completely free of the baggage of entitlement. And this helps them to think and succeed.
This kind of thinking is what most entrepreneurs possess.
In order to rebuild, we must all think like entrepreneurs. To neutralize any biases that we have in this region because of our history, we must embark on a journey that involves parents, mentors and focuses on our youth.
We must show our young people that it’s okay to think big and take risks. From a young age, Michiganders must come to understand that by developing and relying on their individual abilities, they can shape their economic future.
This is what the new economy is about—it is driven by an entrepreneurial way of thinking.
Employees must think in “value-add” terms—it’s not about what the company can do for them, nor is it about the effort they put in from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s truly about the unique experiences and innovations they candeliver to propel the company to new heights.
We have to expect opportunities only when we deliver value to others. If we can be successful at ingraining this thinking, especially at a young age, we will be ready to lead the next wave of economic success globally.
Our future is in the hands of a new breed of Michigan entrepreneurs. They will understand the new economy way of thinking. Their products will target a global audience. They will compete and win globally.They can adapt to change at a pace that the world has yet to experience. They will have a unique ability to spot the diamond in the rough. They will be relentless, and will never take no for an answer. To them, “impossible is nothing.”
From my early days in biology class, I remember the saying from Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”
I think we need to ask ourselves the question, “How has our favorite state of Michigan reacted or adapted to change?”
First, a little background: My attachment to Michigan runs deep in the family lines. I was born in Lansing, so my initial contact with Michigan was not by choice. But my still being here is definitely by choice.
At 31, I have spent exactly half of my life in West Africa (where my parents are from), and half of my life in EastLansing/Lansing. This gives me an interesting perspective on our region’s history, potential and current state. I think that the unique perspective could be beneficial.
I am a passionate Michigander—I live, work and play here and I love it. In the gloom that looms in the economy, I strongly believe exciting opportunities exist. For example, people are taking advantage of the low cost of living, easy access to universities (and brilliant interns), and access to large insurance and health care-related companies. So, even while I identify challenges, I am a true champion of Michigan.
After World War II, Michigan was truly the center of innovation and growth. As people moved here, where the jobs were, our population grew in double digits—at one point doubling in a decade! We set the pace for innovation, job growth, economic development and success. We were the Silicon Valley of the 60s and 70s.
Today, unfortunately, that era is gone—but we must adapt and position ourselves for that next cycle of change. The key question is: How are we faring?
Let’s start with the good news. Michigan has done much inrecent years to reposition itself to recapture the glory of the past. I am extremely impressed at several initiatives going strong at the state level, as well as in several communities.
In the past year or two, the Mid-Michigan area has also stepped up. We’ve seen more activities, innovation and collaborative partnerships here recently than in the past 10 years combined.
The creation of two brand new Angel Investment groups inthe area is a great move. Without an ecosystem of investors, entrepreneurs (a key ingredient in the new talent-driven economy) will move away or decay—as they have done in the past. The Angel Investment groups can help prevent that.
Mid-Michigan’s launch of LEAP Inc., a unique public-private partnership to reposition the economy, is also a great accomplishment. There are very few communities in the country that have been able to pull together 30 of the largest companies and organizations in the community with one vision to drastically improve the economy of the region by supporting new enterprises.
We have also seen the Lansing Chamber of Commerce reinvent itself, investing in its leadership talent pool, innovation and a new value-driven approach to serving local businesses.
The Capital Area IT Council is another illustration ofthe uncommon methods being used to rethink business. This council is a unique collaboration of all technology-related companies in the area, coming together to solve the IT talent acquisition and retention problems faced by the region and, in fact, the country as a whole.
At the state level, Governor Granholm and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation are making bold moves. The launch of the 21st Century Job Fund proves that our leaders understand the state’s needs and are willing to take the necessary risks to invest in our future.
These are just a few of the investments currently underway. Each one is a key ingredient in the adaptation necessary for the region and state to keep up with rapid change.
Michigan is doing the right things, and many efforts are underway to help us reposition and adapt. However, while the necessary efforts are underway, I believe we are responding late—which is why we feel the impactof our slow response so deeply. While the change hit a while ago, only in the last few years have we started reacting with the level of aggressiveness required.
Michigan as a region has seen the writing on the wall fora while, and has tried its best to adapt and reposition itself. But just like a large elephant trying to turn around and change direction, changing our state’s direction is very hard. There are cultural barriers to correct, new attitudes to develop, and new economies that must be seeded.
And the catalyst for this change is talent driven, entrepreneur-focused, and motivated by community and collaboration.
I start my day thinking about strategic ways to leverage my talents, resources and regional assets to deliver value. Each one of us must think that way to remain relevant.
Hungry entrepreneurs— and states—understand that the cheese won’t come to them; they have to go find new cheese every day.
Let's go find that new cheese — or work on making our own.
From the most fundamental perspective, the biggest challenge that we all face today is realizing, accepting and embracing the concept of change.
The idea of “change” is not foreign to anyone. In fact, it is one of the few inevitable realities in life. The human race and every other surviving organism must naturally evolve to avoid extinction.
Why is it then that we still resist change? Why is it that we sometimes get complacent with the status quo, instead of striving to do more, be more, find a better way?
I propose that the critical battle that we all fight today—as individuals, organizations, companies, countries—is syncing our “clock” of change with that of the times around us.
Today, knowledge and information become stale extremely quickly. Organizations and individuals must be open to change. Their strategies must adapt, evolve and change at the pace determined by their marketplace, competitors, neighbors, environment, etc. Individuals and organizations must keep in sync with the pace of change required by the times we live in.
Imagine you are a business leader in the year 2008, and you believe you are the first to market with a new product. You have no competitors. Then, tomorrow, you suddenly realize a new company in Bangladesh provides the same product, with better quality, at a fraction of the cost.
Most low-performing individuals or organizations have a wave pattern (think sine wave) that is slow, sluggish or inconsistent with that of the life around them; they cannot keep up. Thus, they become irrelevant and forgotten.
In order to survive our fast-paced, knowledge driven world, first and foremost you must embrace change within yourself and your organization, so that you can stay relevant. In fact, you must learn to thrive on change by refabricating the genetics of your organization.
“Be open to change” is one of the famous mantras of management in the past decade.
But being open to change is no longer enough. This is not about accepting, tolerating or adapting to change. Rather, it is living, loving and thriving on change.
The most groundbreaking ideas, companies and organizations come out of abandoning conventional wisdom and making fundamental changes in how things are done.
There have been several studies on what it takes to be successful as an individual and an organization in this global world. My take is that you must adopt the following three principles:
1. Realize the world is flat and your next competition could be on the other side of the world
2. Adopt a culture of discipline and entrepreneurship
3. Surround yourself with a team that gets it—individuals who understand the need to think globally, and who thrive on finding a new and better way
Why is the pace of change today so fast? Some of the key drivers are the world’s “flatteners,” as Thomas L. Friedman describes in his book "The World is Flat:" global competition, outsourcing, the China Boom, knowledge economy and telecommunication.
When these drivers are coupled with the constant advancements in technology, the result is higher productivity, easier access to information and exponential growth in emerging markets. All of these trends are leveling the international playing field. But by adopting the principles outlined earlier, we can stay relevant.
At Artemis Solutions Group, we strive to ride on the coattails of change. Rather than approaching change with resistance and fear,we embrace it. We love it. We find that the best way to adapt to change is by continuously reinventing ourselves. We listen to our instincts and take action.
In order to support our craving for change, we’ve engineered an effective process to develop new ideas and concepts. We hold bi-weekly innovation sessions, where ideas for products, add-on modules, future services, practices and processes are vetted. From there, we advance to there search and development phase, and an initiative champion pushes the concept into production as quickly as possible.
And we seek to help our clients achieve the same. Many of our clients are now used to the concept of meeting frequently—several times per year—just to ask themselves, “What could we be doing better? How could we use technology to leverage our organization’s asset to make us best in class?”
Because we are not afraid of treading new ground, we know we will make mistakes. But we also know that we will learn from them, and those mistakes will make us stronger. Although uncharted territory is unnerving, the truth is that the greater risk lies in mediocrity.
Is your change cycle in sync with the wave of life? What about your business, or our beloved state of Michigan?
If not, there’s no time like to present to ask ourselves what we can do to get up to speed.
I was recently invited to be a guest blogger on www.capitalgainsmedia.com. I was thrilled at the opportunity and enjoyed writing out some of my thoughts. The hardest part was trying to keep it under the word count requirements.
Here are the posts:
Post # 1: Which discusses the idea of “Change” and the pace of change in the world today: http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/blogs/posts/bunmi20230.aspx
Post # 2: Which provides a critical analysis of how our region (Mid-Michigan/Greater Lansing) and our state (Michigan) has adapted or not, to change in recent years http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/blogs/posts/bunmi10230.aspx
Post # 3: Discusses what Michigan needs to do, in order to be relevant in the future, and to revert the downward spiral being experienced today. http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/blogs/posts/bunmi30230.aspx
Post # 4: Explores 'Collaboration' as a theme for embracing change and driving innovatoin. http://www.capitalgainsmedia.com/blogs/posts/bunmi40230.aspx
I welcome feedback!
Enjoy.
This is a new service I'm using, it's called Posterous. www.posterous.com is a micro-blogging service based on ease-of-post. It allows you to send in various types of contents via email or text messaging. e.g. video, links, documents, etc. I will begin trying it for blogging these days.
I will attempt to link to every post on there from this blog.
Visit me today: http://bunmi.posterous.com
Dan Sullivan (sp?) says it best in his book “How the best gets better”.
An Entrepreneur is someone who have made the following three decisions (paraphrased):
1. I will Rely only on my persoan abilities to drive my economic security
2. In my lifeteme, I will only expect opportunities when I deliver value to others
3. I have freed myself from a mind of dependence, and an entitlement attitude. The world owes me nothing, my future is carved by my actions
From Guy kawasaki's book, he says it best: "the 'entrepreneur' is not a job title, its the state of mind of people who want to alter the future!
StartupWeekend is a 1-weekend event in a city, where about one hundred random software developers, marketers, web designers, financial folks, etc come together undre one roof to turn an idea into a business/product starting on a friday night, thru sunday night. It's a great experience! Especially for folks with the entrepreneur bug.
I had a uber-awesome experience at Startupweekend Ann Arbor about 1 month ago. You can read more about Ann Arbor Startupweekend here: http://annarbor.startupweekend.com/
I project-managed a team that built a company: TagRoad in 52 hours (or so)....and launched a product: Vagabandoo. Check out more
The team is still together doing work on the product.
I actually would love to attend more startupweekends in other cities.
The Raleigh StartupWeekend was actually covered by NBC....and Columbus StartupWeekend I read, was a lot of fun.
I'm very hot on Enterprise Social Media these days. Companies such as: Neighborhood America and Ning thrill me.
I spoke briefly at a small meeting about how Starbucks is using Social Media: http://www.mystarbucks.com/
Artemis helped Biggby Coffee, a national coffee franchise create a community of loyal customers on the web, check it out here
We are proud of our work - our first social media project. With integration with flickr and twitter.
I trust that you all are periodically checking out the latest at Enliven Software.
If you haven't, here are some of the things that has been going on in the past 3 months or so:
Enliven has a handful of great News stories that we’ve recently added to our website that we wanted to share. Check it out!
Enliven embarks upon a strategic partnership with Alliance Payment Technologies
Enliven has finally done it! We’ve grown so big so quickly that we’ve grown right out of our payment processing and invoicing facility! Rather than add another floor to the tower…
Read More
Magnolia Management, LLC signs on with Enliven Software’s ePayables Program
Enliven Software brought Magnolia Management on late last week, with its ePayables solution.
Read More
Healthcare System Connections Joins on as Enliven Software’s Newest Partner!!
Earlier this month, Healthcare System Connections signed on with Enliven Software to be a reseller of the Enliven Software Suite of Solutions.
Read More
Enliven Software blown away by new Payables client SkyVenture
SkyVenture, the world’s leading manufacturer of vertical wind tunnels, purchased Enliven’s ePayables and ePayments solutions, earlier this month.
Read More
Enliven Software thrilled to sign Crown Asset Management
Enliven Software brought Crown Asset Management, LLC onboard late last week, with its ePayables and ePayments solutions.
Read More
Welcome Friends of Adalin Farnum to the Enliven Software family!
Early this month, Friends of Adalin Farnum signed up with Enliven Software to have us help them with their payment gateway needs using Enliven Software’s ePay solution.
Read More
PEAK 10 Signs on with Enliven Software’s eInvoicing and ePay products!
We are pleased to announce a new member to the Enliven Family: Peak 10! Peak 10 has signed on with Enliven for eInvoicing and ePay, to be able to send their clients electronic versions of their invoices from Microsoft Dynamics GP, and then receive payments online.
Read More
We are extremely happy that we just landed the City of Aspen, Colorado as a client. This is what we have been waiting for; for a long time!
We were featured in their local newspaper as well. The City of Aspen is one of the “go-to” places in the United States...actually, in the world. Many of the millionaires and billionaires in the US call Aspen home. It's also the dream destination of skiiers, snowboarders and nature lovers.
Read more here
It's great to see our work over the years yielding national recognition and awards!
I was recently featured in Lansing's Best, Brightest and Most Beautiful 2008 - I don't know about the “beautiful” part. Read more
Thanks to the folks at The New Citizen's Press.
Today Artemis and the Capital Region Airport Authority launched the new www.flylansing.com. The new site is an example of another great project helping to promote the Lansing region, and we’re really proud to be a part of it. The launch of this site is the focus of a new marketing effort by CRAA to promote traveling through the Capital City Airport rather than making the trip to Detroit Metro. Be on the lookout for TV, radio, print and billboard ads all promoting the new site!
The development of this site was the definition of team effort with nearly every member of both the Web and Custom Dev teams contributing enormously. Well done team, and thank you for all your hard work and passion in making this yet another project to be proud of!
Highlights:
- Completely re-designed look and feel, both adhering to FlyLansing.com’s new brand image and best practices in web usability
- Integration with real-time Arrival and Departures, Flight Radar, and online booking engines
- Revised information architecture, promoting logical and intuitive navigation
- Interactive Visitor’s Map based on Microsoft Live Earth
In his objective, he states:
“To approach work and its opportunities and challenges using a goal centric and value addition paradigm as my mantra”
Amazon SimpleDB service – we spoke about this a couple of EBiz meetings ago…Amazon SimpleDB is REST-ful?? Urghhh…. http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2007/12/21/AmazonSimpleDBTheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly.aspx
NBC selects Silverlight for Olympics video (Beijing)..kinda cool. It will be cool to see how it goes:
http://www.centernetworks.com/nbc-selects-microsoft-silverlight-for-olympics-video
Steve/Karl and I had a debate on the DVD format that will win…it’s looking like I may be wrong…?
http://scobleizer.com/2008/01/05/i-bet-on-the-wrong-hd-format-sorry/
I LOVE twitter In fact, the Enliven team communicates all day, all weekends via twitter. I wish we could write a myPM plugin for twitter – I hate asking folks what they are doing. What is twitter? http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=461. twitter team blogs about Enliven, and how we use it for intra-office collaboration: http://blog.twitter.com/. I predict that twitter will be a big force in social networking/collaboration in 2008. I must say though, it’s mostly people who already blog that enjoy it.
Also, if you feel like joining us after hours/weekends to talk about tech, new buzz, geek talk, brainstorm some ideas – aka an expansion of the ebiz meeting – what’s new section…just give me a buzz so that you will get an invite. It should be a fun time. Some individuals from other companies may also join up. Weekend of the 25th is likely the first meet-up. If you are one of the folks that already get pumped about some of these new cool toys
The idea of “change” is nothing foreign to anyone
The idea of “change”
is nothing foreign to anyone. In fact, it is one of the few inevitable
realities in life. The human race and every other surviving organism have had
to naturally evolve at the gene level, in order to not be extinct. Why is it
then that we still resist change? Why is it that we sometimes get complacent
with the status quo, instead of striving to do more, be more, find a better
way? From the most fundamental perspective, the biggest challenge that we all
face is realizing, accepting, and embracing the concept of change.
In order to
survive, we must keep in sync with the pace of change required by the times
that we live in. I propose that the critical battle that we all fight today –as
individuals, organizations, companies, countries, etc. is adjusting our “clock”
of change to sync with that of the times around us. People who can’t evolve as
quickly as their ecosystem requires become extinct. Those who adapt can evolve
and continually challenge the status quo to move from good to great.
Envision a sine
wave, with a certain frequency, time and amplitude. There is what I will call
the wave of “life” – unconsciously, we are all striving to make the oscillation
of our wave be in sync with that of life. Most low-performing individuals or
organizations have a wave pattern that is slow, sluggish or inconsistent with
that of the life around them; they cannot keep up. Thus, they become irrelevant
and forgotten. When it comes down to it, I believe that in striving for
greatness, we are all simply trying to get our arms around the intense speed at
which change is happening in this day and age. We are trying to evolve our
personal and corporate strategies to change at a pace that is on par, or
quicker than, the “wave of life” around us.
The rate at which
knowledge and information become stale today is far quicker than it has ever
been in the history of earth. The half-life of any piece of information these
days is way too short, thus requiring that for survival and success,
organizations and individuals must be open to change. Their strategies must
also adapt, evolve and change at the pace determined by their marketplace,
competitors, neighbors, environment, etc.
As a business
leader who finds him/herself leading a business in the year 2008, imagine this
- you think you are the first to market, and you have no competitors…tomorrow,
you realize that there is a new company in Bangladesh that provides the same
products you have, with better quality, and at a fraction of the cost. In order
to survive the fast paced, knowledge driven, global reaching world today, first
and foremost, you must embrace change within yourself and your organization so
you can stay relevant. In fact, you must learn to thrive on change by
refabricating the genetics of your organization, just like human genes go
through gene adaptation in order to combat evolving diseases and environmental
conditions.
Thriving on
change is crucial - in the form of continuous improvement, relentless pursuit
of a better way, and constantly challenging yesterday’s known facts. “Be open
to change” is one of the famous mantras of management in the past decade, but
being open to change is no longer good enough. This is not about accepting
change, not about tolerating change, not about adapting to change – rather, it
is living and loving change, and thriving on change at every possible
opportunity. The most groundbreaking ideas, concepts, companies and
organizations come out of abandoning conventional wisdom, and making
fundamental changes in how things are done.
There have been
several studies of what it takes to be successful as an individual and as a
company in a global world. Most agree that the first step is realizing that the
world is flat, or I guess it just got flatter. You are now competing with people
not just within your local geographic boundaries, but with people all over the
world – which is smaller now than it has ever been.
Secondly, in order to
navigate and compete effectively in this small world, one must be disciplined.
Jim Collins, in his book titled “Good to Great” said “All companies have a
culture; some companies have discipline. But very few companies have a culture
of discipline. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of
entrepreneurship, you get a magical alchemy of great performance.”
Lastly,
surrounding yourself with a team that understands and embraces this culture of
change is critical. Individuals who understand what is going on beyond their
immediate surroundings will help you see that wave of life, so that you can pace
yourself accordingly. You must be around people who pay attention to the trends
within their immediate environment, as well as on the other end of the world,
like Bangalore or Dalian, China.
In looking into
why the pace of change today is so fast, we discover some of the key drivers of
the shrinking of the world. These are referred to as “flatteners”, as Thomas L.
Friedman describes in his book The World is Flat. They include global
competition, outsourcing, the China Boom, knowledge economy, and telecommunication.
When these drivers are coupled with the constant advancements in technology,
the result is higher productivity, easier access to information, and
exponential growth in emerging markets. The increased pace in a variety of
areas combine to speed up that wave of life in a geometric progression.
To apply this to
my situation, here at my organization, Artemis Solutions Group, we strive to
ride on the coattails of change. Rather than approaching change with resistance
and fear, we embrace it. We love it. We seek to help our clients achieve the
same. Many of our clients are now used to the concept of meeting frequently –
several times per year, just to ask ourselves – what could we be doing better?
How could we use technology to leverage our organization’s asset to make us
best in class? By sitting down and consciously going through the exercise, we
are most often able to find innovative ways to do more with less; and to
strategically position such clients differently in the market place.
Within our
company, we find that the best way to adapt to change is by bringing new
improvements to our processes, services and methodologies each and every day -
continuously reinventing ourselves. We listen to our instincts and take action.
Because we are not afraid of treading ground we have never seen, we know we
will make mistakes. But we also know that we will learn from them, and those
mistakes will make us stronger. Although uncharted territory is unnerving, the
truth is that the greater risk lies in mediocrity. This is yet another reason
why here at Artemis, constant improvement is everything. “Some people make
change happen, some people watch things happen, and some people say shoot, what
just happened?”
In order to
support our craving for change, we’ve engineered an effective process to
develop new ideas and concepts. We achieve this for our clients through client
consultation, internal concept brainstorming, researching client competitors,
observing the shifts in market forces, and evaluating new technology platforms
that can energize our clients’ business.
We also hold
bi-weekly innovation sessions, where ideas for products, add-on modules, future
services, practices and processes are vetted. From there, we advance to the
research and development phase, and an initiative champion pushes the concept
into production as quickly as possible.
Is your
change cycle in sync with the wave of life?
What
about your business, or our beloved state of Michigan? If not, there’s no time
like to present to ask ourselves what we can do to get up to speed.
To subscribe to my blog in your RSS reader, use this:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BunmiAkinyemijusBlog
There are too many of them these days. Here are ones that I participate in actively:
Artemis is one of those types of companies that you would consider a boutique shop - we envision, develop and implement web based solutions to business problems, to drive revenue profit and improve business efficiency.
The challenge is that as we grow, it has been very tough to manage the shifts in roles and responsibilities, and to evolve our Project Management methodology we coined CADIUM. We went through a rigorous excercise to refine CADIUM, define clearer roles and responsibilities. Create a platform for defining and managing capacity.
I will plan on publishing our findings over time! What an exercise it was!!
We use phpcollab for project management and task management at Artemis.
Now that I'm a big fan of twitter I think that Artemis should extend myPM to include a way to publish your status over to tweeter. Would this be cool or what? Twitter has a very rich API i heard anyway.
I'm on twitter. Actually, I run the Enliven Software team using twitter.
Follow me! www.twitter.com/splashbm
What you need to know to be a Technology Consultant, developing custom ebusiness solutions:
Always start your research from
1. Wikipedia
2. Vendor's product page
3. History of product (previous versions/origination) / Google search
4. Blogs (technorati)
You have to choose a camp. In my perspective choose the Microsoft camp - it keeps things under one roof and simpler, with vendor support. Benchmark others against it to get a breadth understanding.
1. Portals and collaboration
a. Sharepoint Portal (competition BEA Weblogic server, Vignette)
2. Processes and methodologies
a. Application Development processes (Software development life cycle - SDLC)
b. Usability
c. Accessibility
d. RUP, Extreme programming, SCRUM, CADIUM
3. Application Development languages
a. C#, VB.NET (competition J2EE, Java, PHP, Perl, Python)
4. Web technologies
a. ASP.NET (competition PHP, Python, J2EE)
b. Javascript, Jquery
c. CSS, XHTML (vs HTML)
d. Content management systems
i. Dotnetnuke
ii. Sharepoint (formerly MS CMS)
iii. Drupal
iv. Wordpress
v. BEA Weblogic
5. Reporting and Analytics and Datawarehouse
a. **Blue Ocean Strategy, Balanced scorecard strategy
b. PerformancePoint Server
c. Analysis Services (Oracle datawarehouse)
d. Proclarity
e. Business Scorecard
6. Database
a. SQL Server (versus Oracle, IBM DB2). MSDE (or SQL Express)
b. Access (lightweight)
c. Datawarehousing – Cube, KPI, dimensions
7. Virtualization
a. Microsoft Virtual Server (VMWare)
b. Understand Gartner maturity model as it relates to this
8. Server technologies
a. Windows Server
b. ISA (PIX Firewall)
c. Virtualization
d. Security
e. Disaster recovery
f. Workstation and Laptops
g. Email and Collaboration
9. New technologies
a. Web 2.0
b. Mobile programming
c. Wiki
This is just amazing. For technology companies to be in the top 8 largest companies!!!
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/10/hey-look-whos-n.html
Already, if you look at the list of the world's richest...you will see quite a lot of tech folks!
Just got back from Joburg, a couple of hours ago. I had a good time. Ayo and Odi's wedding was beautiful. I played best man. How scary is that heh? My first time playing best man...
South Africa is a beautiful country, that has gone through a LOT. The poverty, gap between rich and poor crime, etc is unfortunate. I can see this country blowing up in 5-10 years!
Find pics on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22341353@N00/show/
“Perhaps one of the few times in your life where you are old enough and
educated or skilled enough to invest 100% of your available time and energy
into advancing your lot in life!“ http://www.metromodemedia.com/blogs/bloggers/NClark0047.aspx
I totally AGREE!!
As you may be aware, Orji Isiogu was recently appointed as the Chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission by Governor Granholm.
LANP would like to invite you to a dinner reception for Orji to celebrate his recent appointment, which is very remarkable and an honor to the Nigerian community in Lansing. Each individual will be covering their own dinner and drinks.
Date- Thursday, October 11, 2007
Venue- Gilbert and Blake’s Restaurant, 3554 Okemos Road * Okemos, Michigan 48864
Time- 7:30 p.m.
Agenda:
Date: 10/5
Time: 7:30-9:00
Venue: 1145 Engineering Building, Michigan State University
Moderator: Bunmi Akinyemiju
1) Introduction to the meeting (3 minutes)
Financial and Debt Management Workshop
LANP is hosting its first “Financial and Debt Management Workshop” for college students.
Financial stability and debt management are critical to your success as a student, and will substantially affect your future as a professional, especially these days where your credit rating is not only used to determine what your purchasing power is, but also, if or not you will get hired by an employer! Having a solid financial and debt management plan in college will help you build the right foundation for a financially stable future.
2) LANP intro (3 minutes)
3) International student’s association president (3 mins)
4) ASU president (3 mins)
5) Panel member Intro (10 mins)
MSU Financial Aid, Vickie Unferth
MSUFCU, Laura Hosey and Jeff Pluff
6) Thanks to all who helped organize
7) Moderator questions to panel (30mins)
* Manage your credit card and other debts while in college
* Manage and monitor your credit, which is critical to building a strong financial foundation
* Manage your financial aid during undergraduate and graduate school
* Sources of scholarships and grants which help reduce your college debt
* More questions to be added—distributed to speakers end of business Wednesday (10/3)
8) Q&A from the audience. (45 mins)
9) Drawing - the LANP will be giving away 2 credit monitoring packages, which will cover 2 months of free credit monitoring through www.creditexpert.com
LANP - my non profit group focusing on encouraging and empowering young international students with financial knowledge, entrepreneural spirit, networking, internships and jobs...has recently completed a series of very successful events.
1. October 1st is officially recognized by the Capital of the State of Michigan - Lansing, as Nigerian day. In recognition of the great contributions of Nigerian Americans residing and contributing to the success of the community and the state.
2. Financial and debt management workshop - targeted at international students at Michigan State University
3. Reception dinner for the new Chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission - Orji
I am very happy about our progress. It has been a LOT of work coordinating these events, but this is very cool. We also made the frontpage of (www.nigeriaworld.com). Cool shtuff!
This is the very best thing I have discovered, since the last time I discovered www.Lookoutsoftware.com (which got bought out by Microsoft 3 weeks after I found them).
The new coolest tool on the block: Xobni (www.xobni.com) - search and “analytics” for email. This is an AWESOME idea!!!
Mint (www.mint.com) is also cool as an alternative to www.yodlee.com (which I use extensively). If you get Mint though, make sure to get LifeLock (www.lifelock.com) just to keep you safe! haha.
Has anyone seen the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager? It’s extremely nice!
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx
I’ve started using it at home now. Firstly, if you have adopted the whole virtual machine strategy on your network at home, you will relate with this. I have about 8 virtual machines with different images, which is nice…backup is easy, I can roll-back the machine state to a point in time, I can make my little Dell PC become 3 machines (with enough RAM)…I actually have 1 domain controller, 1 certificate server, many visual studio dev machines, I even have a few people who remote into various virtual machines on my network from remotely using RDP! Anyway, Virtual machines are the way of the future. If you are not on it, you are behind.
Anyway, what’s cool is this Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager… which is THE thing that most people using Virtual Server have been waiting for. Essentially, I can drop the SCVVM on any machine and use it to truly holistically manage all the virtual machines I have (if you don’t manage them, they can be a mess…since you can easily create a new machine for yourself by copying and pasting like 2 files). The best part about this tool though is that you can point it at ANY machine on your network, and it will virtualize that physical machine for you. Through the Physical-2-Virtual converter… What I’m saying is, one machine with all it’s configuration, applications, etc will PRODUCE for you, a single VHD file and a VMC file…which you can then drop on any virtual server…and your box is up and running. This is just crazy. It means, you have a dying machine…or you want to swap out hardware…just virtualize that baby…throw the box away. Copy the VHD and VMC file to your new machine. Start virtual server. And your machine is up and running – with the same machine name, apps, data etc.
BTW, it will only run on Virtual server 2005 R2 – it’s free anyway.
Get faq here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scvmm/bb871039.aspx
Has anyone checked out Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007…This is so cool.
http://www.microsoft.com/business/performancepoint/default.aspx
For any of you who have interest in complex datawarehouse, numbercrunching, data-visualization type stuff…you will be excited. Basically, this is all about Business Intelligence – datamining, scorecards, cubes, dimensions, ETL, KPIs, and all those cool stuff. A whole business or business unit can be setup to just focus on BI projects, and I believe it will be extremely successful.
Basically, this product is replacing the Business Scorecard Manager…and most importantly, the highly successful Business Intelligence tool that Microscoft recently purchased – ProClarity.
Anyway, I’ve always had strong interest in BI projects…and we have developed about 2 in the history of Artemis…they were always quite cool – even though back then the tools available weren’t robust enough. If you have seen that little “Microsoft Analysis Server” icon whenever you install SQL Server – well, that’s BI right there.
Quick intro to BI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence
Features: http://www.microsoft.com/business/performancepoint/productinfo/features.aspx
I was just thinking about somethings last night, and I started writing and researching….here are some random thoughts. Just take them as me rambling on some thoughts that came to me, and some things I found to back-up the conclusions…take them as just my opinions – not necessarily statements of facts. I could be wrong on some counts. If you have comments – positive or negative, direct them at me…I’m curious. I may turn this into a blog article.
Getting the feeling that you have way too much to do, and you do not have enough time to get it done is not unique to our organization. In fact, It is nothing special in the faced pace world of business today.
To illustrate this fact, observe your most successful clients that you work with (except Auto-Owners)…and think about the time schedule of their key people. I think that growing enterprises and successful companies who are growing fast would always have a “time” challenge. The big question is: how do you manage it? and how can you be effective and feel like you are making progress in the midst of a seemingly endless list of things to do. I have come to realize and accept that only people who can “get things done” can really thrive in an environment like Artemis – and more importantly ANY Consulting firm that does not focus on cookie-cutter solutions: Management consultants, App dev consultants, high-end advertising consultants, wall-street analysts (financial consultants), Attorneys (especially business). From the circle of people that I have been talking to over the past year…most of these people earn a lot of money, and their work week is intense. Frankly, some of these folks have a far more intense schedule than what I thought was a crazy personal schedule/work week (mine). And yes, they have a life!
Look at it this way, the day you see the bottom of your task list – that is the day you should be concerned about job security – not necessarily your job…but more importantly that of your team, whose livelihood and success is very much a function of how well you do. If you remember what Jim Collins said in “Good to Great” regarding Level 5 leaders – you know you are moving towards the attributes of the level 5 leader, when –
- you feel that the company and it’s sustainability is greater than you
- you feel that the legacy and contributions you leave behind is greater than you
- you think seriously about who can continue on the path that you started when you leave your role
- you are more concerned and motivated by your people (successes and failures), than yours
- what wakes you up at night when things are going wrong is the impact of your decisions on the employment of your people
- when you go over and above, and you have to work 80 hour weeks: your biggest motivation is not the visibility from others and acknowledgment – rather, the preservation of something that is much bigger than you
Wow, it seems quite deep and far reaching, to be able to achieve this level of leadership that Jim Collins speak of. These concepts apply to us all. What level are you: http://www.jimcollins.com/lab/level5/p3.html
http://www.jimcollins.com/lab/level5/p4.html
Back to the original intent of this memo, I recently spoke to a few people about the process/methodology that I use to stay on top of the emails that I receive everyday. Seeing that 95% of my tasks originate from email, this becomes extremely important. Apparently, the more formal explanation for the mechanism I use
– read every single item (try not to miss any)
– skip complex, unimportant or long emails (leaving them unread)
– processing quick items right away (1 minute or less)
– marking items as “unread” until I do them, delegate them, schedule them on my calendar for the future.
– Going over unread emails every “down-time” opportunity I get from current to the past until time runs out
– And going over this cycle over and over again
The mantra of my framework is: I get too many emails daily. I know I can not get to every one of them. In fact see the screenshot below: I have 4,499 emails unread and 161 Calendar reminders. And this is REAL – it is not bogus unimportant things. And no, Outlook doesn’t count items unread in your junk folder as “unread email”. They are emails and calendar appointments I haven’t gotten to. But the interesting thing is, I’m not stressed about it, because I know (feel) that for the most part, the critical items in there are taken care of (or expectations are managed).
I found some supporting material on this mechanism I have been using …and how it also applies to not just email, but general daily todo. You have to realize you may not be able to do it all. And really, feeling that everything is “all done” is not necessarily a desirable outcome. But feeling that “everything important” is getting moved forward IS a desirable outcome. I think the biggest challenge we have is having a good methodology to plan ahead, don’t let the day drag you….you drag the day – by determining what you do (as opposed to letting others determine what you do). Have a mechanism for knowing everything that you need to touch. Use that to determine how much time you can feasibly spend on each. Here, I introduce to you the concept called “Time-Boxing”.
I propose that combining this mechanism/framework with Ben Routson’s Daily rhythm (forces you to look at the span of your responsibilities and think ahead). That you can be very effective at getting to all the important things in your life (not just work) and MORE IMPORTANTLY – FEEL good that you ARE on top of things. It also sets the stage for what you should eventually do – SAY NO to somethings (due to your capacity limitations). But without really being able to demonstrate that you can’t take more responsibilities (some may be more important than what you considered important before)…it is tough to say no.
Time boxing is an effective getting things done strategy
What is this mechanism all about?
Given a task, there are essentially two ways we can approach it. Either, we can work as hard as we can until it is “done” or we can fix the amount of time we have available and do the “best” we can. The latter approach is known as “Time boxing“.
Time boxing is a very simple technique we often use in software development. It is an effective technique for tracking progress and simply getting things done. From a planning perspective, time boxing is useful, especially when things appear complex or daunting initially and we are unsure of how to begin.
From a personal management perspective, I’ve found that time boxing can greatly improve our productivity and effectiveness. Because it’s simple, anyone can do it - including you. I use it when working on open ended tasks, like writing, where neither the scope or the quality is well defined.
This article briefly discusses how we can apply time boxing to our daily lives and get things done.
What is time boxing?
Time boxing is about fixing the time we have available to work on a given task and then doing the best we can within that time frame. So instead working on something until it is “done” in one sitting, we only work on it for say 30 mins. It is either marked as done at the end of this period or we commit to another 30 mins at a later time or another day.
In software development, an agile team releases new versions of a product to the customer for testing in fixed length iterations, say weekly. The customer and the development team work together to identify the features to be included in each release based on the relative priority and complexity of each task.
What’s special about Time boxing?
There are always several things competing for our time. At any moment, each of us could have hundreds of outstanding things to do. This question immediately become important - How can we ensure we get as much done as possible?
I believe time boxing is special for four reasons. Firstly, by consciously being aware of time, it allows us to focus on doing the things that matter most. Secondly, it serves as a reality check on how much time we spend working on open ended tasks. Thirdly, because of the fixed time constraints, it can be an effective tool against procrastination. Finally, it allows us to work on things during the free gaps we have between our commitments and appointments.
Focus on doing the things that matter most
If the time available we have is limited, a rational person should immediately think about prioritising their outstanding tasks based on what’s important and urgent.
By using time boxing and ranking our outstanding tasks, we make ourselves consciously aware of how much time we have available. This allows us to focus our energies towards things that matter most. In this way, we get things that matter most done first.
There are many techniques for ranking tasks and I won’t go into them in this post. However, it’s worth mentioning “Quality Function Deployment” - which is a technique we use in software development and engineering to translate customer requirements into engineering specifications. In the simplest sense, for each feature, we multiply a number representing a customer’s perception of its importance by another number representing an engineer’s estimation of the complexity. The final result is ranked and the relative ordering gives us an indication of what we should implement given a certain time constraint.
Limiting the time spent on open ended tasks
Do you know people who are perfectionists? Those who are constantly tweaking things to make them incrementally better or just different? To a certain extend, I suffer from a perfectionist personality which is why I find working on open ended tasks difficult. I’ll use some examples relating to my writing to illustrate: Should this sentence be structured in a passive voice? Does this paragraph look ok here? Are there enough anecdotes in this article?
Because by their nature there is no distinction between done and not done, an arbitrary open ended task can take anywhere between 1 min and 3 weeks. Time boxing is particularly useful as a reality check when working on open ended tasks. By limiting the time we spend on a given task, as long as it is complete though not perfect, we can objectively decide when something is done. This frees us up to work on the next task.
Effective tool against procrastination
In my experience, people procrastinate for two reasons - firstly, when faced with a complex task they are unsure of how to start and secondly, the prospect of having to do something they’re not particularly interested in doing.
- As a tool against complex tasks: Time boxing is useful here because it allows us to work on complex tasks over several iterations or in bite sized chunks. For example, writing a good article is a complex task for me and it is rare to be able to find one block of time in which I can write an article from start to finish. For me, it is more effective to write as best as I can within a fixed period, constantly refining and repeating this process until I finish.
- As a tool against uninteresting things: Time boxing is useful here because it allows us to commit to an undesirable task for only a limited amount of time. It’s a lot easier to start working on something we don’t like if we knew we only need to work on it for the next 30 mins. For example, if you have to clean a messy house, instead of trying to get through the entire house in one go, try only doing as much as you can for 30 mins. When you have another 30 mins to spare another day and feel so inclined, you can continue.
Using free gaps between commitments
The composition of a day from person to person and day to day is different. For some of us, our calendars are completely filled with appointments and meetings. For others, our days are relatively unstructured. Irrespective of our calendars, we often have what I call “null” time. That is, gaps between commitments in which we are either waiting for something or have free brain cycles.
Examples of “null” times are: At the lunch table waiting for your order. In the car on a winter morning whilst waiting for the engine to warm up. At the desk, after you have kicked off a full compile on a complex codebase. The time during the day which you would normally jump on some news website to read-up on what’s in the press today (I make this a night thing).
Time boxing can be immensely useful during these “null” times. If you knew the train will come soon, the car will warm up in moments or the code will compile in a few mins, you can choose to use that time effectively and work on a relatively simple task you know can be done within that short “null” time.
In conclusion
Time boxing is an effective way for getting things done. By fixing the amount of time we spend on a given set of tasks, we can focus on doing the things that matter, give us motivation to start, prevent overruns and use our “null” times effectively. In contrast, if we worked on things until completion in one sitting, we’re less likely to start on complex tasks, more likely to overrun on open ended tasks and leaves us with less time and motivation to work on the next set of tasks.
Here are some of the sources of info: