Really Strategies Blog

Tweeting about Twitter

Image via CrunchBase

Last week the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) hosted a panel, moderated by Barry Graubart, Vice President Product Strategy at Alacra, entitled Why Twitter Matters.

What better way could there be to read about a panel on Twitter than using Twitter itself?!

So, go to Twitter Search and search for #SIIA.  Then just page back to the entries from last week. 

You'll see links to blog posts and video, comments and notes from the audience as the panel was occurring, questions from the in-person and webcast audience, and some follow up posts. 

It will be like you were there.

In fact, the next time you're unable to attend a conference go search for it on Twitter.  You may find that you can monitor interesting sessions real time and even get someone in the audience to ask a question for you.

Here's part of the SIIA Twitter panel message stream.

Marjorie Scardino at SIIA: Doom and Gloom - or not?

"Education will be THE force that drives economic and political determination around the world."

Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson, opened the SIIA Information Industry Summit yesterday by highlighting our opportunity to teach tomorrow's workforce "21st century skills". 

What are 21st century skills?  (Marjorie referenced a report from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills)

• manage information
• communicate effectively
• work flexibly and in groups
• deal with complex issues
• exercise imagination

When discussing more of the hard skills, Marjorie focused on critical thinking, math, and science. 

What are your thoughts?  What should we be developing in ourselves and teaching our children?

Beyond Yes & Avoiding Surprises

As a project manager attempting to keep a project on time, on budget, and within scope, how do we know if members of our team are being unduly optimistic or pessimistic?

What can we do to help insure the answers we’re getting are accurate?

(Let’s leave motivation out of this for now and assume all team members honestly believe they’re providing an accurate picture.)

First, ask targeted and specific questions.

Instead of “How are things going?” ask “At this point we should be halfway done with <fill in deliverable or task here>, are we?” 

Ask follow-up and clarifying questions. Some examples include:

•    How have you determined that we’re half way done?
•    Specifically, what has been completed and what is left? 
•    What are the hardest or most time consuming tasks left?
•    Given your schedule, how much time will it take you to complete the outstanding pieces?
•    What else are you working on now?  Will you have the time you need before the due date?
•    Does completion depend on resolving any outstanding issues or questions? 

Exceptional project managers know how to get an accurate picture without badgering, demeaning, or disrespecting team members. 

But accuracy isn’t only related to the project schedule.  Accuracy also means that the work being done will meet or exceed the client’s expectations. 

The only way to insure expectations will be met is constant and clear communication.

If possible, schedule deliverable reviews (with and without the client) while they are still in process.

Trust what you’re told but verify things are coming along as expected.

When we ask someone if we’re on schedule, they say we are, and we walk away, we’ve left way too much up to chance.

What is a Project Manager?

People define project management about as many different ways as they define Web 2.0 or content management systems. 

In my opinion, skilled project managers don’t simply monitor and report on projects, they drive them.  They actively participate in the projects they manage.

They don’t just collect issues and risks, they proactively seek them out attempting first to avoid them, but ultimately to resolve issues and mitigate risks. 

They are tightly aligned to the business and executive sponsors of a project and take care to understand the context in which their project operates.

They are the project’s advocate to all constituencies including, as called upon to do so, multiple levels of decision makers.

While they act under the guidance of a business sponsor, they should function as an extension of that sponsor.

Their job may include varying degrees of coordination and administration, but that is not the core of what they do.  The core of what they do is managing, driving, and communicating - strategically as well as tactically.

At Really Strategies, a project manager is a senior person with senior responsibilities.  That’s the only thing that works with our clients.

Thoughts?

Electronic product development and two pizza teams

I recently attended the NFAIS conference in Philadelphia where Neil Roseman, Vice President, Digital Technology from Amazon.com spoke about their internal electronic product development methodology.  Apparently Jeff Bezos coined the name “two pizza teams” to capture their philosophy regarding the size of a team.  Bezos believes that a development team should be no larger than what two pizzas can feed for dinner.  According to Roseman, any pizza team cannot be larger than 10 people (I guess that means each would have 1.6 slices of pizza for dinner using a normal 8 slice pizza).  The main goal of this approach is to lower the hierarchical communication overhead. 

The first step in the two pizza team methodology is to write a press release.  Yes, that’s correct, write a press release. This step forces the IT team to articulate what the definition of success looks like for the project.  This is no small feat in many IT environments.  Personally, I find this step very interesting and one that is lacking on many project teams that I have encountered where they are either behind schedule or struggling to actually complete a project.  Defining what success looks like is critical to any project regardless of the final form.  A press release is a great way to focus on this step.

The second step is to develop all of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) and answer them.  This is an interesting step, but it should not be replaced by actually writing requirements.

The third step is to write a user manual.  Again, the written communication helps articulate the requirements in a non-techie way which ultimately helps both business and technical team members.

And finally, the team actually gets to complete mockups or prototypes of the new product.

The overall takeaway that I gained from Roseman’s presentation was that rapid electronic product development needs to adhere to a loose set of processes while clearly articulating requirements and success.  I believe this approach is something that many publishers who are developing electronic products could latch onto and be successful.

One final note:  I was disappointed that Roseman never addressed the challenge of selecting toppings on a pizza by a group.  I could see the decision making process around selecting a topping being a critical barrier to the ordering process and may actually be detrimental to the overall progress of the project.

Quick world tour: Adobe compatible editorial and production systems

Doris32.  What is Doris32?  After spending a good amount of time reviewing in depth several InCopy & InDesign compatible editorial and production systems being sold in the US, I thought I would at least have had it somewhere on the radar.  Doris32 from AnyGraaf (www.anygraaf.com) is from Finland and does, in fact, have a US presence.  I have to admit that finding Doris32 has unnerved me a little.  I had a sense that many editorial and production systems had been developed in Europe, and in fact had studied several of them.  But I never actively tried to get a full picture.  If it took this long to discover Doris32, then what else is out there?  I decided to update my file.

Apparently, every single western European country has a need to produce its own editorial and production system.  But does every country need to produce two publishing systems?   Van Gennep’s PlanSystem3 (www.vangennep.com), distributed in the US by QuadSystems (www.quadsystems.com) and Woodwing’s Smart Connection Enterprise (www.woodwing.com) are only 10 miles away from each other in greater Amsterdam.  Germany has the well known K4 system by Softcare (www.softcare.de), distributed in the US by Managing Editor, Inc. (www.maned.com).  Denmark sports larger newspaper-centric technologies: CCI Europe’s CCI NewsGate (www.ccieurope.com), and SaxoTech’s Saxotech Editorial (www.saxotech.com).  Spain has Xtent by Seinet (www.seinet.es).  The UK has newspaper and media oriented systems, like Prestige by Atex (www.atex.com), and Adapt, by Press Computer Systems (www.presscomputers.com).  Not to be outdone, the UK has a third company, KnowledgeView (www.knowledgeview.com), which has incorporated K4 into RapidBrowser.  Italy has news focused Method by EidosMedia (www.eidosmedia.com). Sweden has Scoop Edit by Scoop (www.scoop.se), which is also sold in the US.  The variety is dazzling.

The US has systems as well, including Modulo Systems’ Concerto (www.modulosystems.com), and new transplant from Australia: Typefi’s Publish (www.typefi.com).  But generally, the US has more established news oriented systems, like Unisys’ Hermes (www.unisys.com), Digital Technology International (DTI)’s PageSpeed and SpeedWriter (www.dtint.com), Harris & Baseview’s Newsjaz (www.harrisbaseview.com), nxEditorial from net-linx (www.nxps.com), and ATS’ MediaDesk (www.atsusa.com).

There are others too, such as Sansui Software, based in India (and also sold in the US), which has a newspaper oriented system called Smartnews (www.sansuisoftware.com).   And there must be more out there.  It is not always easy to find these systems – we’ll just have to keep looking.

This brief survey captures many of the readily identifiable “systems” (or branded system components) and the companies that make them by country of origin – but doesn’t do much other classification.  There are several other integrators and solutions providers that will develop highly customized systems, but they are not listed here.  Of course each system has its own unique features and capabilities, level of product maturity, segment focus, business viability, cost, support capabilities, architectures, integration requirements (from easy-to-deploy to significant development required) and so on.  Some systems include InDesign and InCopy as a small component of a much larger system, as with many of the newspaper systems, while some are built more specifically around InDesign and InCopy.  Some companies have been in the space for decades and some have just released their first system.  The conclusion?  We have no lack of variety. 

Further information on Adobe approved integrators and solutions providers can be found at: http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy/integrated.html

Social publishing: extending the life of content?

At the Fall ASIDIC (www.asidic.org) meeting held in Napa, CA two weeks ago, Michael Fergusson, VP of Product Strategy for BlastRadius relayed a story about a friend of his who is into fixing up an older car from the 1970's.  Needing some help, his friend was able to find an old owners manual, but he quickly realized that it lacked the necessary information to work on some of the more complex parts.  Apparently he was not alone in his endeavor as he decided to start a Wiki on this particular car and to his surprise many people collaborated to clarify the owners manual.  In addition, this community of car enthusiasts provided helpful hints and even pointed out when the manual was wrong.  Is this situation an opportunity or a threat to publishers?

Publishers historically hold on tight to their content and their brand.  With Wiki's and blogs, publishers are going to have to rethink how they can harness their audience while continuing to make money.  The other interesting aspect of creating a Wiki to clarify or extend the original car manual is who is responsible from a legal perspective?  Could you imagine a Wiki being created to clarify or change a therapy in a medical book and something goes drastically wrong?

Many, many challenges lie ahead for traditional publishers as the content and community models evolve to allow users to edit and create content that extends the original content.  Just like instant messaging was viewed as a teenage toy a few years back and now is a corporate tool, I believe Wiki's will need to be looked at very closely by publishers to see how they can harness their audience and create some type of viable business model.