It's About Connectedness

Thomas P. M. Barnett, a Pentagon analyst, strategist, and one-time Soviet expert, describes connectedness on two levels: explicitly and implicitly.

Explicitly, he discusses the connectedness of international communities and nations. The fat cats like us in the US, Europe, and industrialized Asia are connected. Far stronger than mutual defense treaties, we share mutual economic and personal security treaties. We are like an extended family. We might fight amongst ourselves, but we respond aggressively to threats to our relatives, whether they live in Des Moines or Singapore.

Implicitly, we share a connectedness with those who can individuals, however outwardly different, who can benefit us. Barnett gives the example of a working group in which he participated. Thrown together were, in order formality and stiffness, top military and intelligence officers, top Wall Street executives from Kantor-Fitzgerald, marketing and advertising gurus, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and designers. The groups couldn't be more different. Yet, in a matter of minutes, 4-star generals were engrossed in conversation with pony-tailed and jean-wearing web designers. They were planning social outings together, which shocked and mildly appalled the author whose dress, hair style, and demeanor favors the military.

What connect the Army brass to the web junkie was strategy. They both had a penchant for recognizing patterns of human behavior and preparing to react. Moreover, working together, they offered each other a perspective and a strategic advantage many times more powerful than either group could achieve working amongst themselves.

They were connected.

When I talk to my client Monday, will convey the importance of connectedness. What they can get from connecting to many, many people through advanced social web tools far surpasses what their (over-rated) analysts can achieve. Luckily for them, my company's leader has the foresight to build a team of Silicon Valley types who recognize and can respond to the societal patterns and the matter to large financial institutions.

Our clients, if they're smart, will use this to their advantage and be willing to top dollar for the synergistic windfall that awaits them. If they follow. Otherwise, they should prepare to be crushed by their competition who does listen to us.

Saturday June 14, 2008

For the second day in a row, I surpassed my own expectations.

My team solved a glitch in a new web page that jeopardized the coup d'grace of the presentation we're giving to a major client on Monday. I also rehearsed my portion of the presentation. Without bragging, it will be the best, most effective, most memorable (in a good way) presenation I've ever given. The best part is that my president and other key people will be their witness it. (Way too often I've done the equal of hitting a hole-in-one while playing alone.)

I also read half of "Groundswell" and still have time to finish it tonight or while travelling tomorrow.

So today was spectular. Sunday will be a blur. But Monday will be a red-letter, flag-waving, firework display that leaves the crowd in awe and wanting more.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Today, I got more done that I had planned.

I'm preparing for a trip to a major client. The delegation going from my company includes the most senior executives in my business unit. There's $100 million on the table.

I had a long list of outstanding tasks for the meeting. I planned on knocking off half of them today, but at 6:00 p.m., I have finished everything I can finish today:
* I received and staged the last of 5 demo applications I'll be showing
* I rehearsed the last demo
* I completed the competency matrix which will be a major hub in our presentation
* I participated in a meeting to finalize direction
* I had a great meeting with the client hostess to finalize plans
* I finished the page of the slide deck that I'll be giving
* I edited my demo slide deck and practiced the timings

Saturday, all I have to do is rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, do my homework for Business Ethics, and get a haircut.

Design Thinking--HBR Review

Thinking like a designer can give your company products and processes that set it miles apart from the competion. So says IDEO's Tim Brown in the current issue of Harvard Business Review. (Read the article online for free [click].)

The title caught my eye: "Design Thinking." Immediately, I realized that design thinking is exactly what my business unit needs from top to bottom, particularly as we dive into product re-invention. The good news is, without formalizing the process with a name, we've started Design Thinking already.

Last week, I was lucky enough to be named as a founding member of a new team focused on delivering high-end customer experience through any IP-enabled device. The team's mission goes miles beyond the Web 1.0 concept of web development. It drives to human interaction in general. We intend to provide the best human-web interactions in our industry. For me, Tim Brown's article arrived just in time, as it pulls together the concepts that my new team has been tossing around for months.

Previously, we treated design as something tacked on at the end of the process, much the way manfucturing treated quality prior to Deming's Total Quality revolution. Brown points out that tacking on design improves a product, but building it in makes a better product. I agree.

Implementing Design Thinking seems intuitive and easy according to Brown:

• Involve design thinkers at the very start of innovation, before any direction has been set
• Take a human-centered approach
• Try early and often through protyping (and read Brown's caveats about prototyping)
• Seek outside help from customers and consumers using Web 2.0 networks if necessary
• Blend big and small projects
• Budget to the pace of innovation
• Find talent any way you can
• Design for the cycle

We have design thinkers all over the place at my company, but we tend to call them in at the end, never the beginning. Beginning next week, though, I'm going to work this thinking into the very early stages of everything we do. As with quality, it makes sense to have design built in, not tacked on before the customer sees it.

Global Relationships at My Company

For me, the most obvious impact of globalization to my company involves technologists from India, and it allows me to quickly build high-functioning technology teams in little time.

We contract with a very large company that specializes in supplying IT resources to European and North American companies. Our vendor has facilities in India, but a large number of their folks come to St. Louis and other client locations for 6-month, 12-month, and even indefinite assignments. For instance, of my 11 direct reports, four are contractors in India, five are Indian contractors who work in our offices, one is a naturalized American citizens orignally from India. The eleventh is American born.

If a cultural divide exists between our employees and our Indian contractors, it is very shallow and relates only to work habits. Indian workers tend to be far more respectful toward and obedient to authority than their North American brethren. As a manager, this presents a challenge. I like to give my employees visionary guidelines, a compelling mission, and massive latitude in achieving those goals. I expect strong push-back and challenges to my assumptions, of which I have many.

While American and Canadian employees tend to adapt quickly to my open management style, I've that it takes much longer for Indian conractors and immigrant employees to accept the enormous freedom of decision I give them, though adaptation times vary widely between individuals.

I can honestly say that there are no other downsides to this cultural exchange, and I'm not sure I'd categorize the management-style thing as a downside, anyway. Perhaps the years of British influence in India lowered many cultural barriers long before my buddies arrived in St. Louis. Whatever the reason, I had to think hard and do the math to identify the ethnic breakdown of my team. I really forgot that we come from vastly different places. That might be a failing on my part, but it's also a blessing. I'd rather be the kind of person who forgets his friends were born in Asia than the kind who knows your ethnicity and religion by the spelling of your last name.