Category Archives: Business

23 November 2009

Are We Really Communicating All That Better?

By Rick Ladd

In my over twenty years of experience at the large, very successful aerospace company where I labor, I have spent a great deal of time trying desperately to get the IT people to talk to the Engineering people. I haven’t, for the most part, been all that successful. Back in the day IT was truly an empire unto itself and it was pretty blind when it came to listening to the needs of the Engineering community. Furthermore, many of the systems that were used by various programs were dictated by the customers who were paying for our services and our products, basically NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and DOE.

This resulted in some very interesting problems with respect to systems, tools, and their use and subsequent development. What used to happen was Engineering would get an itch for a certain type of functionality but, since it hadn’t been contemplated in the original contract and since it might be some time before it could be renegotiated in order to get some money for developing the code required, Engineering would take it upon themselves to develop what they needed. You can imagine what happened many times. Though not an Engineer myself, I believe all Engineering students study one or more computer languages . .  . I’m fairly certain most of them  do.  Well, they would just get on the problem themselves, either writing code or – even worse – creating a tool in Excel.

So now we find ourselves in the interesting position of having something like a couple hundred tools, many quite useful, many overlapping in functionality. Many of them are unwieldy and kind of out-of-date, yet we don’t quite know how to get rid of them. This does seem to be changing somewhat as the tools of Enterprise 2.0 are gaining traction, i.e. blogs, wikis, user-generated content in general. Regardless, there are still numerous choices for how to deal with each of these as well. What wiki should we use? What about Open Source? (Anathema, btw, in my company – at least for now).

So the beat goes on. We keep adding tools, if at a slightly slower rate than previously (I think), and we seldom shed any. I suspect, as more and more content gets generated through the use of social media, and the ability to organize and make sense of it improves, we will eventually move away from many of the tools we’ve kind of grown up with. Data, too, will probably migrate toward a common format that can be accessed easily by anyone who wishes to and has authority to do so. It would be nice to see everyone on the same page, rather than pockets of people talking about the same thing in slightly different, and frequently incompatible, formats and locations.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Collaboration, Knowledge Management, Systems Thinking

31 October 2009

We Lost Another of the Absolutely Best Minds in Management This Week

By Rick Ladd

There are two Management thinkers who have influenced my life, and the lives of  many of my colleagues – even as we struggle to have their ideas embraced where I work (a titanic, long-standing struggle indeed). One of them, W. Edwards Deming,  has been gone for some time now, but the other – Russell Ackoff – just died this past Thursday.  Russ was a giant in the field of Systems Thinking. Russ proposed what I’ve seen referred to as the spectrum of learning. He believed the content of our minds could be classified into five basic catergories: Data; Information; Knowledge; Understanding, and; Wisdom.

Russ had been in the habit of visiting us here on the west coast to share his wisdom and wit at the beginning of every year. He would spend an entire day with, usually, a large group of interested people, sharing stories of his experiences over the years. One of those I remember the best is his experience with Bell Labs. He quite accidentally was involved in the design of a lot of today’s telephone system. From that experience he later would go on to develop his concept of idealized design – a method whereby one throws out everything that’s known about a product or system and attempts to design it based on what would be ideal, then work backward to where you currently are.

Another thing I loved to hear Russ say, which he would do frequently was his admonition that it was much harder for a large organization to stop something once it had started than to agree to supporting any activity that was outside their comfort zone. In other words, “It’s better to seek forgiveness than ask for permission”. Russ also pointed out that doing the wrong thing better only made what was being done “wronger”.  Russ was so full of wisdom one could easily spend days listening to his stories and the knowledge he gained from his experiences, which were many and varied. Russ spent a large part of his life helping Anheuser-Busch truly dominate their market . . . and become the “King of Beers.”

For the past two years Russ had decided no longer to travel out here to speak to us. He was having back and hip problems and dealing with the incessant screening and the long lines and waits in the airport had become too much for him. My colleague, Bill Bellows, who had for years organized monthly telecons with some of the best speakers and writers in the field of systems thinking and management, asked me each year to accompany him to Philadelphia to visit with Russ and our friend Johnny Pourdehnad, a professor of Organizational Dynamics at UPenn. I was fortunate enough to spend many hours with both Johnny and Russell. One of my last memories of Russ is spending a lovely evening with him and his wife, Helen when Bill and I took them out to dinner for Russ’s 90th birthday. At the time Russ was suffering greatly from the pain he was experiencing associated with what he called “a shredded hip”. It was late January and there was lots of ice on the ground. We had to walk to the restaurant from  where we parked and Russ was using a walker. I hovered over him like a brooding hen, scared silly he would slip and fall. He didn’t, thankfully (I had caught him once in his home office), and we had a great meal followed by a birthday dessert. I snapped a picture with my BlackBerry and now wish to share it with whoever may find themselves here.

My Last Visit With Russ

Russell Ackoff Celebrates His 90th

There are numerous posts and websites where you can learn more about Russ and his work. You found your way here; you know how to search. However, I would like to give mention to one that has been writing about Russell for some time. Ironically, because of one word in the name of this blog, my company’s web filter blocks access to it from inside our firewall. I am referring to “The Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog“, where I got the title for this post.

Russell will be sorely missed by many people. I am hopeful his ideas, his wisdom, his tremendous intellect, and his enthusiasm for understanding and application of systems thinking will find even greater voice now that he is no longer with us. It seems a sad irony of life that so many people only become truly influential after their deaths. Doesn’t say much for us . . . but that’s the way it’s been. I hope Russ’s life will be instructive to many so that we can slowly evolve away from the mundane things that seem to attract us and pay a little more attention to things that matter.

Rick

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Systems Thinking

16 October 2009

Seeking Balance

By Rick Ladd

Lately I’ve been having a bit of trouble coming up with things to blog about. It’s not that there aren’t subjects worthy of discussing or exploring; it’s just that most of them have to do with my job and I’m uncertain over whether or not – and to what extent – I can share what it is I’m doing and the issues my company is facing. Neither is any of it “Top Secret” (though some of our work is) but, rather, we are an old and staid aerospace company with deep roots in governmental contracting and with a strong impulse to hold everything we do close to the vest. This is, in part, to protect our intellectual property which, in the world we move in, is quite valuable, and the need to comply with the provisions of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that provide very serious – and expensive – penalties for “exporting” controlled information and knowledge. Export-controlled knowledge is our bread and butter, so I need to be sure I err on the side of caution.

So, I guess this in the way of a caveat. I would love to reveal more about where I’m employed; after all, I’ve been there over twenty years and my experiences greatly color how I see the business world and what I have to say about my struggles to incorporate Enterprise 2.0 design principles and tools within the organization. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do so for the foreseeable future, though I am working on figuring out just how to step up the precipice without dropping off the cliff of inappropriate posting. I suspect this will be an ongoing struggle, but I will keep trying to figure out how to share my thoughts about our efforts at developing into a company that derives a large part of its income from industrial and commercial efforts, rather than government contracts.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Business

26 August 2009

To Search or Not to Search

By Rick Ladd

About a week and half ago, while searching for I have no idea what, someone where I work came across a document or two that contained sensitive personal information. They should not have found this information, yet there it was. They were using a tool we have called Goldfire Researcher, a very powerful semantic search engine developed and sold by Invention Machine. The discovery precipitated an order from our IP Attorney to immediately remove access to all the databases generated from our huge share drive. This occurred almost on the same day I had another of Invention Machine’s products, Goldfire Innovator, installed on my machine and a couple of days before I was to receive training on its use. Needless to say, the training became exceedingly difficult as there was nothing to use for research; at least nothing internally.

Today we are to meet with two of our lawyers and decide how to proceed. I don’t believe anyone thinks it is in the best interests of the company to not be able to search our own data for useful information in either performing our daily work, or in our innovation initiatives. I understand the position of the lawyers. Being one myself (though that is not my position where I work), I appreciate the need to protect the privacy of our employees and the information that was found should not have been where it was. We need to put a process in place that allows access, yet protects all kinds of sensitive information. It will be interesting to see just what we come up with.

I should point out this is not a shortcoming of the tool(s) that Invention Machine provides. Rather it is, in some ways, a fortunate side-effect of the power of the tool(s) that we have surfaced areas where others have not been adhering to the procedures we already have in place for protecting this kind of information. I am hopeful we will find a way out of this quandary soon and will be better organized with respect to all our data as a result.

Rick

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7 August 2009

Social Computing Isn’t Just for Old Folk!

By Rick Ladd

I don’t suppose there are all that many people my age who get so much satisfaction out of all the social computing services and tools available on the Internet nowadays. If they do, I suspect they’re mostly on Facebook, as I am. There’s so much more available, though, and I’m trying to make the most of them. Sometimes it seems a bit overwhelming to try and keep up while also learning how these services can benefit my company (or any company – you never know) as well.

This evening was a great example of why I’m so enamored of them. The weather for the last couple of days has been quite temperate for southern California; far cooler than the previous week, when the temperatures were getting into triple digits. That was great for using the pool, but now I favor just sitting outside and enjoying the cool breeze that picks up at the end of the day.

While I’m sitting on the patio, enjoying at tall Scotch & water, I’m also using my Blackberry to communicate with people all over the country; sometimes all over the world. I have – on my BB – both Twitterberry and Facebook mobile, as well as my Gmail account. So I’m reading an email  from a friend in Florida, carrying on two Twitter conversations with friends in Texas and New York, taking and uploading a cute picture of my oldest (8 y/o) daughter, and reading a response from a friend in Arizona.

The connections available through the Internet are absolutely astounding and it pisses me off to think all this is coming in the late autumn of my life. Nevertheless, I plan on squeezing every last bit of connectivity, education, joy, and solace I can get out it before I move on. This in one awfully contented evening.

PS – As I sit here typing on my laptop, my daughter (who cannot yet type) is sitting next to me with a disconnected keyboard, mimicking my actions, Ooh! Sweet!

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6 August 2009

The Sky is Falling

By Rick Ladd

For the record, I am neither religious nor superstitious. However, enough things have gone wrong today to make me wonder if I shouldn’t at least be knocking on wood my house is still standing and (obviously) my fingers are still working.

The first thing to go on the fritz was our only service/tool I would consider a social tool where I work. We’ve had our IT folks and support from the vendor look at everything and each one of them, so far (time to put the hammer down), is looking at the machine logs and – seeing nothing untoward – shifting responsibility. The problem, however, remains and needs to be dealt with immediately, if not sooner.

So . . . then Twitter suffers a denial of service attack and is either down or clunky for hours on end. I was going through double withdrawal and it was beginning to make me twitch a little bit. Something had to be done.

Well, not much I can do about Twitter but, as the project manager for our internal social tool, I could raise a ruckus and get people doing something – collectively – to help fix this problem. So we get the vendor rep on the phone and he is always helpful and knowledgeable and we work with him frequently to resolve minor issues and discuss feature upgrades, etc.

The conversation starts out just fine but suddenly his phone starts distorting and cutting out. He tries using his cell phone and, after a couple of minutes, it drops from the call. He calls back and, again after a few minutes, it starts distorting again. As of now, we’ve been on and off the phone for over an hour, the problem still exists internally, Twitter stills seem famischt, but at least the phones kinda worked.

I’m wondering, the Perseid meteor shower is only six days away. Maybe Comet Swift-Tuttle is returning to slam us and we’ve just missed it. Maybe its the end-of-days, maybe the Mayan calendar is right or Nostrildamus hit it “on the nose”. Stay tuned.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business

5 August 2009

Blogging While Employed & Finding Value

By Rick Ladd

I’m finding it difficult at times to keep my mind on work, mostly because I want to follow the threads of the tweets those I follow on Twitter are providing – and it’s time consuming to do so. There is so much good information out there about how social computing can transform an organization – or even an individual (see Nancy White’s wonderful article here) – and I want to study it all.

I’m not exactly a newbie to this stuff, as I’ve been tweeting for around a year now, I’ve had a blog for seven or eight years, and I’ve been a member of Facebook for quite some time as well. However, the exigencies of my work and family life have kept me from participating as fully as I would like to. This is especially true of my work life. I want to write about it but worry I should not do so, as it might be perceived as disloyal or, heaven forbid, tantamount to sharing information they do not want to make public. I know all about the first amendment, but I like my job – despite the company’s hierarchical, command-and-control past and (mostly) present.

Thankfully, there is change in the wind as more and more people are discovering just how useful social computing can be and how important it is to the future of our company – especially as the market for our services is changing and the need to move from strictly government contracting to far more commercial endeavors increases. Our reluctance to change, I’ve discovered, is not limited to my industry (see this post) – which I find heartening, if somewhat disquieting.

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31 July 2009

E2.0 – Putting a Systems Face on it

By Rick Ladd

One of my Twitter friends directed me to a post she had just put up on the FASTForward blog entitled “The Context of ‘Intent'”. There’s a lot of savvy understanding in this post of hers about how E2.0 needs to synthesize the concepts of adaptation and emergence. One major thing I got out of it may be very applicable to my efforts – and those of many of my colleagues – at developing an enterprise-wide approach to Lessons Learned. In order to do so, we have to change our understanding (IMO) of what exactly Lessons Learned are, i.e. where do they come from, how do we “capture” them, and how do they get used?

Currently, we tend to think of Lessons Learned as special moments in time when we recognize something in our experience has given us an insight that should be captured and made available to others who may be duplicating what we’ve been doing that “generated” the lesson. However, I’m of the opinion lessons are embodied in virtually every document we create. Granted, many of them may be somewhat trivial or don’t have major,  generic implications, but they are lessons  nonetheless.

Getting back to Paula’s blog. It seems to me it would really be valuable (and would  surely be an E2.0 app) if we could create a system which would continuously allow for adaptation of its functionality based on the users’ experience and their desire for adaptation to take the app’s “Lessons” into consideration in making it more capable and responsive. I recommend highly reading this short (despite Paula’s protestations otherwise) blog.

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27 July 2009

On Becoming More of an E2.0 Evangelist

By Rick Ladd

As of today I have become more active in the outside world evangelizing (and learning about others who are evangelizing) Enterprise 2.0. I have been working within my company for close to a year and have achieved some amount of success, but I’ve been reluctant to share what I’ve been doing outside the firewall because of the nature of our business (Aerospace, with heavy emphasis on export-controlled info and knowledge). I have also been somewhat consumed with finishing a Masters degree in Knowledge Management, a field I have been practicing for over a decade. So . . . combined with the imminent completion of that degree, and a newfound desire to learn from others despite the possible discomfort it may at times cause me, I am going to plunge in and root about for the nuggets I need to bring my company up-to-speed.

It’s now or never. Onward and upward . . . and all those aphorisms and cliches that indicate one is moving out on a long-held desire. I am hopeful I can engage many others in this journey. I have much to learn and, perhaps, a little bit to share as well. The job so far has been full of roadblocks and sidetracks, but there is an ever increasing number of people (even in management) who can see the writing on the wall. I’m hopeful as hell!

Rick

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27 February 2009

Discounting Twitter

By Rick Ladd

A little while ago I was at a meeting with reps from an advertising agency that specializes in creating web presence for organizations. They’re pretty well known and have won a webby for one of their campaigns. My organization has never advertised by itself, though it has benefited marginally from ads by parent organizations (and there have been a few . . . organizations, that is).

I was impressed with the web savvy and the general tenor of the presentation these guys gave. Equally, I was happy with the direction our executives went in when discussing this stuff and their overall approach to moving in this direction. There was, however, one item that came up which disturbed me somewhat, and that was a discussion of Twitter in which they were summarily dismissive . . . which I think is a big mistake.

Now I’ll grant this – a business such as ours is not interested in tweets like “Just finished my croissant with black currant jelly. Starbucks is so yesterday”, or “Just finished walking the dog. Back with large bag of poop. Weather looks to be quite comfortable today”. Neither do we care about monetizing Twitter or some similar product. It’s not what we do. However, and this is true whether Twitter finds a way to monetize themselves of whether they just flat out go out of business, the concept of micro-blogging is NOT going to go away. It has too damn many use cases to be ignored.

One example I can think of off the top of my head (and I believe NASA is using this very model to prepare orbiters for missions) is for a geographically dispersed team to stay in contact with each other with respect to the completion of critical items that impact downstream activities. I have experienced numerous situations where the lack of communication regarding the completion of a step in a complicated series has resulted in the loss of a day or half day in the completion of the project. This is not trivial.

At any rate, I really think there are lots of use cases for Twitter within the enterprise. Dismissing it out-of-hand is foolish and short-sighted in my opinion.

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