Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: Innovation

  • Building the post-agile workplace

    Building the post-agile workplace

    “I personally believe we haven’t seen a major change in how companies work since the industrial revolution,” says Yammer co-founder Adam Pisoni. “We’re, I think, on the brink of a change as large as that.

    Pisoni was speaking at Microsoft’s Australian TechEd conference on the Gold Coast and gave an insight into how Yammer’s development philosophy is being implemented at Microsoft since the smaller company was acquired last year.

    He believes all businesses can benefit from collaborative, cloud based tools like Yammer however software companies like Microsoft are the ones being affected the earliest from their adoption.

    “We sometimes joke that Yammer’s development methodology is post-Agile, post-Scrum” says Pisoni. “Because they were not fast enough and don’t respond to data quickly.”

    Understanding modern workplaces

    This will strike fear into the minds of managers who are only just coming to understand Agile and Scrum methodologies over the traditional ‘waterfall’ method of software development.

    “We focused primarily in the past on efficiency,” states Pisoni. “In many ways things like scrum attempt to make you more agile but still focus on efficiency. Everyone is tasked based and hours and burn down points and all that”

    “The name of the game now is not efficiency, it’s how quickly you can learn and respond to information.”

    “Yammer is less of a product than it is a set of experiments running at all times. We take bold guesses about the future but then we try to disprove our hypotheses to get there.”

    “So we came up with this ‘post-agile’ model of a small, autonomous, cross-functional teams – two to ten people for two to ten weeks who could prove or disprove an hypotheses based on the data.”

    “This lets us quickly move resources around to double down on that or do something else.”

    Flipping hamburgers the smart way

    Pisoni sees this model of management working in areas outside of software development such as retail and cites one of his clients, Red Robin burgers, where the hamburger chain put its frontline staff on Yammer and allowed them contribute to product development.

    The result was getting products faster to market – one burger that would have taken eighteen months to release took four weeks. The feedback loops from the customer and the reduced cost of failure made it easier to for the chain to experiment with new ranges.

    With companies as diverse as hamburger chains, telcos and software developers benefitting from faster development times, it’s a warning that all businesses need to be considering how their employees work together as the competition is getting faster and more flexible.

    It remains to be seen if this change is as great as the industrial revolution, but it’s now that can’t be ignored by managers and entrepreneurs.

    Paul attended Microsoft TechEd Australia as a guest of Microsoft who paid for flights, accommodation and food.

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  • Coffee machines, the Big Blue W and the barriers to new technology

    Coffee machines, the Big Blue W and the barriers to new technology

    Last week my wife bought a new coffee maker, an impressive, all singing and dancing device that’s a vast improvement on the decade old machine it replaces.

    Despite drinking three or four cups of coffee a day, for three days after the new machine arrived I didn’t make one long black or cappuccino. The reason was I didn’t have time to figure out how to use it or the high tech coffee grinder that it came it.

    Being time poor is one of the greatest barriers in adopting new technologies as business owners, managers and staff often don’t have the time to learn another way of doing things.

    The coffee machine reminded me of something I learned with a business I was involved in the early 2000s. We were trying to sell Linux systems into small and medium businesses.

    We had some success selling into small service businesses like real estate agents and event managers where the owners could see the benefits of open source software and, in many cases, had a deep suspicion or resentment towards Microsoft’s almost monopoly on small business software.

    Despite the success in selling the systems, the business though came undone because many of the clients’ staff members refused to use the Linux machines, as one lady put it to our frustrated tech “I want to click on the Big Blue W when I want to type a letter.”

    That Big Blue W was Microsoft Word and no amount of cajoling could convince the lady to use any of the open source alternatives — she knew what worked in Word and she had neither the time or inclination to learn any thing different.

    Eventually that customer gave up trying to convince their staff to use non-Microsoft systems and the computers were reformatted with Windows, Office and all the other standard small business applications installed.

    This happened at almost every customer’s office and eventually the business folded.

    For those of us involved in the business the lesson was clear, that time poor users who are content with their existing way of working need a compelling reason to switch to a new service.

    In many ways this is the problem for legacy businesses — the sunk costs of software are more than just the purchase price, there’s the time and effort in migrating away from existing products and training staff.

    When we’re selling new technologies, be it cloud computing services, linux desktops or fancy new coffee machines, we have to understand those costs and the fears of users or customers who’ve become accustomed to an established way of doing things.

    In the eyes of many workers new ways of doing business are scary, challenging and often turn out to be more complex and expensive than the salesperson promised. In an age where marketers tend to over promise, that’s an understandable view.

    For those selling the new products, the key is to make them as easy to use and migrate across to. The less friction when making a change means the easier it is to adopt a new technology.

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  • Could advertising have saved Blackberry?

    Could advertising have saved Blackberry?

    Could advertising have saved Blackberry wonders Joyce Yip on the Marketing Interactive site.

    Yip cites Samsung’s blanket advertising as one of the reason’s for the Korean brand’s success while Blackberry could only afford a token presence for the new Z10 phone.

    While there’s no doubt Samsung and Apple’s marketing muscle has helped them dominate the smartphone market, advertising alone doesn’t explain the dominant brands’ success.

    Blackberry was doomed from the moment a business friendly smartphone was released, no-one expected it at the time but it turned out to be the iPhone.

    Compared to the iPhone, the Blackberry was woefully underfeatured and once corporate users discovered email wasn’t the only use for a smartphone, the Canadian company’s fate was sealed.

    While the Z10 and Q10 phones were well featured devices, they are way too late for a market where Apple and Samsung have most of the sales and take all the profit.

    It’s tempting to think advertising and marketing may have saved Blackberry, but the company was overtaken by a fundamental market change which left it stranded.

    For a while in the late 2000s Blackberry looked untouchable in the corporate market and no-one would have expected Samsung and Apple to disrupt their position. That’s the real lesson Blackberry teaches us.

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  • Reducing the road toll through the internet of everything

    Reducing the road toll through the internet of everything

    How can modern computer technology cut the road toll?

    Transport for NSW’s John Wall spoke last week at Cisco’s Internet of Everything presentation in Sydney about some of the ways the connected motor car can reduce accidents.

    John’s presentation comes from personal experience, having being a volunteer for nearly thirty years at his local State Emergency Service brigade where he was often among the first responders to local vehicle accidents.

    Some of the improvements in technology see the road toll falling as people travel less because of remote working, teleconference and business automation. Many of the applications though are built into the vehicles, street signs and the roads themselves.

    Finding the safest route

    John’s first suggestion for improving driver safety is having navigation systems sourcing traffic, weather and other information to suggest the best route for the driver. An intelligent system may also modify the recommended journey based on the experience of the driver and state of the vehicle, such as the tyre conditions.

    Watching the eyes

    Fatigue kills and all of us have driven when we were really too tired to be behind the wheel.

    The first in car technology John discussed is facial recognition technology that detects when drivers are fatigued. Tying this feature into the vehicle’s entertainment system with a stern aviation style “PULL OVER – YOU ARE TIRED” warning could well save hundreds of lives a year on his own.

    Connected road signs

    One of the underpinning factors of the internet of everything is cheap computers and transmitters embedded into almost anything. Road signs and sensors talking to cars could help reduce driver errors such as entering curves too fast.

    Those signs can also be plugged into weather conditions so if there’s ice, fog or rain then the car can be told of the hazards ahead.

    Going on the grid

    Signs are not the only devices that could be talking to each other, vehicles themselves could be talking to each other. Should one car hit a slippery or soft patch on the road, it could tell following vehicles that there’s a problem ahead and respond accordingly.

    That technology too could help traffic planners and road authorities, as data on traffic speeds and road conditions feed into their databases it becomes easier to identify black spots or road design problems before lives are lost.

    Helping the first responders

    A wrecked car or roadside sensor can also help those first responders attending an accident. The vehicle itself could transmit the damage and give rescuers valuable, time saving information, on the state of the occupants.

    Similarly, the system could also warn emergency services such as hospitals and ambulances of the injuries likely and what’s needed to treat the injuries on site, in transit and at the casualty ward.

    Importantly, a smart vehicle can also warn those first responders of potential risks such as live air bag gas cylinders, car body reinforcements or high voltage cables as they attempt to free trapped occupant from a wreck.

    The rescuers themselves may be wearing technologies like Google Glass that help them see this information in real time.

    Bringing together the technology

    As Kate Carruthers points out, the internet of everything is the bringing together of many different technologies – wireless internet, cloud computing, grid networks and embedded devices all come together to create a virtual safety net for drivers.

    By the end of this decade that we will all be relying on these technologies to help us drive. Which means we might find our licenses start to be endorsed for the level of technology in our vehicles, just as we used to have to get qualified to drive a car with a manual transmission.

    Concluding his presentation, John Wall told the story of Jason, a cyclist from his town who was killed in a road accident and left a young family. In his slide he showed Harry, Jason’s young son, playing with the flowers on his father’s memorial.

    “I hope for Harry is that when Harry learns to drive that things will be different on our roads and things will be different because we are all connected,” said John.

    It’s a strong reminder of the real human opportunities and costs when we adopt new technologies.

    Car crash image courtesy of jazz111 through SXC.HU

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  • Hotels and 3D printing

    Hotels and 3D printing

    One of ADMA Forum’s second day speakers, Phil McAveety, EVP of Starwood Hotels, had a look at the hotel of the near future.

    In Phil’s view, the key to success in the hotel business lies in providing in a unique guest experience as the world’s middle classes explode.

    The role of the 3D printers in the hotel experience where guests can order a pair of sneakers or swimming goggles to be printed up when they’ve forgotten their own is one of Phil’s fascinating views on how technology will change the hospitality industry.

    Its a shame that most hotels have old style door keys, All Things D looks at a start up called KeyMe that stores details about door keys on the cloud which customers can download 3D printing files.

    These two examples illustrate just how a technology like 3D printing will change industries.

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