Strengths Based Change – It’s Not Fluffy Stuff

-Introduction-

Frequent challenges surface against Appreciative Inquiry (AI), strength’s based coaching/consulting, and ‘soft skill’ focused activities. Those challenges often state that those kinds of activities are “fluffy”, offer little to no paths to business success or any real grounding in real or true business challenges. I won’t argue that some approaches do not match those challenges. However, those challenges are invalid if the strengths based change is done in such a way that it takes into account the whole picture (the good, the bad, and the not so pretty).

-Focus on the Strengths and Positives-

Grounding on the present reality, letting go of whatever is troubling, and being negative is ok. That’s true for strength based change initiatives as long as the process is meant to be a level setting experience that can then be catapulted into the positive focus.

Strengths based consulting/coaching builds upon whatever the best parts of an organization or individual has. The weaknesses are not meant to simply be avoided. On the contrary, they should be identified. Then, if there is energy around improving challenging areas, it’s a very helpful pursuit. However, it is often not as interesting, rewarding, or easy to improve a tough area. If that is the case, then finding where and how the weak area(s) can be compensated for or simply overcome by focusing on the best part(s) should be a priority task.

In AI summits, the negative baggage that people bring can, at times, be such a roadblock to the workshops that it must be addressed. Allowing time and ‘space’ for people to vent, acknowledge the challenges or difficulties that they have faced, and to understand what has happened previously in the organizational system can help people let go of their anxiety. Once the collective mindset has let go of the past, the group is more open to the future and the summit can resume.

-Example Activities & Framework-

To start with, identify the strengths, “best parts” and difficult areas from pursuits like these:

• Search for positive deviants in an organization (AI activity)
• Identification of best self for an individual (AI activity)
• 360 feedback process for an individual (my favorite being Hay Group’s ECI and ESCI)
• Strength Finder identification of an individual’s strengths
• The well known SWOT activity for an individual or organization (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
• Core competency analysis and breakdown for an organization
• Competitive analysis comparing organization against target competitors for an organization

Doing these kinds of activities should give a lot of information regarding how performance has been, what areas have shined and those areas that are challenging. Map those findings against the intended strategy to see what pursuits would be the most fitting with the organization or personal aspirations. Focusing on strengths is often more energizing, fun, and empowering because the intent would be to build upon what is already going well and to extend and find the optimal usage and fit of the strong areas. As a means of leveraging strengths, it is possible to find ways of eliminating or severely reducing the weak areas. For example, you may have an individual who is great at inspiring and leading her team. She can motivate and energize them very effectively, but has trouble creating strong analytically based presentations. A positive resolution to this weakness might be to find a finance team manager who does not have solid leadership skills. Each, in turn, could benefit from pairing up to mentor each other and potentially help with engagement or presentations. In a similar fashion, using a SWOT on an organization can be beneficial in a strategic manner if the pairing of strengths and opportunities can make the threats and/or weaknesses lessened or, better yet, completely irrelevant.

-Conclusion-

It does make sound business sense to have a strengths based approach. I’ve experienced people being very closed off and dismissive of an AI or positive-centric technique. However, once they experience the process, I’ve seen them transform into the most outspoken champions.

Appreciative Inquiry: An Introduction to a Fantastic Way to Enact Change

-Introduction-

I have found that properly involving people are often an incredibly critical factor, if not the most important factor, to ensuring some sort of organizational change goes along as planned. Understanding the direction of the change should come with the organizational strategy that has been set forth. Knowing the proper timing and ways to involve stakeholders in the change process comes with time and experience. Once those details and the strategy to go forward have been agreed upon, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) has been a favorite method of mine to involve any number of individuals from very small to incredibly large groups toward the implementation of an initiative.

There is an enormous that could be said about AI. In this post, I’ll just stick to the basics to help readers get a flavor of what it is. Further articles will mention more specific aspects of AI.

-Description of Appreciative Inquiry-

Appreciative Inquiry is fun to facilitate, energizes all of the participants, constructs and cultivates at the same time and is many other helpful attributes. It centers on finding the good, the strength, and the positive in an organization or individual, which forms the appreciation. The process to find that information is the inquiry. Hence, that combination becomes appreciative inquiry.

I came to know of AI from the Organizational Behavior (OB) department in Weatherhead. Those who taught me the most are Professors David Cooperrider and Ron Fry, who are both very well known for their consulting work and writing. They can both be recognized by their calm tone, easy going attitudes, and well pronounced mustaches. As a side note, it did seem that many of the distinguished characters in the OB department all had mustaches. Ladies, don’t worry, I have known many fantastic AI practitioners that are women.

In the MPOD (Master of Science in Positive Organizational Development and Change) program, AI changed the program so radically that it evolved into MPOD instead of simply MOD. With the addition of the “P” for Positive, often people ask “was organizational development negative previously?” The answer would be “no” because organizational development is meant to help build or implement changes. The approach in doing so would likely not have been as upbeat or optimistic because of the way that AI purposefully centers on the positive in an organization.

The positive focus is often referred to as a strengths based approach. In using AI, it pulls upon the good aspects that are already present or have been enacted in an organization. The inquiry is the information gathering that helps elicit the stories, descriptions, and other imaginings of what can be possible from the people involved. Due to the nature of pulling out the good aspects present in an organization, it makes it easier, more engaging, uplifting, energizing and more to be a part of the process. Unlike a problem-centric change initiative, one where the objective is to “fix” something, AI tries to create, build, cultivate and otherwise inspire growth in the system of influenced people. Often the energy and enthusiasm brought up in the AI process will produce new dialogue, conversations and fast paced team formation to further enact change.

-How AI Works-

I won’t get into the details of the 4D cycle of AI here yet or other specifics. Those juicy bits of information can wait for follow up posts.

As said above, AI involves a lot of interviewing and storytelling. That is the most crucial aspect of AI since that information and energy from the conversation fuels the rest of the effort. How the interviews are implemented can be done in many different fashions to meet the needs of the change intervention and other potential constraints (time, money, etc). The two methods that I know to be the most influential are cascading interviews and summits.

Cascading interviews

Cascading interviews are where a core group starts as interviewers to gather data, create energy, and discover ideas. Each interviewer would undergo a handful of interviews. The interviewees would then become interviewers and would interview another handful of people who have not been interviewed yet. Through the breadth and depth of the interviewing from gradually spreading out the AI interviews, the cascading effect is obtained. This method allows for the change process to occur at a more natural pace and does not necessitate people to be pulled away from their normal jobs in such a way that an offsite or series of multi-hour long meetings would.

Summits

AI Summits are multi-day workshops that include AI interviews, activities for planning and coordination, and project team formation. The intent with summits is to bring in as many of the key people as possible to try and enact a holistic change process.. AI, being a very energizing method, helps tremendously to provide the steam to the engine of change.

-AI in Action-

Here are some avenues that I have found AI to be helpful:

• Job interviews
• OD interventions on the topics of empowerment and performance management
• Sustainability collaboration
• Workshop facilitation
• Best practice sharing
• Personal development and coaching
• Case study interviews
• MBA curriculum design applications and ideas
• Data gathering for a study on Gen Y values, motivation, and retention
• AI strengths-based performance management reviews

Some Examples Where I know AI has been used very successfully:

• Higher Education
• Utilities (Coal and Water energy)
• Aerospace & Defense
• Fortune 100 companies
• US Armed Forces
• Manufacturing companies
• United Nations Conferences
• Engineering companies

-Closing-

AI rapidly became one of my favorite ways of implementing a phase or an entire change project. The AI interventions can rapidly grow with their own vitality in such a way that it’s both shocking and inspiring. Needless to say, I highly recommend finding your own vehicle for trying it out.

Sustaining the First Mover Advantage – How organizations can maximize their capabilities and resources over time

First Mover Advantage article 2 of 2

-Introduction-

My previous article on securing a 1^st Mover Advantage discussed how a new market space can be secured and the advantages capitalized upon. The initial first mover advantage has many potential benefits, but it is often just a matter of time before other entrants aim to seize market share or to take some or all of the advantages away.

-Maintaining First Mover Advantage-

When other entrants are considering or trying to also grapple onto the market space, maintaining and up keeping the first mover advantages becomes a very important activity for the initial mover. Here are points that could help prevent other entrants from capturing some or all of the market space:

Continuing to secure the first mover advantages as they become more available over time

• Examples include:
  • Bringing in new customers as more people become aware of the new product or service delivered by the first mover
  • Acquiring more of the limited resources as they become available

Enacting switching costs for any customers or resources gained

• Examples include:
  • Enacting long term contracts and steep cancelation fees
  • Creating a suite of offerings that would become full-service or full-product spectrum to make it easier to stay with initial mover

Promotion of the branding to make it ubiquitous

• Examples include:
  • Creating niche offerings for different customer segments
  • Communicating the brand identity far and wide with an advertising campaign

Creating barriers to entry and imitation against competition

• Examples include:
  • Partnering with organizations that would benefit from complementary offerings, thus either preventing them from competing over the same market space and/or utilizing their customers base influence
  • Making the innovation’s patents into a patent cube or extend the patent by furthering the innovation’s applications

Placing high importance upon retaining high customer satisfaction and interest

• Examples include:
  • Offering renewal deals for those who have been good, long term customers
  • Creating incentives, inside of your organization, to emphasize and reward retention and customer satisfaction

Being flexible and adjusting to customer needs, technologies, processing methods, and other aspects as the market space changes

• Examples include:
  • Continually innovating and improving to meet what customers want most
  • Searching and finding new ways to further the market advantages by extending it into like areas that are complementary to the original advantages

These are just a handful of possible ways of extending, expanding, and renewing the first mover advantages so that the rewards from capturing the market space are assured.

-Sustained 1st Mover Advantages-

There are many possible avenues to explore in describing first mover advantages. Most large, well known companies will have strong, stable base of products or services that they pioneered. However, there are some that have become so attached to their innovation that they become a part of everyday language.

In doctor offices and your bathroom, these products are well known and commonplace. The simple small stick with a bit of cotton at the end has become so ever-present that a person will simply call it a Q-Tip. Even if you end up buying the generic package at Walgreens, Walmart, or another store, you might put Q-Tips on your shopping list. These products came from the original invention’s commercial release and became so well known that the brand has become associated with the product, in all forms of distribution.

In another product example, the patent lifespan and commercial usage were so well received that the product is known by the original name for the sticky, yellow paper square. Post-Its are what we call those little memos and reminders in our offices, even if we bought the products from someone else besides 3M, the original company that created Post-Its.

-Mover Advantage in question-

One product type that has caught my eye recently, which is being contested by several entrants, is the electronic reader or e-reader. The Amazon Kindle product, to my knowledge, is the first mover into this market space. Sony and Barnes and Noble also have e-readers to compete with Amazon’s Kindle. Gartner, the IT research firm, predicts increasing sales and that the price point will be a critical measure for the future of the e-reader market. Amazon recently lowered its Kindle price to be $259. The Technology Blog at Dallas’ Morning News writes:

Priced at an identical $259 and coming out at the end of November, the Nook seems to have a couple advantages over the Kindle.

First, it’s got a small, secondary, full color LCD screen at the bottom for browsing new books, in addition to the main E Ink display at the top.

Second, you’ll actually be able to test out the Nook in B&N stores, whereas you pretty much have to buy the Kindle sight unseen.

Third, you’ll be able to lend you Nook e-books to other Nook owners, or anyone with an iPhone, iPod touch, select BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones, PC or Mac. There are some limitations to the lending process, but it’s still a cool feature.

I expect that Amazon has several advantages from being the first mover in the e-reader market space. Here are some advantages that I envision are have been considered or already captured:

• Positive brand reputation for being the trailblazing innovator
• The initial tech-enthusiasts will have bought a Kindle and may not need or want a different e-reader
• Exclusive contracts with authors and publishers
• Advanced product quality from developing and improving new generations of the Kindle
• Partnering with organizations that would highly value an e-reader product like research organizations, schools, libraries, and more

The breadth and depth of these advantages will vary as will the impact to the competition. There are other advantages the Kindle may have due to Amazon’s distribution, brand popularity and so forth, which will augment the first mover advantages as well.

With these new and noteworthy entrants into the e-reader market, will Amazon’s Kindle be able to hold on to the first mover advantages that it received? It’s clear that the barriers to entry were not enough to prevent other notable companies to create similar products. Another question comes to mind; will Amazon’s Kindle be able to sustain its first mover advantage so that it will remain the market leadership over time?

-Summary-

There are many, many facets to an organization’s strategy. Once a win in the market is achieved, it’s very important to cultivate and renew the reward achieved through the implementation of strategy. The success of maintaining the rewards of a first mover advantage are great and so might be the loss if an entrant overtakes the initial mover.

-Hyperlinked articles-

Gartner predicting e-reader sales: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1223841

The Technology Blog from Dallas’ Morning News Kindle story: http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/10/amazon-says-sales-of-kindle-e-.html

The keys necessary to secure a 1st Mover Advantage

Part 1 of 2 articles on 1^st Mover Advantage

-Introduction-

                The energy and promise of a new innovation in a company’s services or products can be almost tangible. Such discoveries make business and marketing colleagues dream of market space potential and positive forecasts of sales, revenues, and profits. The entrepreneurial spirit brings a sparkle to the eye of everyone involved.

                That spirit has been present in many of the roles I’ve been in. I always aspire to generate and highlight the potential opportunities that an organization has. I have found that inspiring others to see a new vision, create a new venture, and work to realize possibility is a very engaging activity. Utilizing Appreciative Inquiry (AI), one of the many subjects that I immensely enjoyed learning during my time at Weatherhead, is a wonderful method for inspiring, creating, and engaging. More on AI will come in a later post though. I know that I’m not alone in constantly being eager to overcome challenges, live in the adventure, and realize the openings that innovations bring.

-Securing the First Mover Advantage-

                Innovations can come in many forms. At times, an improvement is realized and a market space is sustained. Other times, entirely new product or service domains, which have their own market spaces, are created. A new market space may be due to a product or service becoming available in a previously inaccessible geography, demographic or other realm. By moving into the new market space, the first mover advantage can be secured. The term “first mover advantage” refers to the mover being able to capture the resources or whatever potential the market space initially offers. This will mean that the vast majority of most receptive customers, valuable resources, brand notoriety and reputation, and any other available benefits go to the first mover. The sparkle in the entrepreneur’s eye is envisioning these kinds of potential benefits. Any other mover that tries to enter into the same market space will not be able to as easily or capture the same advantages. Exactly how much of the advantage remains after other movers enter into the same market space depends upon how the first mover utilizes the advantages of being the first entrant.

To make the most of the first mover advantage, the following points will help:

• Harnessing the enthusiastic customers that could use the product or service to the most benefit
• Obtaining the most precious or critical resources available in the market space
• Cultivating new customers through communication of benefits
• Ensuring sufficient infrastructure is in place to realize all potential market space advantages
• Becoming well known for the innovation and being the first mover to the market space

                It should be noted that trying to take a first mover advantage, but not fully capturing the advantage or maintaining it can pave the way for other entrants to then over run the initial mover(s). The iPod product is a good example of this. The iPod is an mp3 music player, but it was not the first mp3 player on the market. The market was actually inundated with all of the different types of mp3 players and devices. The iPod was extraordinary in that market space for many reasons. For example, a very important factor was that it included the iTunes software, which helped overcome some of the challenges consumers had with song transferring, uploading, and organizing. That was a part of the infrastructure that Apple put into the holistic product package to address more of the consumer needs. The slick aesthetic and revolutionary design of the interface certainly helped too.

-Conclusion-

                Keep up the spirit of ingenuity, adventure, and entrepreneurship. When you happen upon a new market space, be quick to take the initiative. However, do not be so quick that the due diligence is not done to ensure the first mover advantage is not just a passing phase for your new venture.

Clean Tech: Working Smarter, not Harder

-Introduction-

The long held notions to reduce, reuse, and recycle will help our environment and preserve our limited resources still hold true. Consumers and companies are making more of an effort to care for our planet’s sustainability. However, the paths for achieving that aim have been evolving and diversifying. Using less material, fuel, electricity or other inputs (reduction) are still a primary pursuit. Yet, it seems to be that the biggest thing going on right now are innovations to harness and utilize energy through a smarter means instead of a more rigorous means. Essentially, the sustainability pursuits for organizations must work smarter, not harder, to keep up with the latest trends and technology.

-Sustainable Alternative Energy Avenues-

Smart grid is an example of this kind of sustainability pursuit that many companies, including Boeing, IBM, Oracle, Google, and more are getting into. Fundamentally it’s a means of working through the base economic principle of supply versus demand applied to mass scale electricity usage. As demand grows and supply isn’t as available, the price for energy (particularly electricity) goes up. The smart grid technologies and implementations would help manage the supply versus demand so that there isn’t as much stress on the plants creating the energy. Working smarter via smart grid technology and infrastructure would save money, reduce stress on energy generators, lessen the possibility of a power outage, and potentially allow for companies or households to sell back power. To learn more about how smart grids work, what components go into them, and the current evaluation of the potential benefits, check out this Strategy and Business article. To keep up with smart grid press, you may want to bookmark Greentech Media’s greentechgrid site, which can be found here. That last site has a lot of articles and resources to cover what all is happening, both from the technical and organizational involvement sides of smart grid development.

Solar panels, hydro-electric, and wind power and others take advantage of energy in its natural forms of movement and/or heat. These are other sustainable clean technology pursuits that have vast potential to provide the energy consumers need as well. These power sources take energy from a naturally occurring source and transform it into another, easily accessible and consumable means for our usage. Wind turbines and hydroelectric dams use the kinetic force of wind or gravity, respectively, to harness energy. Solar energy is harnessing the heat from the sun’s rays to polarize the photo-voltaic cells, among other solar power harnessing means. McKinsey did a neat interactive post on solar technologies. The article can be found here, which will explain the definitions as well as compare their strengths and challenges.

These technologies are all harnessing energy that is already out there; we just need to capture it. Once we’ve done that we can use it to our advantage. In some ways, these sources of energy are like finding a twenty dollar bill in your ski jacket that you had saved for emergency snacks and you are surprised to find it when you pull it out of your winter clothes bin. These are energy opportunities that are at your feet and we need to simply find a way to pick it up. Instead of doing the hard tasks of mining and burning to create energy as coal plants do, we can be smarter by using what we have all around us. These are ways we can work smarter, instead of harder.

-Organizational Clean Tech Use-

Better energy usage, capturing the energy that’s right in front of us and innovation to breakthrough into new energy avenues has caught the attention of organizations from government to businesses. Being smart about energy has definitely caught on. The gas-electricity hybrid Prius automobile from Toyota has been extremely popular and become a symbol of that company’s innovation. President Obama’s administration wants to make the US a leader in clean energy pursuits. An article from the San Jose Mercury News states that the new “Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy… has received $400 million through the federal stimulus act.” That money is going to be used to help fund new ideas to create the next generation of clean technologies in the US. Notable companies, Google and Microsoft, have long been looking for sustainability measures in their products and operations. As mentioned in this Financial Times article both of those companies are investigating wind energy and Microsoft has put a server farm in Dublin to take advantage of the natural cooling the weather there provides.

On the product side, I found that Microsoft’s Windows 7 Operating System has some clean tech examples. Windows 7 has improved power management and boot time, mentioned in this ComputerWorld article, which reduces power usage and the shortened boot time answers many prayers. A recent Microsoft’s Software Enables Earth sustainability blog post states that the power management features include automatically powering down when idle, handling system component power usage better (i.e. not powering a component when not needed/in use), and new diagnostic tools to help with power management. Another post from the same blog states that there’s a 91% carbon emission reduction from using digital downloads instead of producing CDs/DVDs. Most of these are management tools that enable more control of emissions and resource usage. While not revolutionary in their approach, smart and helpful decision making can help ensure a company has a lessened negative environmental impact, decreased energy costs, and increase operating performance.

-Summary-

The Triple Bottom Line Sustainability, defined and described in a previous article of mine here, can be achieved by many means. Energy usage has become an important topic and will likely continue to become even more important in the future. Clean tech, thus far, seems to be focused on better managing resources. The improved resource management and usage is done by working smarter, instead of working harder.

Pursuing improved management offers better awareness, control, security, and lessened risks. Leadership goes beyond management and inspires change. A question that I have been pondering after researching clean tech and the improved management of energy resources is what would it mean to be a leader in the clean technology realm?

-Hyperlinked Sites-

Smart Grid explanation site: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Energy_Resources_Materials/Electric_Power/Evaluating_the_potential_of_solar_technologies_2426

Greentechgrid site: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Energy_Resources_Materials/Electric_Power/Evaluating_the_potential_of_solar_technologies_2426

McKinsey Interactive article: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Energy_Resources_Materials/Electric_Power/Evaluating_the_potential_of_solar_technologies_2426

ARPA-E receives $400 million for clean tech grants: http://dailyme.com/story/2009102300006546/obama-business-leaders-push-clean-energy.html

Financial Times article mentioning Microsoft and Google looking into wind energy: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ebb43e6-bf37-11de-a696-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

Computerworld article on Windows 7: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139707/Early_adopters_finding_Windows_7_saves_time_and_energy

Microsoft Software Enabled Earth blog post on Windows 7: http://blogs.msdn.com/see/archive/2009/10/22/top-5-environmental-considerations-to-make-the-move-to-windows-7.aspx

Microsoft Software Enabled Earth blog post on carbon reductions by using downloads: http://blogs.msdn.com/see/archive/2009/10/15/study-on-digital-distribution-of-software-shows-significant-environmental-benefits.aspx

Triple Bottom Line Sustainability post: http://whittblog.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/triple-bottom-line-sustainability-and-value-chain-analysis/

Augmented Reality: This looks cool, literally

I just read about Augmented Reality (AR) in this Business Week article. Not having heard of AR previously, I was drawn in by the examples from the Star Wars and Terminator movies. The future implications of how AR could be used sound fantastic. I’m good at quickly recognizing people visually, yet names often take a while to recall. Having a tip to help me remember a person’s name based on facial recognition software would be great. Business networking at a conference would be extraordinarily easy in finding the right people to talk to for a particular interest.

Knowing about the Monocle iPhone application makes me want a smart phone even more now. This is one tech that I plan on following for future applications.

 

Business Week AR Article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc2009112_434755.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

Twitter Exploration, Results, and Future Possibilities

-Introduction-

In an earlier blog article, I wrote about Twitter. In it, I introduced what the online product is, how it can be used for personal and/or professional application, and some tips on how to use it optimally. That article can be found by clicking here. Also, I mentioned some areas that I wanted to look into. I’ve since researched Twitter, explored its usage through my own accounts, and more. Those areas that I have investigated are as follows:

• Monitor an organization’s happenings (Microsoft’s Windows 7 release in this case)
• Network through Twitter
• Explore the Twitter applications available
• Research developments within the Twitter organization and future implications on usage

I’ll start by reporting about my exploration of the wealth of information available on Twitter applications. What I primarily wanted to get out of searching for Twitter applications was easier desktop management of my messaging, known as “tweeting” in Twitter-speak. This is because I do not have Twitter installed on a phone and I have multiple accounts, which means I have to manually switch in and out of my accounts to get into them via my computer.

-Twitter Applications-

Of the desktop Twitter applications, TweetDeck is by far the best received by the general user community and website reviews for using Twitter. I’ve enjoyed using it and it really helps. It does this by allowing me to manage and be present (monitoring tweets, making my own tweets go out simultaneously via different accounts and tools, and filtering) in my different twittering/status updating avenues. For instance, I have my two accounts (professional and personal-friends-only) displayed side by side showing columns or tweets. Those columns can be custom searches, tweets from those that I’m following, direct messages, mentions of me and more. Additionally, TweetDeck allows me to pull in my Facebook status update feed, which is really helpful. Most of my daily happening updates go out to both my friend-twitter feed and Facebook feed. My professional feed goes out through my professional-twitter feed and to Facebook and/or my friend-twitter feed, if I desire. The most helpful site that I found for simply comparing desktop applications can be found here. For a second opinion and more information, try this site. To download and use the TweetDeck application, the site page, which includes a download link, can be found by going to the TweetDeck website.

Twitter has a number of applications that are available to it. Beyond account management and user interface applications, there are many applications that give additional information. This can be especially interesting if you are using Twitter for your business purposes. Some of the added benefits of these applications are scheduling your tweets for specific times, allowing others to tweet about your blog posts, setting up a tag cloud from tweets, getting trend information, and much more. I found a site that is the self proclaimed “ultimate” list of Twitter applications that includes about 20 different applications here. Another interesting find is a blog that is devoted to Twitter applications. To keep up with the blog go to this URL.

-Twitter Networking-

Twittering for job searching has definitely been helpful. I’ve found a number of professional people and organizations to follow. Some examples include my professors and their speaking engagement or research updates, Hay Group citing discounts for particular products, Microsoft stating some of its clean tech and environmentally friendly activity, my professional colleagues, company representatives from companies that I am interested in learning more about and job postings from recruiters. Searching on company names, professional learning interests, specific named individuals, and through social navigation have all been helpful for me as I expand what I follow on Twitter.

-Monitoring Organizational Happenings via Twitter-

Twitter has trends that can be searched on and pooled from anyone posting a tweet. The trends can be identified by their hash mark in the message. For instance, if there was a popular topic on Halloween that was a Twitter trend, it might be marked as #Halloween. A Twitter search could be done on “#Halloween” and a list of recent posts with #Halloween in them would display.

Monitoring the twitter trends is interesting too. I previously mentioned the Sidekick data loss problems that were happening, which I had seen by checking out the trend on T-Mobile. I later found out from a Microsoft Press Release that the Sidekick data can be restored, according to Microsoft. I also read about the number of Windows 7 media releases, parties, and business predictions. The Tweets were proclaiming high and wide, mainly from my more technically oriented friends and Tweeps (Twitter friends), about #win7. From what I could tell, the major points were Mac vs. PC types, trepidation about upgrading and the potential problems that may ensue, and Microsoft champions touting the wonders of the new operating system. This kind of conversation or tweeting is what I would expect from a successful product launch. On a side note, I did find and subsequently follow the sustainability Microsoft Twitter feed (Microsoft_Green), mentioned above, which updates on interesting points about what Microsoft has been doing in regards to its sustainability efforts.

-Recent Twitter Developments and Foreseen Implications-

Also, Twitter is now becoming a hotbed for future live monitoring and data analysis. I read in an Associated Press Article that both the Microsoft and Google companies are both diving into the streams of tweeting data. If done well, I can foresee these information sources enabling them to be both more reactive and proactive if they’re using pattern seeking, trending, smart heuristic based algorithms and long term analysis. Here are some of the business benefits that they can derive:

• Timely and holistic public relations updates and feedback
• Eager, free, and open feedback and input into products and services (think of the consumer research potential)
• Massive crowd-sourced data mining

This could be an amazing way of absorbing the tweet trend data. That is assuming the organizations find effective ways to engage and solicit the kind of responses they want. The manner in which the Twitter public is engaged would be crucial though. That is because opening up a dialogue to get public feedback informs the public at the same time. If the public finds the new information displeasing, it may make for bad press. So, it may be a double-edged sword if used in that manner. I could see that it would be great in more of an idea creation phase of products or services with significantly less risk of negative reactions. After all, being open, sharing, and engaging is well known to be favored.

-Summary-

All in all, I’ve really enjoyed the professional and social returns I have received from Twitter. It’s a good way of keeping in touch and to get the latest news, regardless of whether it is opinion or research based. Twitter is an interesting medium for updates and sharing. The simplicity of the product is grand and the enormity of data is staggering. I expect that I am not alone in being interested in what lies ahead for Twitter and all of its tweeps.

-Hyperlinked Sites-

My earlier Twitter blog article: http://whittblog.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/twhitterpated/

The Twitter desktop application review: http://www.listio.com/reviews/2008/08/comparison-twitter-tools-and-applications/

Another Twitter application comparison: http://mashable.com/2009/06/27/twitter-desktop-apps/

The TweetDeck application page: http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

Ultimate list of Twitter applications: http://techie-buzz.com/twitter/ultimate-list-of-twitter-applications-and-websites.html

Twitter application blog: http://mytwitapps.com/

Microsoft can restore Sidekick data: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/oct09/10-15sidekick.mspx

Microsoft and Google both have rights to Twitter feeds: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/21/ap/tech/main5407305.shtml

Triple Bottom Line Sustainability and Value Chain Analysis

Sustainability is a topic that has become more popular and compelling in recent years. However, there does not seem to be a single definition for the term. Many times sustainability is associated exclusively with environmental concerns, health, and standards. The green movement for environmental safety, climate control, preserving threatened or endangered species and so on is also often considered to be synonymous with sustainability. However, I will use the term sustainability as it relates to stakeholders and shareholders of whatever the product, service, or organization the term is being used to describe. Stakeholders and shareholders are included because sustainability relates to the triple bottom line. This triple bottom line is also known as the three P’s, which are People, Planet, and Profit. Other terms that are often used with triple bottom line sustainability are social, environmental, and economic. A truly sustainably acting organization would operate in such a way that it only creates value through its initiatives. The organization would not destroy value in any way for any of its inputs or outputs.

I grew up and am now back in the “Evergreen State” aka Washington State. Seattle is well known for being a “greener” area. Thus, looking out for ways of reducing, reusing, and recycling waste has become commonplace. Going for my graduate education broadened my understanding though. I was first introduced to organizational sustainability through the Business as an Agent of World Benefit and Organizational Behavior department in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case. There I learned how corporate social responsibility, taking proactive environmental measures and other helpful efforts where organizations, for profit and not for profit, can thrive through acting sustainably.

A helpful way to model where and how an organization’s influence, as well as what important factors there are to understand where sustainability concerns can arise, would be to map out a sustainability value chain. The value chain mapping shows the impact areas before, during and after the involvement of products and services from an organization. There are three segments to the value chain that relate to the organization: Upstream, Operations, and Downstream. Upstream refers to the activities and impacts that take place before the direct involvement of the organization. The Operations segment refers to the activities and impacts where and when the organization is taking direct involvement. Downstream refers to activities and impacts that take place after the direct involvement of the organization. Those segments address the economic, societal, and environmental impact areas.

As a hypothetical example, take a manufacturing company as the context. I put together a PowerPoint slide to identify the areas should be addressed in order for the manufacturing company to act in a sustainable manner.

 

 With a more specific example, the economic, environmental, and societal activities and impacts become clearer. In order for a company to be more sustainable, it would need to partner with upstream and downstream organizations to make the entire value chain more sustainable.

In future posts, I plan to use the triple bottom line as a frame of reference to use and help explain how organizations, products, and/or services are or potentially are not sustainable.

Market Leadership Requires Enduring Strategy

Strategy, according to a highly respected and well known professor of mine, Richard Osborne, who is well known as “The Gorilla”, is defined as “the alignment of resources and capabilities to win in the market.” I immensely enjoyed his class on managerial consulting while studying for my MBA. The definition has served me well for many dialogues, modeling, and then planning the implementation of the strategy.

An enduring strategy requires making that alignment of resources and capabilities effective in the market environment and a lasting advantage over whatever competition is fighting over the same market. Major companies, like IBM and Google, are showing that their strategies are paying off for them, even though many companies are suffering from the present economic challenges. The Associated Press posted that Google and IBM third quarter results were good, each in their own ways. Google’s search based ad clicking and IBM’s technology services have been very lucrative for their organizations. The core business derived from the capabilities and resources of Google and IBM are winning in their market spaces right now.

There is much that can be discussed on strategy. The competitive analysis and market forces in play are often discussion points that contribute significantly to a firm’s strategy. Understanding the most profitable market segments to capture is a tantalizing pursuit. However, these endeavors alone will not ensure a lasting win in the market. They are very helpful and important to win in the current market environment, but the path to create that win is vital for the ongoing success of an organization. Building and developing the organization’s combination of resources and capabilities to be unique and/or very difficult to replicate paves the way for maintaining market leadership.

We can see that IBM and Google have been winning in their markets with the ability to prosper as they have. IBM, for instance, has its strategic partnerships and service contracts. Google has its data capabilities and search algorithms. There are many more aspects of each company that are strengths and aid in the success of their respective organizations. Yet, in each of those examples of organizational resources and capabilities, other organizations would find it remarkably difficult to duplicate. The partnerships and contracts with IBM serve as an ongoing source of business and barrier to other companies. Replicating the data storage/retrieval techniques and technology would require major brain power and funding to undertake.

Strategy is a major interest of mine. I have found that having a diverse background helps with the situational understanding, formulation, and implementation of strategy. I’m always interested in learning more and collaborating. Readers, what areas are of most interest? Which challenges might be helpful to explore?

The link for the Google article can be found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113841901

The link for the IBM article can be found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113841812

Twhitterpated

I’ve been trying out Twitter this past summer. In this short time, I’ve experienced some of the good and bad aspects of using the service. The good is that I’ve been able to connect with friends, colleagues, and organizations. The bad is that I do occasionally get over-twittered aka “twitter pated” from the entries that talk about eating a sandwich or similar mundane information.

For those of you who may be thinking “What the heck is a Twitter? Isn’t that some kind of a bird call? I know my nephew is sometimes a little twit…” or similar thoughts, Twitter is an online social networking and social navigation application. More specifically, it is called a micro-blog. That’s because it allows short and pithy updates to a community of followers or readers. By saying short and pithy, that means 140 characters. That’s characters (letters, numbers, and symbols) only, not full words. The 140 character micro-blog posts on Twitter are called “Tweets”. Many people use Twitter on their internet enabled smart phones to send updates on what they have been doing. What people say on Twitter will vary from insightful and helpful to silly or completely nonsensical.

In looking into Twitter, I quickly found that having two types of accounts was very helpful. One account includes my professional colleagues, interesting organizations, and other peers. The other account is with my friends for everyday information; where I can talk about the great honey roasted turkey and colby-jack cheese sandwich that I just had. Both of my accounts are low in followers so I haven’t been able to get the quick feedback that Twitter is famous for giving. That aspect will hopefully come with time. I have found interesting articles, helpful tips, and new areas to explore from monitoring my professional connections’ tweets. In my informal account, I have been able to stay more in touch with friends from across the country.

Another recent San Jose Mercury News article confirms much of what I’ve mentioned and says a bit more, especially on the networking and job search realms. The article has a bulleted list of do’s and don’ts for Twitter job hunting, which may be of interest. Here they are:

DOS AND DON’TS WHEN JOB-HUNTING ON TWITTER

1. DO follow potential employers to learn more about their products and service.

2. DON’T get sucked in; get the information you’re looking for, then get out.

3. DO use multiple Twitter profiles — a personal one, for instance, as well as those created specifically to follow certain employers.

4. DON’T use a silly or cartoonish icon on your profile — it could turn off a potential employer.

5. DO use directories like Twellow or Mr. Tweet to help you locate other professionals and trendsetters in your field.

There are a few aspects to Twitter that I have yet to get into.

One of the areas I haven’t used Twitter for much yet is to look up target companies to monitor what’s being said about them and subscribe to their feed(s), if they have them. T-Mobile is a company of interest for me and today I was watching the various complaints and comparisons being said about their products. Evidently the Sidekick phones can delete user data. Imagine somehow losing all of your contacts at once. That would be awfully frustrating. I’ve read that T-Mobile is issuing a $100 gift certificate for those who have such data problems.

Twitter also has a number of different applications available. These applications can be used to sort feeds, link accounts, navigate, organize and more. Since my phone is not a smart phone, I don’t have internet connectivity. So, much of the convenience that many Twitter users enjoy, I won’t be able to access. I do hope to get such a phone sometime, perhaps not a Sidekick though, and enjoy the tweets as they come and go.

Marketing and branding initiatives are yet one more realm that Twitter has helped. I can see how product updates, previews on service releases, short introductions to articles and more could be a great fit for a company’s marketing, public relations and branding initiatives.

From these Twitter-offerings, I am going to explore what I can. I’ll certainly tap into the networking and company searching points as that’s a particular area of interest for me at the present. From a desktop client perspective, I’ll search to find what apps may be a good fit for me too. I will plan on updating this blog with a follow up on what’s gone well and what hasn’t for me. Feel free to follow me on my Twitter page. Links to do so are shown on the right hand sidebar of this blog.

The article mentioned has been hyperlinked to easily direct readers. In case that’s not working, the URL is as follows: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13474050?nclick_check=1.