More than a Facebook status

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I was at a meeting recently where someone asked the dozen attendees how many used Twitter. Only my friend and I raised our hands. The lady shared she was at a loss why people tweet. In her words, it’s no different to Facebook status updates, only less.

It made me think back a little over a year ago. Because at that time, I had similar thoughts. I’ve overcome that though, and would now consider myself an avid Tweeter.

The query though was a good prompt for me to think and clarify what I think it is that makes Twitter more than a Facebook status:

  • I love the potential of exchange beyond my primary network of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances. Twitter is for the most part a completely open dialogue. This is a dialogue worth having, when there are so many interesting people from all over the world, and all walks of life. Some say Facebook is where you lie to your friends, Twitter is where you’re honest to strangers.
  • News is updated on Twitter before any other source (news of an earthquake allegedly spreads faster than the seismic event itself). By following Trending Topics, you can catch the latest buzz about events before traditional sources even pick them up. The pace of updates might be due to the initial 140 character limit. Fewer words give fewer opportunities to deliberate.
  • Due to its free form, amazingly simple interface, and 140 character limit, Twitter encourages a special amount of creativity to keep the communication going, and the craftiness of language to keep the message succinct.
  • Twitter has become a powerful direct channel for individuals and organisations to spread their message. If there are celebrities, experts, or companies interesting enough for you to follow them, Twitter allows you to follow them – so to speak. Celebrities especially are finding it a useful way to share info directly with their fans – without filter.
  • And I like the real-time feedback and collaboration that Twitter can enable during events through publishing a #(hash) tag. These tags when included in a tweet act as an anchor for anybody to add to the conversation.
  • Your Twitter feed is also like a water tap that you can switch on whenever you want to quench your thirst. There is no cup overfilling that you need to get through before it gets stagnant – like an unmanned email inbox.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all positive. I think for the most part, Twitter is filled with rubbish. Duue to this, I rarely recommend people to get online with it.

It can be an amazing resource if you do have the right temperament, and thirst for knowledge, and ability to find things that entertain you.

#entarch to business speak translator

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I had quite a positive meeting with someone from the business regarding enterprise architecture (EA) . It’s an interesting engagement, which we’ve yet to do in any other part of the business. To put it mildly, the area is terribly unhappy with their IT support. I’d suggest their issues are mostly with delivery and communication, program management, application portfolio management, technology modernisation, and business automation in general. This is why I am absolutely certain an EA view and strategy will provide massive benefits. The entire enterprise is so EA immature though, broaching the discipline with the business carries some risk. This wasn’t a major concern for me. It’s clear from the size of the above issues and the major stakeholder’s passion and urgency to fix them, that they “get” it.

To prevent any bad first impressions of EA, I carefully spoke to their needs. I stayed well-clear of our usual enterprise architecture mother-tongue/pseudo speak. (I feel describing enterprise architecture in any real detail intimidates even some IT folks who are more comfortable on the software side.) I was out of practice in business discussions, but the outcome was OK.

I thought it’d be interesting to take the time to record some of the key concepts I remember avoiding, and publish the business-friendly versions which worked. And it’s helpful to consider some more this “enterprise architecture to business speak translator”. Anyone is welcome to contribute their own. I’ve been to presentations some time ago which covered IT to business communication more generally. And there are probably stacks of posts on this topic which I’ll maybe reference later.

Enterprise architecture concept Business description
Meta model Big clear picture to describe everything we need to understand.  Ordinarily this is not something I’d recommend sharing anyway, but this was a special case.
Conceptual to logical to physical Going from the big picture of what you need, down to the level of detail where we know what we’ll put in place
As-is picture View of what’s there today
Business architecture Everything we need to know about how the operation is organised, and how it runs
Data entities Information
Association matrix Mapping
Business to IT alignment Implementing the right supportive technology that business processes require.  (The meaning changes slightly, but was correct in that instance.)
Tactical solutions What we can do in the short-term to help
Standardisation
Thanks Chris
Increase profit by reducing waste

Open Office by Microsoft

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It was not my intention, but isn’t it interesting that the icons from my regular Microsoft products seem to suggest I’m using “OPEN” Office software – quite contrary to open office software.
The Windows 7 taskbar icons are from Outlook, Powerpoint, Internet Explorer, and One Note.

Open Office icons by Microsoft

Notepad logging, farewell

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I will always have a soft spot for Microsoft’s Notepad. It comes from my persistence with it to manually web site code for the web.  In the mid 1990s I became totally obsessive/compulsive with web site design and especially updating HTML source code. At one stage I may have used Notepad more than I used my legs. It was around this time that I suffered a continual and uncontrollable right click whenver I surfed the web.

Sadly (or maybe fortunately), my web design days are behind me. I continued to use Notepad in the years since for note taking, task controls, and communication logs. That was until recently.  Lately I’ve begun moving to more sophisticated and integrated tools like Microsoft’s OneNote, Evernote, and so on. I find these tools a lot better to manage these work tasks as they offer more comprehensive features (like global search) and the ability for numerous people to asynchronously read and update  from other locations.

I often fall into my old habits and take initial meeting notes in Notepad before moving into proper document formats, but I think my usage of it for just about everything else has expired.

Before I forget how to do it, thought I’d record a tip I found quite helpful. Some times I found it useful in recording notes which were maintained along with a timestamp of the entry, as a chronological log. I found it invaluable to learn that Notepad can automatically add that timestamp for you. The way to do this is to type .LOG in the first line of the file, then add a line break and save the file. Then each time you open the file, Notepad will record a timestamp on a new line, where you can add your respective notes.