Graham Chastney

Some wisdom from Seth Godin today:

A car is not merely a faster horse.And email is not a faster fax. And online project management is not a bigger whiteboard. And Facebook is not an electronic rolodex.

Play a new game, not the older game but faster.

I work alongside IT organisations who are often so focussed on getting “more for less” they completely miss the game that is changing around them.

So often the question is focussed on upgrading rather than transitioning – “if I upgrade the corporate email system will it be cheaper” rather than “what opportunities do we have for delivering communications in a better way”. People don’t want corporate email they want communication, and while they are all looking at the corporate email system this thing called social networking comes up behind them and changes the game.

I seem to be surrounded by long documents and large spreadsheets again. People have spent hours on these pieces of work, but I’m unlikely to read them. It’s a shame, but it’s the reality.

The other day Shel Israel wrote in “Story Telling VS 10,0000 years of PowerPoint” about the challenge of the bullet-point culture that we are in and the stories that are deep within our human nature.

If you’ve been reading this blog, and my twitter updates for any length of time, I am not a fan of large documents or bullet-points, but I am a huge fan of stories (here)

The following story is a caricature of a real meeting:

“Oh no, It’s that Tuesday in the month again, that one when Bill gets to talk us through the standard 84 page bullet-point fest that he loves so much.” I think to myself as I look at my diary and the day that is ahead.

I know that this two hour green block in my diary means that I will be entering into a form of torture chamber once again. A torture chamber where I want to stand up and say “who cares”, but know that I will, as always, sit there like a good boy and say nothing. I will start the meeting determined to focus and to be constructive, but I know that over time the BlackBerry will get more and more attention, and the meeting will slip steadily into the background.

Sure enough that is exactly what happens. After reading through the contents of the first 10 slides I’m almost 100% focussed on anything other than the never ending stream of bullet-points set out before me.

My BlackBerry flashes, I know what it is going to be before I even look at it, it’s from Mike who’s sat across from me. His phone is getting a similar amount of attention to mine and he has sent me a text – it’s not complementary. My reply isn’t exactly constructive.

I know that I will never get back the seconds, minutes and hours that are passing before me. I set there ashamed by my lack of courage – “why don’t I say something? Anything?” – but I don’t. I let the time tick on and drip away.

And then someone does say something, out of the blue they ask a question. They break right in – mid-bullet-point.

“But what difference does all this stuff make to Mary?”

“Mary? Why Mary?” says Bill

“Because she’s the person who complains the most to me about all of this. There isn’t a week goes by when she isn’t telling me how useless it all is? The other day I could see how stressed and frustrated she was. It’s not like her so I asked her what was wrong, and she told me. She told me about the time it takes to get things done. She told me about the lack of answers she gets from the people running the service. She told me about how no-one else will use the system because it’s so bad, but she doesn’t have a choice. What difference is this going to make to her?”

“Well I don’t know?” said Bill looking a bit flustered

“She’s just in the next office why don’t a get her and she can tell us”

Mary joined us and tells us about her challenges, her problems, her frustrations, her annoyances. She has some great ideas about how it could be so much better too.

At first Bill tries to get us back to the slides that he is determined that we should get through, but he soon realised that he has lost. We wanted to hear Mary’s story, we wanted to know how we could make her life better, we want to hear her ideas.

We had our story and we were going to get as much out of it as we could.

There are all sorts of techniques for introducing stories into business, and in particular, into the system architecture and design business where I find myself. These stories are far more powerful than a slide deck of bullet-points could ever be. I think I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again, one of the reasons I love Rich Pictures is because done well they tell a story.

People stand around gossiping and will happily do it for hours, but I can’t imagine people spending the same amount of time discussing the contents of page 46 paragraph 4 of the latest technical tome.

Tell the story.

Another day, another conference call, another set of instant messages, some SMS messages and lots of rudeness.

I would like to confess that today I have:

• Joined a conference call without introducing myself.
• Had an Instant Message conversation with someone I have never met and not even said “hello”.
• Looked at my BlackBerry while talking to someone, to check an email.
• Left a conference call to speak to someone else, while the call was still running, and not said anything. I just walked away.
• Created a slide deck while on the same call – for a completely different project. I nearly had to confess to this rudeness and say “I’m sorry, can you say that again”.
• Sent an SMS text message to someone without any pleasantries at all.
• Ignored a phone call – because I knew who was phoning.
• Stopped listening to someone sat next too me, because I was giving more attention to the PC screen in front of me.
• Turned up late to a conference call and didn’t apologised for my lateness. These calls never start on time, do they?
• Ignored a whole set of Instant Message conversations that people are wanting to have with me.

In short – very rude, but very normal.

You might argue that some of this is not really rudeness at all, but that would be putting a gloss onto something that is becoming an endemic issue.

Anyone else like to confess?

Some days, there are more important things to be done:

I could spend hours doing this…

I try to put together a well constructed post with something meaty to it at least once a week, but this week hasn’t been one of those weeks, so here are some random thoughts and stories:

• After spending most of a day in a room with no light and very poor air-conditioning I again realised how destructive the working environment can be to productivity.
• Team dynamics are constantly in play. Just because you’re “performing” in one place doesn’t mean you aren’t “storming” in another.
• After sitting in a freezing cold office with the desk that backs onto a window I again realised how destructive the working environment can be to productivity.
• Power and heating are still huge issues for IT. Many a fancy gadget is ruined by the need to carry around a power supply.
• There are still far too many places without good mobile network coverage. It cannot be assumed that everyone, everywhere has, or can have network access. And in some of them you can’t even make a phone call.
• The topics I think are going to be contentious – often aren’t. It’s the things I think are simple and straight forward that always catch me out.
• Some things have annoyed me for more than 20 years.
• After starting a group on Facebook for a reunion I realised the power of visual memories once I posted some old, old pictures.
• I still hit ; when I mean ‘ far too many times.
• Twitter is good for simple responses, but terrible for a conversation. This was made evident when two conversations overlapped with hilarious consequences – were we talking about underpants or Chrome?
• It’s very difficult to type on a BlackBerry when your thumb is bandaged.
• After reading a set of documents that didn’t answer a single one of the questions that we being asked I realised that people will spend days and weeks doing anything, rather than go through the agony of asking for help.
• Having been misquoted by a number of people I was reminded, again, that people don’t always hear what is being said.
• When being asked for my advice I know that on many occasions people are really asking me to take a decision for them, even when it’s their responsibility to answer the question.
• One of my many faults is that I always expect people to know what I know. It’s irrational, I know, but it’s something that I do.
• And finally for today, here’s a little experiment for you. If you draw the capital letter Q on your forehead leaving you finger where you finished. The side of your forehead where your finger ended up tells you something about how you see the world – I’ll let other explain.