Category: User Experience

Telepresence – Video Conferencing V3.0?

Formby BeachOn this day when one of the important people in the world (Tony Blair) will be talking to another bunch of important people (the Iraq Enquiry) over a “video link” I thought I would talk about the latest iteration of “video link” – “telepresence”.

If you can take major global decisions over a “video link” why does anyone travel anywhere?

Once upon a time companies invested loads of money in ISDN links and dedicated video conferencing equipment in an attempt to get their staff to travel less and to be more responsive. Many of them had a flurry of activity, training people how to use the specialist equipment. Once the facility became available the rooms where the equipment was housed were fully booked, but bit by bit the poor unsuspecting video conferencing equipment became neglected and unused.  People found that the rewards for seeing someone on a screen were not high enough compared to the hassle of setting the conference up, getting the room booked and getting everything working. We discovered that voice was “good enough”.

The other week I was in a customer office and passed a set of five “video conferencing” rooms, in each of these rooms the equipment wasn’t even cabled in. I asked one of my colleagues there how long it had been like this. The answer “Ever since we moved in months ago”.

A few dedicated followers still use specialist video conferencing equipment but for most of us Video Conferencing Version 1.0 came and went.

Having discovered that it was too much hassle getting the dedicated equipment working we decided to try a different route. “Why don’t we give everyone a camera and then they can sit at their desk and be part of the conference?” we thought. But network bandwidth was limited, and cameras were expensive, and screens were only small. Each of us tried out desktop video conferencing, each of us thought it was great for a few minutes before we thought “what’s the point?”.

Most people I know have a USB connected camera somewhere in there desk or at their house; most of them are sat in boxes gathering dust.

Loads of kids still video conference their buddies but for the rest of us Video Conferencing Version 2.0 came and went.

Many products take until version 3.0 to be useful, could Video Conferencing be one of them?

Over the last few months a flurry of announcements and commentary has been expended on the new buzz word- “telepresence” (or Video Conferencing Version 3.0?).

If you haven’t a clue what I am talking about you should watch one of the many videos that are available (here, here, here).

At the same time the desktop video conferencing arena is going through a change as the quality is getting better and better.

But will these changes make us use it? Why didn’t I use video conferencing before?

This is a purely personal perspective, but I have heard others express similar views.

The face-to-face element of face-to-face meetings are overrated. The amount of personal effort I am willing to expend to get the face-to-face experience is very small. I normally work from home and using a telepresence type facility would require me to undertake some travelling. I’d need some convincing before I could see the value in the effort required. I’m one of a growing number of people in this situation. What I actually want is a far more realistic “around the piece of paper” experience. I want to be able to share a piece of paper and voice far more than to be able to share a face. I’d actually be more interested in sharing my hands than my face.

There are occasions when face-to-face is very important. They tend to be meetings within a particular context (negotiations, interviewing) but I don’t personally spend all day in those type of meetings.

There are some things that I do want from something I would call telepresence, especially when I’m working from home. I want to feel like I am in a team and I think that video could play a huge part in that. I want to feel that I am sat with a bunch of colleagues whom I could look at and ask for help in a way that is far less intrusive than Instant Messaging or the telephone. I suppose what I am asking for is ambient presence.

Next Generation Evaluation – Microsoft VHD Test Drive

CottageOver the years I have evaluated (played with) lots of different software products. One of the reasons I believe that desktop software took off was that it was easy to evaluate. There was no need to have lots of expensive hardware available, you could just stick it on your PC and see whether it did what you wanted it to do,and whether it looked nice.

Server software is more difficult to evaluate, because it requires a server. The problem with much Microsoft software is that it is becoming increasing interlinked. All of this interlinking means that you don’t just need one server, you need a few. thankfully operating system virtualisation came to the rescue and allowed us all to run multiple server instances on one piece of hardware, but there was still a huge investment to be made in maintaining this environment.

Over the last few days Microsoft have provided some assistance to all of us testers by making a whole set of evaluation Virtual Hard Disk images available via the VHD Test Drive programme. The theory here is wonderful for anyone who evaluates server software. Instead of me having to create a set of server images, deploy all of the pre-requisite software and then finally get around to looking at the application I actually want to look at, I can download some images, start them in Virtual Server and then get straight into the evaluation.

Beyond that Microsoft are working with other vendors to get their software available via the same route.

“We expect more than 20 partners to begin distributing their software via the VHD Test Drive Program later this quarter, including Altiris, BEA Systems, Check Point, Citrix, CommVault, Dell, FullArmor, HP, Network Appliance, Platespin, Portlock, Quest Software, SourceCode Technology Holdings, Symantec and UGS.”

I have a few reservations. If I’m evaluating software I do like to get into the nuts-and-bolts of how the software is installed and configured. You need to trust that the vendors have delivered their software in a standard way and that the VHD hasn’t been heavily customised. The other issue is that the evaluation period on some of the products is a bit stingy.

The big change to come, though, will be the availability of software for production use via this route.

Microsoft Marketing and Packaging for Vista and Office 2007

Stoneyhurst CollegeA little while ago there was a video around that parodied the way that Microsoft did its marketing and packaging when compared to iPod marketing.

The new packaging for Vista and Office 2007 looks pretty good.

Centralisation Myths?

Sand ArtCentralisation is everywhere.

  • Call centres are points of centralisation.
  • IT is constantly trying to pull everything back to the data centre.
  • Many business functions are centralised.
  • Organisations outsource so they can get the benefits of centralisation.

Why? There are normally two reasons and they are the usual business reasons – cost and quality. Functions done centrally are supposed to be more cost effective than those done in a distributed fashion. Centralisation allows specialisation which should lead to an increase in quality.

If there is a quality problem, or a need to reduce costs the first mechanism that people turn to it centralisation.

The increase in quality and the reduction in cost is regarded as a certainty.

It’s almost become a business mantra – “I must centralise”.

I am personally becoming increasingly skeptical about centralisation.

I feel that I should declare my experience here. Throughout my nearly 20 years in IT I have been involved in a number of centralisation activities; centralisation to a data centre on a site, then to a data centre in a country, then to global data centres. I have also been involved in IT help desks. When I was a new graduate I would man the help desk for two afternoons a week. I watched on as the help desk went from supporting a site, then to supporting a number of sites within a country, then a country, eventually it supported a number of different customers across different time zones.

I’m not doubting that these activities reduced costs, though none of them gained the cost reductions people were hoping for. There was also a change in quality but it not dramatic and not on every measure.

So why am I skeptical?

My main area of skepticism is caused by one word – change. These centralised entities are terrible at responding to change.

They naturally become highly integrated within themselves

The help desk naturally consolidates to a single set of systems. That is how costs are reduced after all. The consolidation of the systems creates cost reduction and increases the quality. That is until something comes along which drives change. Lots of small systems, each running independently can change when they need to change. There doesn’t need to be a huge requirement to change. When a huge integrated system exists change becomes more and more difficult. Where change is difficult change will either stop, or the cost of change will be dramatic.

People forget that change is inevitable.

The same is also true for IT systems. Changing a single system that does a single role is far easier than one large system that handles lots of roles. I’m sure that some people believe that if the cost of changing one system with one role is X then the cost of changing one system with lots of roles (Y) is less than X * Y. In my experience it’s more than X * Y it’s more like X * 1.5Y.

Because change is difficult it happens rarely. When it does occur the change ends up being massive, it’s normally not possible to change a single entity. The system has coalesced and for one thing to change, lots of things have to change. It’s become a chain reaction. Between the massive changes, though, the quality of services is constantly decreasing as the service delivered becomes further and further from the service required.

I’m not suggesting that we throw out the baby with the bath water here. What I am advocating is that we approach consolidation in a more pragmatic manner. Rather than blindly following the centralisation mantra we should evaluate the centralisation option knowing that change is inevitable and plan for it. In planning for it we may discover that centralization isn’t actually the correct option.

 

Is change difficult?

Formby BeachOver on Thinking Faster, Jeffrey Phillips is trying to challenge some of our thinking about change.

I have long puzzled why some change is easy and some change is more difficult, particularly corporate change. Previously I thought the issue was communication and understanding. If we communicate well enough to people they will understand why the change needs to happen and then it will go more easily. I then  discovered how difficult communication is. Even when vast amounts of effort were expended on communication, the change still wasn’t easy.

Jeffrey suggests that the issue is really choice and control:

“I think this is driven by choice.  I can choose to change my diet or route to work.  I can even choose to change my career.  However, I want some control when change is forced upon me, and I suspect that many other people feel the same way.  The reason people resist change in organizations is not because they can’t change, and really not because they fear change, but because the individuals don’t control what’s happening.”

My experience is that choice and control are part of the story, but that they feed into a bigger issue – felt need. To put it more specifically – do I feel like I need what this change gives me. I’ve deliberately used the word “feel” here, it’s not whether I actually need the thing that this change is giving me, it’s whether I feel that I need this thing. A child feels the need for the favourite toy as much as the need for a glass of water, but they don’t actually need the favourite toy. Adults aren’t too different.

Asking people to take control and to give them a choice about when and how increases their feeling of need. They’ve put something of themselves into something, so they must need it. Giving a child more than one favourite toy is one way of removing their reliance upon one.

Communication is difficult because people will only engage with the communication if they feel they are going to need it. Most people read communications from the Tax Man because the likelihood of need is quite high, fewer people read the leaflet selling double glazing unless you feel like you have a need for new glazing.

Talking of double glazing, a great example of felt need is one of my neighbours who replaced all of the glazing in his house (at significant cost) because he said that the house looked “tired”. He didn’t even try to convince me that it would save him money in the long-run (the usual way of justify a felt need). He felt that he needed to change the glazing, so did.

Quite often, though, the felt need and the actual need are blended together into a complex matrix. Clothes are probably the most interesting example of this. We change our clothes with the seasons (in the UK we do anyway), and we change them because they get worn out. We also change our clothes because fashions change, what we regard as looking good changes. Because of this merged set of actual needs and felt needs there is a whole industry desperately helping us to change. They’re not telling us (directly) that we need to change, we are because we feel the need. One of the actual needs to change our clothes is that they get worn out – but there is very little information from the clothes industry on how long a piece of clothing will last. The reason for this is that one of our felt needs for change normally kicks in before the clothing has actually become worn out. We even see clothing that doesn’t fulfil the actual need, but the felt need is so strong that people wear it.

I’ve been involved in a lot of IT change. Most of this change has been very painful. In most cases we have focussed 100% of our effort on the actual need, and spent a minimal amount of time trying to understand the felt needs. I remember the commotion that one particular lady created by insisting on keeping her current monitor during a desktop refresh programme. Why? Because this monitor had all sorts of stickers on it that this lady felt she needed. The was an actual need to replace the monitor, it was worn out and probably hurting her eyes, but the felt need was far stronger.

We need to get smarter at trying to create a felt need; choice and control seem like good tools to use in this quest.

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A Free Software Adventure

Lilacland: Grandad inspects another local art installationOver the last few months I’ve been working on a project in my spare time. This project has been a departure for me because it has been for a charitable organisation where the terms of reference have been significantly different.

I’m used to situations where the questions of cost v benefit are defined in pounds and dollars.

I’m used to working in situations where the requirements specification is reasonably well understood (well sometimes anyway).

I’m used to large scale situations.

As a diversion from all of these, this project has been fun. It’s had a life of its own and hasn’t finished yet, but I thought I would share where I am up to.

The project in question is the web site for the church we attend Fulwood Free Methodist Church.

The first question I had was this: “What is a church web site supposed to do?” We had some key aims that we wanted to achieve, but apart from two or three basic things this was a journey of discovery.

My architecture skills helped (a little) with this journey; it helped me to break the problem down into a number of different areas:

  • Audience – What was the primary audience for the site?
  • Content – Where was the content going to come from? What type of content was it?
  • Freshness – How was everything going to stay current and fresh?
  • Technology – What technology were we going to use?

It was obvious early on that we needed to have some sort of content management system and to move away from one person being responsible for all of the technology, the content and its freshness. I looked around at a few Open Source Content Management Systems and settled on Joomla. This was a few months ago and it wasn’t 100% clear at that time whether Joomla was going to take off, but thankfully it has. We already had an agreement with a hosting company which included MySQL and PHP included, so that was the easy part.

The next thing to tackle was the audience and to structure the content around the audience. We concluded that our primary audience were those people who didn’t attend, with church attendees being a secondary audience. With that we did a bit of brain storming around the type of questions that someone not attending might ask:

  • What is on?
  • What should I expect when I visit?
  • etc.

We also wanted to make future events and important content visually up at the front.

Joomla has a concept of Sections, Categories and Items. Items are created in Categories which are within Sections. Any item can then appear on the front page along with selected modules. Modules provide added functionality like a calendar or a document management capability, or a banner. This is then all displayed in a template.

Since starting we have constructed the main site and sorted out the structure. We have also sorted out most of the content, though there is more content to come.

The next challenge was how to make things more interactive. Being a blogger I am now encouraging the church staff to get blogging. Joomla is a bit clunky when it comes to blogging so I decided to make a break from Joomla for blogging and to add WordPress into the mix. Have WordPress alongside Joomla also allowed me to put the mechanics in for podcasting the Sunday Talks.

Although very different to Joomla, WordPress has a similar set of concepts and structures.

So without spending any money on software we created a web presence that:

  • Is interactive through feedback and comments
  • Stays fresh with time based material
  • Controlled making some information available to everyone and some only available to registered users.
  • Allows multiple people to update it so I don’t have to do it all.
  • Allows changes to the theme without messing about with the content.
  • Continues to be extended with new components, modules and widgets.
  • Supports subscription
  • Supports documents

A big thank you goes out to all of those people working away at producing this software so that the rest of us get such great functionality for the best possible price.

It’s been great fun learning something new.

Go and have a look and let me know what you think www.fulwoodfmc.net.

Vista Upgrade (Again)

Formby BeachHaving succeeded in upgrading my HP TC1100 from Vista Beta to Vista RC1, I thought I’d try the RC2 upgrade path too. All seems to be fine.

 

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OneCare 1.5 Beta

Speedy Horses, Blackpool Pleasure BeachWhile we are talking beta software, I also installed OneCare 1.5 onto my Vista RC2 device.

Seems OK, but how do you really tell whether such a product is really working or not.

 

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Why are Web 2.0 applications successful?

Plane SpottingRod Boothby has been having some fun this week poking a stick it the IBM Lotus community (here, here).

I’m not going to join that particular fire-storm, instead I am going to use it as a branching point.

Rod seems to assert two things:

  • People use Web 2.0 applications because of their nice web interfaces.
  • The primary interface that people use is a browser.

If you read through these two posts you will find these statements:

Quoting Charles Robinson:

“Not everyone likes working with applications in a browser. We’ve done extensive usability testing at work, and in nearly every case users prefer the Notes version to web-based implementations. We tried to force a group of users to only use web-based mail and they simply stopped checking it because they hated using a browser. (We tried them on Zimbra, too, and had the same result so it wasn’t just Domino Web Access.)”

Rod’s answer is:

This, to me, is a surprising result.   The examples of Yahoo! Mail, HotMail, Gmail, MySpace, Flickr, YoutTube, FaceBook, Wikipedia and the 50+ Million blogs out there would tend to contradict that user testing.

Is that really how it is for everyone out there? Because it isn’t for me.

I don’t use Web 2.0 applications because of their browser interface I use them for far more basic reasons:

  • I use flickr because it is a great way to distribute my photos to my friends.
  • When I post an image on flickr I get my ego massaged when people comment – that’s why I post them to groups and the like. I want someone to comment.
  • I look on YouTube every now and then because I want to see what’s hot, I don’t want to be left behind. I am one of the huge majority of people who looks, but posts nothing. I’ll do some rating and some commenting, again to massage my ego, to be seen.
  • I use Wikipedia as a reference source, but I don’t contribute at all. I don’t really care whether it’s Web 2.0 or not; it’s a reference source.
  • If I had something I thought would get noticed on Wikipedia then I’d contribute.
  • I don’t use MySpace because none of my friends use it (yet). There’s no-one their to massage my ego.
  • And what am I doing right now, I’m expressing myself in order to solicit a response. I want to know that people read my blog otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

In summary: I use these sites because I get something out of it. I’m selfish. I’m not using them because they have a great interface.

When it comes to using these tools through the browser:

  • I use a client applications to upload to flickr.
  • I use a client RSS reader (FeedDemon, NewsGator).
  • I use a client blog writer (Windows Live Writer).
  • I used to use Hotmail – but only through an Outlook connector.

I didn’t write all of these tools so I’m assuming that I’m not the only one who would prefer not to use the browser.

Unfortunately I don’t have any statistics for it, but I would guess that I am using my browser less now than I was 18 months ago. The important thing to me is that the data is in the cloud and that I can access it from wherever. Now that most of my data is coming to me via RSS I don’t have to use that slow browser thing.

The need for accessibility means that I want a browser interface, but I’m not going to use it every day just because it’s there. The browser interface is not optimal so I’m better off using the things that is.

BBC PC Security Reporting

These seats in Business Class are rather largeToday seems to be BBC PC Security reporting day with articles on their web site and on the TV news.

It seems that they conducted a reasonably simple experiment and decided that the results were news. I suspect the real driver is coming from the Get Safe Online campaign though.

If you have reasonable level of knowledge about IT security then be prepared for a number of cringe moments. Making this complex issue as simple as possible is a real challenge, I know I’ve tried explaining it a number of times.

What I can’t decide, though, is whether the BBC has done us a service or a dis-service in this reporting. The issue is the level of alarm and the target of the alarm.

I’d like people to be concerned and to take the right actions to alleviate those concerns. When we drive on the road we should all be concerned about the safety of our vehicle, being alarmed would be an unhealthy response. When people use IT, I want them to be concerned about the safety of what they are doing.

In car terms people terms people are thought to check the basics; oil, tyres, windscreen wash, etc.. On the BBC coverage they tried for three “do’s” and three “don’t” while it’s a reasonable approach to communication it’s prone to over simplification and false assurance. One of the over simplifications was in the TV report, when people were told to use their common sense when opening emails, and not “open” suspicious ones.. I have a real problem with the notion of “common sense” in this scenario. This is new technology to most people so the level of “common sense” is very low and can’t be relied upon. It also raises the tricky question: “If I don’t open it, what do I do with it?”

On the whole I think these reports probably did strike the right balance, just.

One piece of advice that really frustrated me was the level of advice given at the end of the TV news report. The only advice given was to go to Microsoft.com and use the tools their. I’m sorry but that’s terrible advice. It’s terrible for all sorts of reasons:

  • Microsoft.com is a terrible place to start. The only obvious link on Microsoft.com is a link to a 90-day trial for Live OneCare. Live OneCare is only available in the U.S. at the moment .
  • Microsoft is a product company and wants to sell its products. What about other companies products? What about free products?
  • How is Microsoft going to help all of those Apple customers?

The Get Safe Online site has a much more rounded approach to security.

Microsoft are probably a bit disappointed that the link to “Microsoft online scanner” on the “Tips to help you stay safe online” article (which is the more detailed article) point to the Malicious Software Removal Tool on the very day that Live OneCare safety scanner is released.

Working Environment – Thinking Outside the Box

La PaludAlexander (The Chief Happiness Officer) has a great set of pictures taken in inspirational working environments today.

Inspired me to think again about this room in which I sit for most of my working day. It made me slightly ashamed that I have created something predominantly traditional with a standard desk and book shelves.

The only break from the norm is the sofa (but that’s hardly radical) and the dolls house where Jimmy and Grandad live.

One of the nice things about this room is that I can control what is in here. The other day I finally decided to resolve an issue with the way some of the cables were tangled under the desk. It’s my desk, so I can. At the office I would have though twice about such things.

The thing with this room is that it is always going to be a compromise, because it is also the guest room so one it’s necessary to have a sofa bed in it, but that’s about the only restriction.

I’ve been thinking about putting a nice big whiteboard on one of the walls, because I am finding that it’s a great way of encouraging the creative flow. Anyone who has seen me in a presentation will probably be amazed that I don’t already have one .

Time to get the creativity working again.

(That reminds me, I must get a frame for that picture that needs hanging)

Notes v Outlook – again

Sudbury HallIf you are at all interested in the Notes v Outlook debate then you should read all of the comments posted on Volker Weber’s site following his “Now what?” post.

 

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