I'm afraid this post is going to read like enterprise-grade Chicken Soup for the Soul, but I'm going to write it anyway, because I'm hoping to capture what has been a really great lesson from my current work. I am currently leading a proof-of-concept to test the delivery of some new capabilities in the firm. Everyone involved (from vendor to stakeholder) is very excited … [Read more...]
Book Review: The New Killer Apps
I just finished reading The New Killer Apps (How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Start-Ups) by Chunka Mui and Paul Carroll. It was particularly germane to me since I work in an exceptionally large firm and my role is centered on innovation. As I reflect on the thesis of the book, I find myself energized to bring some of the lessons to bear on initiatives in which I am … [Read more...]
“If all you have is a hammer…
... everything looks like a nail." - Abraham Maslow I ran into a colleague earlier today. While we were sharing war stories, he brought up a time that he was working at a defense contractor. He was working with IT to solve an issue where they were trying to get a particular piece of data out of a legacy system and have it appear in a widget on a dashboard. Nothing they … [Read more...]
Your Enterprise Search Sucks (& 4 Steps To Make It Suck Less)
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Go ahead, say it: "Our search sucks." Research shows that almost 2/3 of people are dissatisfied with their enterprise search options. That's a troubling number - more troubling when you consider that, as knowledge workers, our biggest expenditure of time is related to finding and consuming relevant information. There … [Read more...]
Big Data: Does Size Really Matter?
"Big Data" is one of those terms that gets thrown around my workplace with reckless abandon these days. So much so, that it begins to lose it's flavor. What does Big Data really mean? Certainly, we've seen a lot of lip-service paid to the sheer volume of information being generated on a daily basis (the Taming The Torrent video is a couple years old, but captures the gist of … [Read more...]
Shrodinger’s Cat And Strategy
My wife and I are coming to terms with the fact that we are staring down the barrel of the end of a two year tour of duty for work that has taken us from Chicago to Southern California. We don't have to go back, but there are compelling reasons for us to do so (finances, friends, family, educational system, etc.). We don't have to stay, but there are compelling reasons to do so … [Read more...]
Pity Parti – A Designer On A Soapbox
Back in the day, there was a partner who would send me PowerPoint presentations and ask me to add some "sizzle." He knew I'd been to design school and had worked with me on a number of web development projects, so he figured I could add some lipstick to content we were going to share with clients. The problem was that in many cases, the flaws with the decks were structural and … [Read more...]
The 5 Vectors Of Business Transformation
I spend my days in the Innovation Office of a large professional services organization. Our team focuses on helping the firm generate and refine new ideas to improve our culture, operations, and the services we provide to clients. All our efforts would be useless unless what we do is strategically aligned. One tool we use to ensure alignement is to map out the business … [Read more...]
What’s your social footprint?
At my day job, we've been looking at mobilizing our people to get the most benefit from our social channels. We've encouraged people to begin blogging internally and we promote particularly salient posts to the outside world. Blogging started slowly, but it's picking up speed now as people begin to see the value in it and start to see that it's not just firm leadership … [Read more...]