A lack of skin in the game for employees

From the blog: ON ART AND AESTHETICS

Last week I talked about three types of cultural factors which can make an agile implementation challenging.  I also spent some time catching up with some of my contemporaries discussing the application of Agile at different firms.  It was a disappointing discussion.  This week I want to talk about agile and the lack of follow through in many organizations.

I started thinking about the inability for the organization to improve their agile maturity when fellow agilest David Koontz posted an article from the Harvard Business review about the failure of digital transformation at many firms. It opened my eyes.  I then noticed a new book published by the author Nassim Nicholas Taleb called “Skin in the Game,” about the uneven relationships we create in the labor market.  The most telling passage was the following.

“True, a contractor has a downside, a financial penalty that can be built into the contract, in addition to reputational costs. But consider that an employee will always have more risk. And conditional on someone being an employee, such a person will be risk-averse. By being employees they signal a certain type of domestication.”

In short, being an employee of a large company creates people afraid of risk and rocking the boat. The company through its leadership and culture incentivizes particular behavior.  The employee trades their skills and dependability in exchange for a paycheck.  It creates situations where conscientious people tolerate ignorance and inefficiency because they say, “…that is how we have always done it.” Thanks to this submissiveness large firms stagnate and die.

It also explains to me why agile coaches are contractors.  In the words of Ken Schwaber, agile holds a mirror up to an organization.  Many organizations are not equipped professionally or psychologically to look at that reflection because they would see the incentives they have created are perverse and the services they offer are not meeting customer needs.  It is like being in the Jean-Paul Sartre novel “Nausea.”  The world we know crumbles away, and we see the disorienting reality of how things are working. Confronted with this we have three choices:

1. Wallow in despair and impotence
2. Ignore the truth and pretend nothing has happened
3. Take action and try to make change

The modern corporation incentivizes employees to make the first two choices.  Those who choose the third option either quit or the company fires them.

So as a scrum master or agile coach we are stuck making a change at the margins and moving on when we cannot do anymore.  The global economy continues to spin, and nothing seems to change. It is easy to get discouraged, but the size and diversity of the agile reformation continue to grow.  According to Scrum.org, over 100,000 people are trained at Scrum.  Figures from the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance are harder to come by, but eighteen years ago the manifesto began with fifteen people in a ski lodge.   The growth of the movement has been increasing and today’s consultants and practitioners will become tomorrow’s managers, directors, and executives.  It is a matter of time, and the Agile reformation will be driving reform inside the business establishment.

So perverse incentives prevent businesses from being more innovative and agile. The good news is the agile reformation is growing and with this growth will come increasing acceptance.  It will not be easy, but it will be worth it.

Until next time.

Agile is about Deadlines

I have nothing on Martin Luther
but I know a little about software development.

Five hundred years ago a German monk named Martin Luther hammered 95 theses to a church door.  He was calling attention to corruption inside the Catholic Church and started the events which created the protestant reformation.  The agile manifesto is only sixteen years old, but it has produced a transformation in the business world.  I consider myself one of the evangelists spreading the word.  With every reformation, there is a counter-reformation, and today I would like to discuss one of the principle objections used by opponents of agile.

There is an excellent blog post written by the Wall Street Journal called “9 Myths About Agile.”  I strongly recommend it.  One of the most durable myths about Agile is the preconception that deadlines do not matter. Work gets completed, and deadlines are not necessary.  I wish to argue that deadlines are an essential part of the agile process and provide an example of how it works.

The most central feature of Agile and Scrum is the time box of the sprint.  For two to four weeks, the development team completes goals.  If they do not finish the stories in that period, then the sprint is considered a failure.  Failure is not a bad thing it is a learning opportunity for the team can to do better next time. Scrum relies on deadlines to focus effort and drive improvement.

Skeptics would then argue that sprints are well and good, but there are not firm due dates to communicate to upper management or the people paying for the work.  My reply is that with a sprint backlog following Roman Pichler’s DEEP model, it is easy to forecast when work will get completed.  The backlog is detailed to show the volume of work.   The backlog is estimated because it allows the product owner and the business to predict when work will get done.  The backlog is emergent so it can adjust to changing conditions as a project moves forward.  Finally, prioritization allows the firm to say what matters and what does not.

I am now going to provide a simple example.  The marketing department needs to incorporate social media into its website.   The works need to be accomplished by November 1st. The product owner gets to work, and come up with a list of features.  It should look like this:

• Milestone: Social media on corporate website (Due Nov 1st)
  • Feature: Facebook
  • Feature: Google+
  • Feature: Twitter
  • Feature: Pinterest

Now it is up to the Product Owner and development team to write stories.  After a week or two of effort the backlog looks like the following:

• Milestone: Social media on corporate website (Due Nov 1st)
  • Feature: Facebook
    • Set up a Facebook account.
    • Create Hooks into Facebook API.
    • UI for Social media on the page.
    • Create log internally when pages are shared.
  • Feature: Google+
    • Set up Google+ corporate account.
    • User Google tools to allow sharing of stories from the website.
    • UI for Social media on the Page.
    • Create log internally when pages and shared.
  • Feature: Twitter
    • Set up a corporate Twitter account.
    • Use Twitter API to post content.
    • UI for Social media.
    • Create log internally when pages are shared.
  • Feature: Pinterest
    • Set up corporate Pinterest account.
    • UI for Social media.
    • [Spike] prototype how to use Pinterest API.
    • Create a log when pages are shared.

The backlog looks typical to a scrum master or anyone on a development team.  The Vice President might understand what the group plans to do. The group estimates with story points because business people treat hours estimates as quotations of work.

• Milestone: Social media on corporate website (Due Nov 1st)
  • Feature: Facebook
    • Set up a Facebook account. - 2
    • Create Hooks into Facebook API. - 3
    • UI for Social media on the page. - 3
    • Create log internally when pages are shared. - 13
  • Feature: Google+
    • Set up Google+ corporate account. - 2
    • User Google tools to allow sharing of stories from the website.- 3
    • UI for Social media on the Page. - 3
    • Create log internally when pages and shared. - 13
  • Feature: Twitter
    • Set up a corporate Twitter account. - 2
    • Use Twitter API to post content. - 3
    • UI for Social media. - 3
    • Create log internally when pages are shared. - 13
  • Feature: Pinterest
    • Set up the corporate Pinterest account. - 3
    • UI for Social media. - 3
    • [Spike] prototype how to use Pinterest API. - 8
    • Create a log when pages are shared. - 13

The estimates from the team point out severe risk and ambiguity.  Also, the team has not worked with Pinterest, so they are going to do some experiments to understand how it works.  The sponsor of the product might get frustrated at this point and ask, “When will it be done? Can I have it by November 1st?”

The scrum master should be able to answer that question.  According to the backlog, there are roughly 91 story points of work.  The team can do 21 story points a sprint and each sprint is three weeks long.  It will take roughly twelve weeks to do the job. It is good news if it is June but bad news if it is September.

So a process of negotiation begins where stories get prioritized, and others ignored.  If the company sells food products, Pinterest may be more critical than Google+.  A media company which relies on breaking news might ignore Pinterest and focus on Twitter.  The product owner might notice that each social media site has its analytics suite and that an internal log is not necessary.  Fifty-two story points fall off the board.  We have 39 story points of work which we can get done in two sprints or six weeks.  If we begin in August, we will hit our due date.  The final board looks like this:

• Milestone: Social media on corporate website (Due Nov 1st)
  • Feature: Facebook
    • Set up a Facebook account. - 2
    • Create Hooks into Facebook API. - 3
    • UI for Social media on the page. - 3
  • Feature: Google+
    • Set up Google+ corporate account. - 2
    • User Google tools to allow sharing of stories from the website.- 3
    • UI for Social media on the Page. - 3
  • Feature: Twitter
    • Set up a corporate Twitter account. - 2
    • Use Twitter API to post content. - 3
    • UI for Social media. - 3
  • Feature: Pinterest
    • Set up the corporate Pinterest account. - 3
    • UI for Social media. - 3
    • [Spike] prototype how to use Pinterest API. - 8

So in this brief and simple example, I have shown there is a quantitative and drama free fashion to discuss projects where deliverables get negotiated, and deadlines get met.   Agile and Scrum can help people make educated decisions about what work can get done and when it will get done.  All that is required is a conscientious product owner, a dedicated development team, and a scrum master who will speak the truth to decision makers.

Agile is about deadlines, and I am willing to put my career at risk to prove it; just like that German Monk from five centuries ago.

Until next time.

A March in the Mud

One of the dirty little secrets of software is for every splashy app or disruptive business there are countless hours of toil.  The mental exertion takes years off your life. Software also alienates because, to be successful, you need to be thinking about software and how to keep your skills current.  The compensation is generous but the mental and time demands of the profession are oppressive.  It made me think about what makes a scrum master successful.  This week I want to talk about the gritty nature of the business.

When I was growing up, I have a great Uncle Paul who fought in Europe with Patton’s Third Army.  He refused to discuss his experiences, and when asked about being in combat he remarked bitterly,” I was cold, and it rained a lot.”  Over the years, many of the combat veterans I have known have behaved in a similar fashion.  Whether they served in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm or Afghanistan; the prevailing attitude was I would be unable to understand their experiences because I was not physically there.  Instead, I relied on the narrative from books, documentaries and those veterans would share their experiences.

What struck me during my investigation was the tedium of military service.  Moments of terror punctuated countless hours of boredom and following procedures.  Each day is a grind with little room for heroism or glory.  While I have never made the kind of sacrifices required of combat veterans, the grinding nature of a military campaign is familiar to anyone who has worked on an I.T. project.  In fact, every developer has a story about being on a project which resembled a “death march.”  One of my favorite illustrations by Bill Mauldin, who created the famous Willie and Joe cartoons from World War Two, is tired and muddy American Troops guarding German POWs and they are marching through the rain.  The caption offers brilliant commentary, “Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory are bringing in thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners.”  The irony being everyone during the war is tired, hungry and battle-weary.

Anyone who works on a software project gets tired and weary.  There are too many late nights, too many slices of pizza, and too many problems to fix.  In many ways, we are like those soldiers trudging through the rain.  It is why developers prefer agile methods over the more traditional waterfall approach.  Instead of long aimless slogs in the rain and mud, at the end of each sprint, we track our progress and take stock.  Big bang releases would become a thing of the past and development would be made more sustainable.

The reality has been more complicated.  As we have learned to release software in shorter intervals, business leaders have demanded that we cram more feature into each release.  So instead of work being a “death march” it resembles being pushed out of airplanes each sprint shouting “Geronimo” and hoping we survive the experience; this is not sustainable development.

Metaphorically, scrum masters and developers are seeking a happy medium between long marches in the rain and jumping out of an airplane.  Each day should feature a win or forward progress.  Developers should not put in heroic efforts or engage in crunch time.  It is a lofty goal, and if we are doing our jobs correctly, one the agile community can accomplish.

It takes communication with business leaders and regular deployments of software into production. We need to pay better attention to the DevOps movement to see how to implement continuous integration and pipelines for projects.  Finally, it means saying “No” when people demand ten pounds of sand fit into a five-pound bag.  To do otherwise means we are no different than those soldiers slogging through the mud.

Until next time.

The Bull has Two Sides

You find lots of strange things online.  This week I turn to the pages of the New Yorker to enjoy a few lessons about web design.

Times Square in New York City is receiving a face life to make it more pedestrian friendly.  The work began in 2012 and should be finished sometime in the summer of 2017.  Leading the construction is an architecture firm lead by principal partner Craig Dykers.  His office overlooks the Wall Street bull, and it gives him some insights into the design.  According to the December 14th,  2016 New Yorker.

Dykers told me that he has observed the crowds around the bull for years, and that the tourists can be divided roughly equally into those who pose at its head and those who pose at its rear end. (The bull’s nose, horns, and testicles have been rubbed, for luck, to more or less identical degrees of shininess.) Dykers said the statue is a useful reminder that humans are diverse, and have their own ideas about design. “A lot of our work as architects takes into account that just as many people are interested in the backside of the bull,” he said.

There is wisdom in this observation as you are constructing websites or software applications.  No two people view a web page the same way again.  Some view it from the metaphorical horns and others view it from the metaphorical behind.  It is up to us to accommodate both of these perspectives and to test it accordingly.  As an engineer and scrum master, I look at a website very differently than a sales person or pricing managers.  I am a big believer in Agile and Scrum because I can test out concepts early and fold them into later releases so that I do not have to deal with the crushing disappointment of spending my life building something my customers will not use.

So remember the horns and behind of the bull, and build software iteratively.  It is not only a good practice but a healthy way to avoid disappointment in this business.

Until next time.

The Vision Thing

We have a vision.

Technology is a shambling monster of innovation and conflicting visions.  One week, we view the future being made in virtual reality with companies like Occulus.  The next week we view self-driving cars.  It is enough to make someone’s head spin.  I myself wonder about all the new innovations and changes taking place.  As an entrepreneur, do I ride the latest trends or do I follow my own trail.  This week I want to talk about where my head and heart take me.

The two biggest trends in technology are the increase in mobile computing with smart phones and the rise of cloud computing.  I have been watching both grow for years and I have been talking about it for a long time.   I think that Microsoft has been leader in the area of cloud computing with its Azure services while they have stumbled in the area mobile devices.  I think with the launch of the Surface Pro 3 that they will have a device which will knock some competitors on their behinds.

When I founded this company four years ago I saw these trends in motion and wanted to help small and medium sized businesses take advantage of these technologies.  It is not glamorous or sexy but it felt like a niche which I could fill.  This way a small business owner has the same powers and features as a Fortune 500 firm.  They can use mobile applications and the cloud to help grow their business.  I imagine a sales person for a small firm doing a sale punching a few keys on their cell phone and the transaction going through with minimal human intervention.

This is the dream of my firm and I look forward to making it a reality.  Please contact us today and we will show you how.

Until next time.

A Bootstrap World

Bootstrap makes us better.

You might have noticed some changes to the web site.  This week I pushed some changes into production and it reflects some of the newer technologies on the web.  We are now using MVC5 and Bootstrap web to provide a consistent experience for people using the website on a mobile device or web browser.  This week on the blog I want to talk about Bootstrap and how it fits in to our mission to provide web applications which work any time and any place.

I believe that I am a late adopter of Bootstrap.  The first open source version was released in 2011 and it became the most popular download in the GitHub development project in 2012.  I stumbled upon it in 2013 when I was about to change the careers.  Another developer had exposed me to it was some kind of revelation.  Now there was a way to build web sites which looked good on small browsers and that functioned well on full screens.  It was a revelation but it did not seem like something that would work with the Microsoft technologies I was working with.

This changed with the release of Visual Studio 2013 who used Bootstrap 3.0 as its default tool to manage the look and feel of web pages.  When I saw how easy it was to work with, I quickly became a convert.  Instead of noodling around with web pages and cascading style sheets, I had a built in tool to help build web applications which scaled from the mobile phone to the big screen.  It was also great that Microsoft included tools like LESS to create my own styles and to add tweaks to my layouts.

For you the consumer this is a big deal.  Now, you can rest assured that there is an industry standard way to make sure that your web site looks good on a small browser or on a giant screen.  In addition, your web applications will now work anywhere you have a connection to the web.  This gives you significant power managing your business processes because you can look up inventory on the phone, tablet or laptop with no major interruption of service.  This is the cloud based connectivity that we boast about.

All of us at E₃ systems are excited about this technology.  It is nice that the collective wisdom of the world wide web has embraced this approach and that just means that you the consumer now have an industry standard to measure progress against.  Contact us today and find out how we use Bootstrap to help you.

New technology is fun and using a new technology to solve a business problem is even more fun.  Bootstrap is one of those technologies which does both and you are going to see more of it as time passes. It is a bootstrap world and we are living in it.

Until next time.

What is so great about 2014?

Looking forward to 2014 are you?

There are plenty of reasons to get excited about 2014.  A new year is a clean slate and it firers up an organization with the inspiration to come out fighting; like a punch drunk boxer.  This week on the blog I want to talk about some things we are looking forward to as an organization.

First, customer outreach; E₃ systems has been making efforts to reach out tour local community.  We were concentrating our products to a very narrow market.  This year, we will apply our products to any business that can use fleet management or inventory control software. Contact us today and ask how our systems can help your business today.

Next, we are graduating from Microsoft BizSpark. Three years ago someon I knew in the Chicagoland Application Lifecycle Management group told me about the BizSpark program. This company could not have started without the generous help and support.  I am looking forward to the time when I will be able to boast about our success to the tech media.  There is a place in the start-up world for Microsoft Technologies and we are proof.

Third, the continuing maturity of BootStrap and MVC means that the web is catching up to our vision.  When, I founded this organization I wanted to build web applications which worked on a variety of devices. Thanks to the Twitter BootStrap library, it is not possible for more people to make that a reality.  This is a good thing because it will be easier for my little start-up to find developer who understand what we are trying to accomplish.  We are also excited about the release of MVC5.  The embrace of BootStrap by Microsoft along with the security improvements and Web API means that the web is only going to get more interesting and we cannot wait to see that happen.

Next, Google has better unity between YouTube and Google+.  When Google+ first came out it was hard to get pages and YouTube channels to play nice with each other.  This made marketing and branding efforts a huge headache.  Fortunately, Google listen to its consumers and now pages and YouTube channels work together seamlessly.  Thanks Google and stay tuned as we make improvements to our YouTube channel.

Finally, the general economy is improving and with it the chance to grow our customer base.  The last three years have shown tremendous growth in web technology.  We at E₃ systems have stayed focused on those improvements to provide the best product for our customers.  With customers willing to spend on technology solutions we will see an uptick in customer and business.

So that is what we have to look forward to in 2014, we hope you will join us.

Until next time.

The times and trends change

Always looking to the future

As a technology professional it is easy to get swallowed by the hyperbole and latest trends in technology.  While some ideas catch on like design patterns and object oriented design. Other trends look like ugly fads such as noSQL and Java Server Pages.  I am not immune to these trends but I tend to be much more pragmatic than the average developer regarding new technologies.  I suppose being in the development business for fifteen years does that to a person. This week on the blog I want to talk about keeping fresh as a technology professional.

Google posted an interesting statistic for technology professionals.  In 2001, a Gigabyte of storage cost roughly $10, today that same gigabyte costs ten cents.  In twelve years, the time from kindergarten to high school graduation the prince has fallen by an exponential amount.  In that same amount of time technology has changed dramatically.  When we founded E₃ systems we were excited about a new technology from Microsoft know as MS Tag.  Today the Microsoft tag technology is being discontinued and will disappear in 2015.  This is the inevitable march of progress and the invisible hand of the technology marketplace.

This puts technology companies and professionals in a difficult situation.  Keeping your technology skills up to date means making educated guesses about what trends to learn and which ones to ignore.  If you guess correctly you can make millions of dollars.  If you guess wrong you can wind up unemployed without any prospects.  So what is a company or professional to do faced with this reality? A professional or company concentrates on training.

A technology profession or company that does not focus on training is like a shark which cannot swim; it will drown and die.  As technologies come and go, training makes it possible to stay on top of what you need to know. This means to remain relevant a technology company or developer needs to update their skill set every eighteen months.

You see this progression at E3 systems as we moved from Microsoft.Net web forms to MVC4.  We have much cleaner data management with Entity Framework and code first than when we started using Advanced Data Objects .Net.  We are also migrating away from VB.NET to C#.  All of these moves are natural progressions and related to the technology needs of our potential customers.  We will continue to make these changes as necessary.

The most exciting of these trends is the growth of the mobile web and the user of technologies like HTML5, Knockout.js and CSS3 to build websites which look good on tablets, phones, and PC’s. I am proud of how we at E₃ systems have pioneered this approach to out applications.

Unlike many technology professionals, I have stayed alive in this business because I have kept my skills up to date and avoided the hyperbole and fads which plague this industry. It has also informed the products our company offers.  Drop us a line today and we can show you.

Until next time.

Business Leaders Can Learn to Code

MBA's can code it just isn't pretty.

The Harvard Business Review is always a great source of inspiration.  As a young entrepreneur, it is always nice to get wisdom from the combined academic and business community.  This week they even offered up a little bit of humor as they discussed the efforts of the MBA program to teach its students to write software.  This week, I have some thoughts about managers who try to understand technology.

Prior to entering the world of technology and seven years after earning my undergraduate degree, I decided that I wanted to earn an MBA.  I hoped it would help me advance my career and develop some financial security.  Thus began a thirteen year odyssey of fits, spurts, layoffs and late checks which culminated in me receiving my MBA.  Instead of a mortarboard during commencement I wore a Kofi hat signifying my twenty years of tribal experience as a business person.

During those thirteen years I switched careers and became a technical professional.  As I became more involved in technology, I discovered that many people who ran technology departments had no idea about what they were managing.  They people knew sales, marketing and some of them understood the company financials but rarely did they know the difference between UNIX, Linux, and Windows systems.  What made this more maddening is that they made decisions about these systems.  This gave me further incentive to get my MBA because I felt there had to be a need for business leaders who understood technology.  It is nice to see the rest of the business world is catching up with me.

The current concern about STEM careers and American’s global competitiveness has further accelerated the need for business leaders to understand code.  This is why I like the Harvard Business Review article.  They interviewed eighteen alumni of the the Harvard Business School and asked them if the CS50 class which is titled Introduction to Computer Science was worth the effort.  A whopping 83% said it was.  The class has gotten fairly popular because over the last six years over seven hundred students have taken the course.

I think the best insight that these future masters of the Universe learned is that coding is hard.  The class required two to three more work that a typical MBA elective.  Learning to write code and solve business problems requires plenty of smarts and hard work.  It is also very humbling as you make plenty of mistakes and confront long nights with little sleep and even less productivity.  Many of these students found their way into technology start-ups or IT departments.  I think this is a positive step.  Now, the MBA in the corner office will not think they are responsible for a bunch of magicians on the development staff.

It is also why I founded E₃ systems.  I became tired being told by my manager to, “…just figure it out.”  I wanted a company where the boss would pitch in to help solve problems.  I also wanted a company which would help other small and medium sized businesses fix their problems.

Getting my MBA was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.  I say the same thing about learning to code.  Being an Entrepreneur, MBA, and a software developer is not what I envisioned when I graduated from college all those years ago but since Terri Hemmert is still doing mid-day at WXRT and Steve Stone is still broadcasting White Sox games, I can’t think of a better way to spend my life’s work.

Until next time.

We upgrade so you do not have to

Pay attention! We are upgrading.

This week we are preparing for the launch of our new software product nicknamed “Tony.”  We are also upgrading our servers from Windows 2008 to Windows 2012.  This made me think about why you the small business person should care about all these behind the scenes moves.  Today’s blog post will cover the reason we upgrade at E₃ systems.

One of the important powers of the web and cloud computing is that as a consumer of cloud services you do not have to worry about software, server space, or even operating systems.  All you have to do is open your web browser use the software.  It is up to the loud service provider to make sure that its systems are up and running rather than placing that burden on the consumer.  This is why we are upgrading.  We upgrade so you the consumer do not have to go through the experience.

It is up to us E₃ systems to make sure everything works in a safe and secure fashion.  It is up to us E₃ systems to bring you the latest technology including responsive websites which look good on tablets, mobile phones and regular PC’s.  It is up to E₃ systems to fine tune those systems for maximum performance.  For our customers, they can worry about their business and leave the upgrades to us.

This is not the most glamorous thing about being a cloud based company but I think it is the most important. We do upgrades so you don’t have to.  Manage your business we will worry about the upgrades.

Until next time.

Your Web Site Stinks We Can Help

Your website stinks.  Here is why.

The biggest challenge of software development is that users have an opinion about the subject but don’t know how to transform that opinion into something a software developer understands.  This eventually leads to gallons of coffee consumed numerous hours worked and in the end the user hates the software created because it was not what they wanted.  This week on the blog, I want to discuss what all this means for your business.

In order to do business today, any company of any size needs a web presence. In my experience, a graphic designer with some print experience is given the job and they go about creating a company brochure for the web.  Soon marketing gets involved and the sales force joins the fun.  Finally, someone in tech support chimes is saying the company does not have any infrastructure to support a web site.  In the end, the web site is an unpleasant compromise which features the branding from marketing and does not drive business to the company.

Now evolve these trends over five or ten years and you have a recipe for mediocrity and poor brand presence.  The web site is difficult to update.  The original graphic artist has left and the help desk person is behaving like a troll under a bridge because they are afraid any change will break the website.   It is a mess.
This is becoming a bigger problem because web sites are being viewed more often by mobile devices like phones and tablets.  This means you rickety web site has out of date content and looks horrible on a mobile device.

At E₃ systems we understand these challenges.  Contact us today and we will be happy to help you with responsive web design and finding a content management system that will meet your needs.

Everyone has an opinion about software and web sites.  Yours should be positive about your company web presence.

Until next time.

Don't Buck the Smartphone trend.

Cell phones are taking over the web.  Pay attention.

I wanted to discuss some of the latest trends in web development.  In reality, I want to recap with my readers what Mary Meeks said during her annual Internet trends address.  Mary has been at this for a while and she is considered the source for internet metrics. What she illustrates is what I have been saying for some time.  If you ignore the mobile web you are taking a huge risk with your business.

If you want to see the report yourself, you can view all slides here.  Here is my take from the discussion.  First, the total amount of time we spend on the internet is 22% of our media viewing time.  Additionally, we spend 12% of our free time on the mobile web.   This means we spend roughly a third of our free time on the internet either via a browser or the mobile web.  This is market share is growing and has the potential for 20 Billion dollars in advertising revenue.  That is only on slide five.

The next major slide is number 32 which shows that current internet traffic is on mobile devices about 15% of all web requests.  That number is expected to double to 30% by 2014.  This means that a third of your corporate web traffic in the next year is going to reach your website via a mobile device.  If your web site cannot adapt to this new form of traffic it is like turning away a third of your customers.  As a small or medium sized business do you really want to turn away a third of your customers?

The final trend you need to be aware of is that the adoption of smart phones continues to grow at a scary pace.  Currently the percentage of smart phones currently in circulation represents about 58% of the total market for cellular phones.  The growth of the smart phone adoption is also fairly large at 28%.  So, smart phones already eclipse ordinary cellular phones and the adoption rate remains high. This means that as a business you are going to have to adjust to more consumers learning about your business via a mobile device.

Already we are seeing this internet usage cause some problems in the business world.  Zynga the on-line game company is going through a second round of lay-offs cutting 18% of its staff.  The reason why is that they are not growing quickly enough in their mobile gaming offerings while traffic for their on-line games is decreasing.  Salon magazine noted that companies like Viggle as attempting to capture the second screen phenomena where people surf the net and watch television at the same time.  Why is there a company like Viggle?  I claim that it is because of the rise of mobile computing.

So as a small and medium sized business, you have two choices; you can ignore these trends and hope for the best or attempt to modify your web presence to take advantage of these trends.  At E₃ systems we did a major site revision to account for these trends.  We can help you do the same.  Contact us today and we will show you how.

The web is never a static thing and this year’s state of the web speech shows some pretty serious trends.  To ignore them is put your business at risk, and you wouldn't want do that would you?

Until next time.

Grossly Exaggerated

Mark Twain can feel Microsoft's Pain.

Mark Twain used to joke, “Reports of my demise are grossly exaggerated.”  As I read the latest technology headlines that is how you should feel about Windows 8.  It has not been a good week for Microsoft in the press but I don’t think the end is neigh for the folks in Redmond.  In this blog, I will tell you why and how our firm fits into that scheme.

Many of these issues came to a head this week when an article appeared from Financial Times.  In it, they pointed out that Microsoft is publicly admitting failure and that they are getting ready for the release of windows blue which is the possible replacement to Windows 8.  Quickly other technology blogs and sites jumped on the bandwagon and decided to kick Redmond while it was down.  Motley Fool even blamed the poor performance of PC sales on Windows 8.  

I am a new adopter of Windows 8 and I have to confess that without the special widget Classic Start Menu 3.6, I would be lost in this operating system.  This is because it relies heavily on touch screens.  This means that your 20 inch monitor you purchased must be swapped for a $600 monitor or an $80 Logitech touch pad to be useful.  Many people will find the live tiles off putting.  Finally, Windows 8 offers apps using the live tile motif and the desktop for traditional applications.  I have been using the desktop exclusively.

What this means that unless you have a surface tablet or a Windows 8 laptop your home system is going to need a major upgrade.  During recessionary times like this it is a lot to ask.  Windows 8 is a huge leap of faith that the user community is willing to adapt and once again the user community has disappointed.

All is not lost though; I find that Windows 8 is very fast.  I can download pod casts that used to take five minutes in less than thirty seconds.  The windows explorer is clean and quick with additional means of organizing files and systems.  Internet Explorer 10 fully embraces many of the features of HTML 5 and development with Visual Studio 2012 and Web Matrix 3 is clean and slick.  If you are a software developer then Windows 8 is a natural choice.

So to me, Windows 8 isn't a failure.  It is too much too soon and too early for the general consumer.  For a techie like me it is a logical extension of the Windows operating system.  This means that at E₃ systems we will start experimenting with Windows 8 applications along with more adaptive web sites so that our systems can work across multiple systems.  Find out what we mean by dropping us a line. It also means that we are going to be more cautious with our user design so that we don’t shock people too much with the changes.

Windows 8 is great, if you are ready for it.  If not you are going to be in for a huge shock.

Until next time.

The Gift of Time

Stressed and need more time,
we understand.

Most business people I speak to have one wish.  They want more time.  They want to spend more time with their families. They want more time to manufacture better products.  They want more time to better service their customers and they want more time to learn new skills.  There is never enough time in the day because there is always one more call to take, one more e-mail to respond to and one more customer who you need to make a sale.  I understand that wish because I say it at least every day.  It would be great if someone could give us the gift of more time.

One of the reasons, I started E₃ Systems was to help small businesses win back a little more time.  We spend hours a day doing paperwork and chasing down calls.  We struggle with obsolete and expensive software because it is “good enough”.  Many of the tasks we do in our business lives are nothing more than a colossal time suck.  I understood that and knew that I could help write software that would help.  Today, we have online systems which help you manage your inventory without having to install expensive hardware or software.  These systems also work on mobile phones, tablet computers, and laptops.  As long as you have a connection to the web they will just work.

Now, instead of calling into the office to see if you have product in stock you can just make a few taps to your smart phone and find out instantly in real time; this should save you hours of labor.  We also understand that gathering documentation together to meet regulatory requirements is a time consuming hassle.  We understand and make it easy to generate documents and reports at a moment’s notice.  Finally, with the help of Microsoft’s Tag technology we have a way for every piece of paper to communicate with the web and your smart phone so that important documents are just a click away.

These kinds of services make it possible to save time because you are no longer riffling through paperwork and obsolete computer systems.  It also saves you payroll because you need fewer administrative professionals to manage that paperwork. That gives you a chance to free them up to meet with clients and sell to new ones.  That is what is in it for you.  More time to manage your business and less payroll for administrative staff.

I am sure it is a luxury any business person would want.  So contact us today and ask about how we can give you the gift of time.

Until Next time.

Survival Not Manditory

Neither rabbits nor your business needs to survive.

It is nice to be part of the Easter Season.  The reflection and fasting of lent gives way to spring and growth of a new year.  I have spent the week working the phone and attempting to drum up business.  We are in the middle of a site revision right now and working with the local chamber of commerce to help grow our customer base. Something struck me this week and it was a report from showing there is a generational gap between the three major cohorts of people in business.  As a small business owner if you don’t adapt to these generational differences you might as well prepare for your going out of business sale.

First, baby boomers according to the Mitek systems use e-mail less than generation X workers and even less than generation Y workers.  So this means when it comes to communicating information the more senior cohort of business users communicate less using technology than their more junior partners.  This trend is even more pronounced when it comes to instant messaging and laptop use.  It seems that Boomers use desktop computers more than they use laptops by a significant margin.  This means there is a serious disconnect about how computers do business.  For people of Generation X, like me, and the younger generation Y, computing is not a fixed activity.  Computing takes place in coffee shops, on the train and on planes.  If you can find an electrical plug and wireless internet you are going to find smart ambitious people conducting business.

The most interesting part of the survey covered mobile phones and smart phones.  As of 2011, 83 percent of Americans own a cellphone or a smartphone.  When you break down this cell phone usage by cohort something interesting happens.  Baby Boomers use a smartphone in the workplace 35% less than generation X and a whopping 73% less than generation Y.  This means that baby boomers are missing out a huge business opportunity to sell to this younger group because they are not using the technology and tools which generation Y is most comfortable.

As a technology professional, I find this to be madness.  You want to increase our market share and sales but you do not understand the means to reach these new customers.  That is because you are not using the tools that these people take for granted.  I also notice that when I speak with business leaders and share with them this information they blanch because since they don’t own a smart phone they do not think that reaching customers by it is important.  It is a deadly cognitive bias.

W. Edward Deming used to say, “It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.”  I am seeing this increasingly in small and medium sized business.  Cloud based computing, smart phones, and serious generational differences in the use of technology mean that if you cannot adapt then you are not going to survive.  How are you going to put together viral marketing campaigns, adaptive web sites, and mobile phone optimized campaigns if you can don’t understand the importance of them?  How will be able to manage your inventory and sales contacts in real time if you don’t have systems in place to do so?  Finally, how are you going to adapt to change if you don’t understand Agile methodologies and techniques?

This is where we at E₃ systems come in.  We help you understand this brave new world and act as your guides through the wilderness or smartphones, social media, and business agility.  Contact us today and we will help.

Easter is a time of rebirth but it can also be a grim reminder of our mortality particularly if you are a business person.  Survival is not mandatory but E₃ systems is willing to help.  Give us a call and find out today.

Until Next time.

You need a digital handshake

A digital handshake can help your business.

Lots of news happened this week.  We have a new pope and he looks like someone who shows a great deal of promise.  The wheels of government continue to grind along in spite of a charm offensive.  We also had some baseball games which counted in March and team USA once again disappointed.  What you may have missed is the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone.  This is just another sign that the business world is changing and if you do not catch this wave you are going to drown.

As Will Oremus reported the Galaxy S4 unveil was a silly and weird affair but it does remind me of the hype surround automobiles in the 1970's and the excitement generated by the promotions for new Saturday morning cartoons on network television.  As a technologist I am being asked to write applications which work on as many different environments as possible.  It is no longer good enough to have a web site.  Now you must have a web site, tablet application, and something that looks good on your mobile phone. 

I have been saying this for a while but I am going to say it again.  The dual technologies of cloud computing and mobile computing are going to change business and if you are not ready for it you are going to get left behind.  This is why you need help from a company like E₃ systems.  We are surfing this wave of technology.  We understand how to use the cloud and mobile computing to make life easier for small businesses.  We can help you with your web development, QR code creation, and numerous other services which will make it easier to do business with others. 

Consumers already can scan bar codes in stores to compare prices with their mobile phones.  Best Buy has been having problems with people using their stores to browse products and then purchase them at lower price on-line.  If this problem affects a big player like Best Buy, known as Showrooming, what do you think this is going to do to your business?   This is why I think you should look into how E₃ can help you.  We have a full line of software products which will help you manage inventory, track sales leads, and now we are offering an inexpensive "Digital Handshake" which makes it possible for you to have Microsoft Tag or QR codes which you can promote your business.  Now you save money on business cards by having people scan your "Digital Handshake" and it will automatically place you as a contact on your customer's phone. 

We have made an effort to make this process simple and easy.  We will even offer a discount to members of the Joliet Chamber of Commerice who are interested in trying this new innovation.  In this new economy of mobile phones and cloud computing you need every advantage you can get. 

Contact us today to learn more. 

Until Next time.

Embrace the Cloud

Embrace the Cloud, you can thank us later.

Technology can be confusing and scary.  I spend much of my time explaining new technology to people and trying to ease their concerns.  Nothing causes more confusion than “cloud computing.”  This week, I want to explain what cloud computing is and how E₃ systems can help you use it to improve your business. 

Slate.com economics writer, Matt Yglesias unveiled a survey from Wakefield Research last week about public perceptions about cloud computing.  Some of the more interesting tidbits of information were, a majority of Millennials believe that stormyweather can interfere with cloud computing and 22% surveyed  confessed to admitting they have pretended toknow what the cloud is or how it works even if they didn’t.  After a good chuckle, I wondered if people had similar feelings regarding microwave ovens or color television. 

Here is the dirty little secret about cloud computing.  Most of us are using it and we don’t even realize it.  If you are using Facebook you are using cloud computing.  If you are using an iPod you are probably using cloud computing.  In fact, any time you are saving documents or files someplace other than your computer at home or work you are using the cloud.

The cloud is nothing more than a metaphor dreamed up by networking professionals and marketing folks.  It represents computing with storage outside your local computer or network.  The data resides in the “internet cloud” on a remote server or database.  This is a positive development because this is a direct result of the explosion of personal computing and the web during the 1990’s.

Today on Gmail, a typical user can have up to Ten Gigabytes of data, which is a large amount of data.  So big that if a single e-mail was two kilobytes in size that would mean that you could hold over 5-million e-mails in your mailbox without having to worry about it filling up.    What makes this figure more fantastic is that the amount of space Google is providing each user is increasing by about 128 Megabytes a year.  In addition to those 5-Million e-mails a user can archive an additional 64,000 e-mails a year. 

Thanks to cloud computing we are dealing with big piles of data and they are stored on remote servers throughout the internet.  The raw power is staggering. 

So what does this mean to you the small business person?  It means that you can have the power and capacity of a large business with an IT budget of millions of dollars for a fraction of the price.  You do not need to spend thousands of dollars for servers and software.  All you need is a connection to the web and the power of the cloud is in the palm of your hand. 

At E₃ systems we take a lot of pride in how we have used cloud computing and the internet to make it easy for a small business to manage their inventory.  With our Sully 2.0 system, you can keep track of Bills of Lading, Invoices, Packing Slips, Shipping Labels, and Purchase orders.  Contact us today and we will show you how easy it is to use. 

The “cloud” is nothing more than a fancy way of saying the “internet.”  Many of us are using it each day and do not realize it.  What makes it so fantastic is that as prices fall, storage increases and raw computing power improves it is going to make our lives easier and more connected.  As a business person you should not be afraid of the cloud but embrace it. 

Until next time.

Our New Website

Dude Nice looking website.

Rebuilding a web site is a big deal.  It is not undertaken lightly and usually includes a committee of people attempting to be creative.  I hate redesigning web sites because everyone seems to know how a web site should look but many people do not understand how to make it happen.  This leaves me confronted with power point slides and Photoshop graphics with marketing people telling me that it should look exactly like the file they sent me.  Thoughts about cross browser compatibility and how the site should look on a mobile phone seem like secondary considerations.  It was a website redesign which finally pushed me over the edge and convinced me that I should be an entrepreneur.

It has been almost a year since I formally founded E₃ systems.  When I did I had a clean and easy to understand website which leveraged the latest web technologies and looked good on all the major browsers.  I decided to ignore IE6 because Google and Yahoo decided to. I was pretty proud of it but I knew as we were reaching our one year anniversary we needed a refresh. 

I took inspiration from Microsoft's MSDN website.  The good folks at Redmond are getting ready for the fall release of Windows 8 and are slowly changing over their web sites to have a more metro look and feel.  I decided that I should do the same.  This biggest challenge was finding an easy way to create the tiles and icons used in a Metro layout.  Searching around Microsoft's blog network, I was pointed toward a company called Syncfusion and they had a tool which manufactured Metro style tiles.  Armed with this tool I began the site redesign. 

To avoid making the swap too jarring, I decided that I would only change the front page of the web site and keep the remaining pages in the same format with Metro style flourishes.  I also wanted to make sure that users of the web site had access to all of our social media venues including our YouTube channel.  I also wanted to see if I could leverage the grid 960 css frameworks.  It was like putting together a complicated puzzle which would better appeal to our customers. 

The results speak for themselves.  The landing page contains all the information which old landing page did.  The social media icons are not as distracting.  Users do not have to scroll through the page to digest all the content.  It also looks good on tablet computers and PC's. 

Look over our web site and let us know what you think.

Until next time.

Making QR Codes Useful.

Dare you to Scan this Code.

Sometimes you stumble on to the strangest stuff when you are reading a business magazine.  This week it was the good folks at Bloomberg who claimed the use of QR codes by marketing firms are not generating expected results.  I mentally rolled my eyes and finished the article.  Those of us in the technology business had been noticing this trend for a while and it is clear to me that the good folks at Bloomberg are just starting to catch up.

I have been following QR codes and Microsoft Tag for the last two years and I can say that they are just not the correct tools for advertising.  This is because advertisers just think that QR codes are an easy way to generate mobile engagement.  What I am discovering is that there is no easy way to generate mobile engagement.   Just because you slap a QR code on a flyer or poster does not instantly give you an inroad to someone's mobile phone. 

It does not help that the content behind these QR code is poor to begin with.  Most web sites are not optimized for mobile browsers so when you scan a QR code they do not look good on the phone.  Also the content is not unique so they can access this from their desk top.  It would be farcical if it wasn't so sad.  I was speaking with a fellow company at a trade show and they complained about this and I told them if they linked their QR codes to YouTube videos or special coupons they would get more scans.  Simple advice but people are paying thousands of dollars to advertising agencies and are getting poor return on their money. 

I see QR codes and MS Tag differently.  These technologies make it easier to track paper documents and share them with the digital world which means they are perfect for the world of logistics.  Naturally, they are part of E3 systems application Sully®.  Scanning a QR code or MS Tag should make the traditional bar coding application obsolete and that is what I intend to do.  So I dare you to scan that MS Tag above and check out our video and learn a little more about Sully®.  I also hope that advertising agencies get a little smarter on how they use QR codes.

Until next time.

The Summer of E3

Looking forward to the Summer of E3.

I hope that everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.  I also hope you took some time out on Monday to remember the people who sacrificed everything for this unofficial kick off to summer.  For E₃ systems, it is a chance for us to snag our first customers and start the process of growing our business.

I am going to take some time to visit some clients face to face.  We will also be prospecting our rolodex heavily.  Finally, we are going to participate in J.P. Morgan Chase's small business challenge.  We are closing in on our one year anniversary and I am pretty proud of what we have done so far.  First, we have constructed a cloud based inventory management system which is easy to use.  We have established a presence on social media like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.  Finally, we have started to embed into the community being known as the scrappy technology start up in Joliet. 

This is a good time to be an entrepreneur.  According to Logistics Management magazine, just under one third of supply chain companies are looking into using software as a service or cloud based computing.  In addition, these companies are looking to spend less than $100,000 to try and meet this need.  We are perfectly positioned to serve this market. 

Looking back to my summer vacations when I was in college, what strikes me about those periods was how I used the time to emotionally reset and focus on future goals.  This summer I am going to repeat that pattern as I emotionally recharge from the launch of Sully 2.0 and make a point of seeing some customers.  The change will do me some good and help drive some sales.  2012 is going to be the summer of E₃.  I look forward to sharing it with you.

Until next time.