Whether it is the all-too-familiar “fail whale”, or the depressing “API Limit Exceeded” message in TweetDeck, users are finding it difficult to deal with deteriorating service levels that are rendering the service unusable for any serious social networking.

Of course, Twitter is “free”. As such, we are told that it is offered to us “as-is” and, since you get what you pay for, expectations that it will be there when you need/want it; fully-functional and void of yo-yoing, syncopating starts and stops; is simply asking too much.

In today’s post by Thomas Wailgum, “Twitter Rage: Can you Really Complain About Outages?”, he makes the point:

Think about it: The fact that I’m not paying a cent for the Twitter service means that I don’t have much ground to place “buyer-seller” type expectations upon the immature service. (This isn’t Salesforce.com downtime or disruptions with internal enterprise systems.) My outrage is tempered by my acceptance of the “free deal” I have with Twitter: You get what you pay for.

While a conventional “buyer-seller” arrangement is not evident, a binding contract is a bargain where the parties each get something for good and valuable consideration. Indeed, as the Twitter Terms state “… You may use the Services only if you can form a binding contract with Twitter…”.

Twitter’s Terms go on:

In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.

So, the bargain is that you get access to and use of the Services and Twitter gets all of the ad revenue, content, demographic information, and the ultimate financial value of their property that appreciates on the backs of the millions of users that expect to be able to have access to and use of the Service. Seems to me to be reasonable “payment” for “services” rendered.

And, of course, there is that “AS-IS” escape hatch. Thus, there is no warranty and I (or anybody else) cannot make a claim for damages. Fine.

But, as far as expectations go, I am not as willing, anymore, to give Twitter an easy “Pass” because they are growing so fast and are not yet mature. The Twitter value proposition is diminishing as my time is being squandered on a service that is not getting better because too many interfaces are sucking the life out of it and too many users are being added to the pile.

I hope it gets better.

Luckily, we, as users, have no obligation to stay with the “service”. If it gets bad enough, we’ll be gone and “AS-IS” will become “AS-WAS”.

Tell me what you think.

©2010 George M. Tomko All Rights Reserved

CIOs Must Have the Ear of the CEO

The Chief Information Officer is not a second-rate executive position as some would claim. Also, CIO, does not, as the saying goes, stand for “Career Is Over”. And the CIO position is certainly not “dead”, contrary to rumors to the contrary. As Mark Twain once said, “rumors of my death are premature”.

There is this notion that CIOs deserve a “seat at the table”. The “table” in this sense is the CEO staff, as a peer exectuive with the CFO, COO, and assorted VPs of Operations, Sales, etc. Much is written in blogs (included my own), magazine articles and discussed in forums about the justification for this belief.  The main idea is that CIOs have to be more ‘strategic’. Supposedly, the mechanism for becoming more strategic is most often termed “alignment”.

Let me so bold as to suggest that things like ‘contribution’ and ‘value’ go right along with ‘strategic’. There are plenty of tactical issues with managing a business. Things are dynamic, a flow, requiring a dexterity of seamlessly migrating through issues of business performance: sales, product quality, customer satisfaction, supply chain, etc.  Information Technology is clearly threaded through these and other areas of the business. However, the trick is to demystify and ‘dis-abstract’ this stuff so that you are not spending half of the monthly strategy meeting talking about who should be allowed to get a Blackberry or an iPhone.

So, the big picture has something to do with not being the “moron in the room”.  True executive ”peers” suffer fools badly. The thought that there is somehow a special microscope for CIOs is nonsense — unless it takes one to see the value that the CIO is delivering. It is more about culture and being in the “club”. The one thing about clubs full of highly-ambitous people is that they are territorial and very picky about letting others inside.

Prior to being hired for a CIO position a few years ago, the HR executive told me that the company was thinking about slimming down the number of direct reports to the CEO. Thus, they were considering having me report to the CFO. My response: a non-starter. If they were trying to reduce the number of CEO reports, I had just the solution: have the CFO report to me.

After an awkward chuckle or two, the HR executive was back to his senses. I wasn’t asking for a seat at the table. I expected one. It is all about grabbing a chair and acting like you belong there.

Bottom line

quit whining. If you do not have the business-savvy to earn the respect of fellow business executives, then you deserve to be seated in the gallery.

For more on this topic: Business Solutions: Death of the CIO?, by Nadia Cameron; The Death of the CIO–Again, by Brian Watson; Is the CIO a “pinnacle” position?, by George Tomko; and
What Do CEOs Want from CIOs?, by Maryfran Johnson.

Image: Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

©2010 George M. Tomko All Rights Reserved

As I started to develop this blog post, it occurred to me that my working title, “Does Business Intelligence require Intelligent Business?” might have been previously used in some other publication. So, I Googled it.

I did find some very close variations, but not exactly in the form of the question that the title poses.

I was led to a white paper, “business intelligence is intelligent business”, by Gerry Davis, Regional Managing Partner, Asia-Pacific for Heidrick & Struggles. In the opening paragraph, the problem is summarized thusly:

“Collecting information about customers is relatively easy. Analyzing customer information for potential cross-sells, increased revenue streams, and improved service is more challenging. But getting the information to the front line in a timely manner and thus providing further competitive edge is proving increasingly difficult for many corporations.”

As we look at this statement, there are three main points: 1) collecting is “easy”; 2) analyzing is hard; and 3) disseminating it is very hard. Perhaps a bit oversimplified. But, in reality, most users will need this to be oversimplified to be able to overcome all their biases about IT, systems in general, any extra “work” that will automatically be assumed and fears about job security. This is said this way, not to be unkind, or even to be negative, but to make sure that the focus is on the right “problem”.

Like the human brain, which, in a lifetime, is barely tapped for 10% of its ultimate potential, the organization “brain” is woefully underutilized. A number of studies and surveys have consistently shown that enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) software, such as SAP, Oracle, etc. are underutilized.

As Albert Einstein was once quoted, “Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid. Humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together, they are powerful beyond imagination.” Such a proclamation will only be true if there is a significant change in the approach that knowledge workers take to their jobs.

Mr. Davis suggests that organizational change may be the answer:

“As business intelligence divisions spring up in organizations across the globe, the same question is being asked: “How can we unlock the value of our data?” At Heidrick & Struggles, we believe that the answer lies in implementing an appropriate organization structure and in identifying and appointing the right executive — someone with superb business acumen combined with a sound technical understanding — and tasking them with delivering real business intelligence.”

In a very weird way, I actually agree and disagree, simultaneously, with this statement. For a company like H&S, an organizational solution is going to feel like the absolutely right thing to do. After all, that is one of the main things that they do. For organizations that commit to this approach and throw the full weight of their senior management commitment (and funding) at sustainable levels, it may work out very well.

But, there are quite a few brilliant people who are many times smarter on the subject of business analytics and business intelligence that will tell you that knowledge is a process that begins with data (“D”) and moves along a progressive transformation process into information (“I”) then knowledge (“K”) and ultimately, wisdom (“W”).

If the CIO owns the “D” and the “I”, and the CKO owns the “K”, who “owns” the “W”? Is there a collective ownership of the wisdom of the organization? Will we be seeing “CWO”s in our future?

It was back in 2000 that, with great assistance from Bill Odom, I drew the following picture. At the time, I was a first year CIO trying to stand up a new joint venture. With as close to a clean sheet of paper as one could get, we were architecting the mission of IT from end-to-end. And we got the chance to build it.

Since then, a lot has changed in this world. But, some things stay the same. No matter what the advances are that enable us to do things better, faster, cheaper, it still comes down to people and how people do things. Remember Einstein’s quote above.

Another brilliant thinker that captures the essence so well is Peter J. Thomas who writes in his recent blog post:

Business Intelligence is not just about technology and cannot be effective in isolation. To live and breath it needs to be part of a broader framework covering the questions that its users need to answer, the actions that they take based on these answers and the iterative learning that occurs in the process.”

At the end of the day, there is nothing I would like to see more than knowledge-based business processes executed by knowledge-savvy workers (and anyone else in the value chain) benefitting knowledge-enabled customers.

But, to see that idea realized, we have to understand and deal with the three main challenges that we previously identified.

1) Collecting information about customers is relatively easy. CIOs have been pretty effective at collecting data through transactional and automated data collection. So good, in fact, that most organizations are “drowning“ in data. In most cases, it is in multiple formats, fragments, repositories etc. Master data must also be dealt with, but, given the unbelievable chore of maintaining it, master data is often an “attic” filled with junk mixed in with the useful stuff.

2) Analyzing is hard. The issues cited in item 1 give the first clue why this is so. First, as previously noted, we are drowning in data. Second, the data that describes the data, i.e. “Master Data” and gives it purpose and context, is often an overburdened mess. Efforts at standardization of form and meaning collapse under their own “weight”. It certainly does not help that many companies are actually companies of companies. There are so many pieces that are pulled together via acquisitions, “carve-outs”, reorganizations, etc. that base lining and normalizing company data so that historical analysis can be done is like boiling the ocean. At a minimum, this becomes an activity that I call “data mashing”.

3) Disseminating it is very hard. While products are evolving to provide robust tools that will essentially offer “composite” applications that sit on layer(s) above the legacy applications and data stores, few organizations and their business processes are set-up to meaningfully “plug-in”. What will happen to all of the spreadsheets!?

Having said that, I am not sure that the answer lies with a new executive in the organization, driving the organization to come up with its business intelligence. Indeed, it is the remnants of the middle manager and senior analyst layers that are closest to the actual in-place and functioning business processes and work-flows. They know the business rules. They know how things “really” work. They know how to handle situations that come up that require judgment and understanding of the facts of each case.

Too many businesses play with fire by running in the margins with their knowledge workers. Thus, a problem exists where these folks are highly marginalized and “one-deep” on the resource chart. They are essential members of the business teams for everything that the business wants to do. What happens if they get hit by the proverbial bus, retire or quit?

Looking through this lens, creating a new silo, or a new organization matrix that adds a new “boss” for these individuals does not, in my opinion, get the organization the knowledge and wisdom that it needs to sustain and grow.

Ironically, this is one of the major business problems that service-oriented architecture (“SOA”) and business process management (“BPM”) is/was supposed to cure. The problem with SOA and BPM is that they are BIG ideas. BIG ideas usually require BIG money, time and resources. Of course, the expectation is also for “BIG” results, which would make it all worthwhile.

Going beyond this point would far eclipse the scope and intent of this particular “Rant”. Getting back to the question that was posed in the title of this post: “Does Business Intelligence require Intelligent Business?”.

Organizations are structured, for the most part, in verticals a.k.a. “silos”. Having efficient, well-designed, ubiquitous cross-functional processes that work is still a rare find. In that regard, a new executive and organization that creates the silo-to-silo (i.e. “horizontal”) channels and portals may have promise. But, hierarchy still rules the day and there is personal “safety” in these turbulent and vulnerable times for incremental approaches.

This sort of “incrementalism” does not create a noticeable increase on overall organizational business intelligence. To the extent that transformational change brings the IQ of the organization to new heights, then there is hope for creating an intelligent business.

Is there a chicken or the egg story here? What comes first – the chicken or the egg?

In organizations, what comes first – business intelligence or intelligent business?

There is, of course, no absolute answer. It could be said that if not an intelligent business then what worth business intelligence?

What do you think? Please offer your comments.

©2009 George M. Tomko All Rights Reserved

Nothing represents a game of ‘chance’ more than a pair of dice. Even with “loaded” dice, the outcomes are far from certain. Very often there is money on the line, significant money. So, I couldn’t think of a better subject –gambling on the roll of the dice– to compare with the use of consultants for high stakes decisions, intitiatives, etc.

Very often, consultants come to the same conclusions as the company’s own internal analysts. There is a perception that a prestigious consulting firm can 1) validate and therefore ‘certify’ the solution as the correct approach; 2) provide risk-averse executives with a scapegoat if things go bad; 3) increase commitment of the organization’s leaders to justify the large consulting bill.

But, at the end of the day, does any of this lower the possibility of rolling “snake eyes” with respect to the issue or opportunity that is being addressed? Does the lovely PowerPoint presentation leave you ready to “let it all ride” on the next roll?

As the truly great consultant would say, “it depends”. Perhaps, surprisingly, that consultant would actually be correct.

If so, then what does it depend on? While each situation is different, my take is that the biggest factor is matching the consultant to the mission. If you need ideation and strategies, hire a consulting firm that has demonstrated success in such engagements. Be wary, however, when the partner tries to sell you the implementation work. The firm may be great at analytics but does it have impeccable execution and delivery credentials?

In a very recent blog post, Chip Camden comments on the reasons why a client should hire a given consultant:

Prestige comes at a price that fewer companies are willing to pay for these days. In this economy, it comes down to the bottom line: What is your net effect on profitability (short- and long-term), and how does that compare to their other options?

So, basically, it ultimately depends on who can step in and “deliver the goods”. And it is this point that, to me, is the most important. Has the consulting firm or individual ever delivered a complete and successful solution? Have they ever had to live with the outcomes of delivered projects? Maybe, but usually, the consultants are long gone a month or two after the project is ‘complete’.

The world is now full of people who are mid to late stage career professionals that have early retired or have been let go in staff reductions due to the troubled economy. Some will come back to work at their former employers, albeit at lower cost to the company because the worker will be responsible for overheads like health benefits.

Others will become entrepreneurs and start their oun consulting practices, either as individuals or banded together as small “boutique” firms.

In any case, their “brand” will be etched on their faces, come through in their resumes, be evident in their wisdom and show in their been-there, done-that attitude. Their accomplishments and decades of experience will be a compelling option for managers looking to increase the odds of winning in this business version of the game of craps.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ultimately, there is a fundamental question to be answered: “Do Consultants Deliver Value?”

I certainly can’t answer this question alone. And, such a broad question invariably leads to more questions:

1. Do you use consultants?
2. If so, why do you use consultants – because of the lack of internal expertise; because of the lack of internal ‘bandwidth’; because a strategy, project, etc. needs a boost of credibility?
3. If not, why not?
4. What do you look for in a consultant?
5. How do you determine ROI for a consulting engagement?
6. How do you hold consultants accountable after they are gone?
7. Is it all about the size of the engagement or the perception that it is less risky to engage a name brand?

Please take a moment to post your answers and comments. What further questions would you ask to clarify and provide the data points to answer the larger question? My aim is to consolidate the responses into a formal post that not only represents my opinions on the matter but those of my colleagues and contemporaries. All contributions will be carefully cited.

Also, feel free to take a look at some of the following references to help frame your thinking:

Companies urged to keep control of consultants [Andy McCue Published: 21 Jun 2007]

Simplifying the ‘Social Media Expert’ Discussion [Amber Naslund Published: 13 Jan 2009]

A Consultant is Not a Leader [Laurent Duperval Published: 24 Feb 2009]

Management Consultants in Higher Education [Keith Hampson Published: 29 Mar 2009]

Women In Consulting: Differentiators [Deborah Plumley Published: 27 Feb 2009]

Making a Value Choice [Omar Khan Published: 02 Feb 2009]

Social media consultants: snake oil or value add? [Jennifer Leggio Published: 20 Oct 2008]

How Economic or Business Consultants Add Value [Bill Conerly Published: 10 Jun 2008]

Value Method: Another Strategy for Bill Rate Calculation [Liz Greene Published: 27 Mar 2009]

Consulting Is My Sixth Revenue Stream [Jason Alba Published: 30 Jan 2009]