Maand: mei 2011

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EIM scan preparation

Tomorrow I am co-hosting a first EIM workshop in a series of three. Today I worked on the hypotheses for the scan, this means putting into words what it means for an information domain to be in a specific maturity level. An information domain can be ‘customer information’ or ‘expertise knowledge’. The domains that are included in the EIM scan are specific for each organisation as they depend on strategy. Another aspect that is very important in this workshop is a clear view on the proces and information flow. I worked up some examples for 5 process flows to be discussed tomorrow. A colleague of mine will be present as well to work on infographics of these flows.

My main concern is how to capture all valuable input during the workshop 😉

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Being honest, working hard and information relevancy

Today started with a trip to our The Hague office to discuss a the people management transfer to the Advisory of one of our colleagues. Because I was sick yesterday I did not prepare myself enough, but I did come up with two questions concerning ambitions and objectives. These answers gave great direction to our meeting. The other thing I did was be honest as this is my first people management experience. I asked for feedback in the future to set a learning atmosphere.

After this meeting I raced back to Utrecht to visit a client and was barely on time for the meeting. On the way over I was behind a motorcyclist when he slipped on the tarmac, so I had to hot the brakes big time. I was glad to see the driver was OK and I quickly hit the gas. During the meeting we prepared for a workshop next wednesday. This project has big time pressure. This means focus is key and distraction unwanted. When we were finished I went home to get some work done over there.

Today I encountered this video from TED. The video is about the algorithms Google and Facebook and many many others are using to filter information on the web for us. These companies try to make information relevant only forget the person on the other side of the screen (yes that is you) is the one that determines if the information actually is relevant. The major concern is that you cannot control these filters to ensure actual relevancy or chose not to see relevant content!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s]

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Round Trip & Big Data

Today was my day off. But I had an appointment I did not want to miss. For that I traveled from Utrecht to Amsterdam and Rotterdam and back again. The appointment went very well and during that car ride I made some phone calls that were on my list. This will save me some time on monday 😉

I would like to share a blogpost I encountered through Twitter:  Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity by McKinsey & Company.

Have a nice weekend!

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Videos from EIM2011

Yesterday I forgot to post the video’s Paul showed

The Virtual Choir by Eric Whitacre aka What does Empowering the Collective Brain mean?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WhWDCw3Mng]

What is Enterprise Information Management

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTHQkvhRWD4]

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Preparation is key!

As we learned yesterday from Bert van Marwijk preparation is key in performing. Today I met with my contact at a new customer. We talked about the organization, the project and the VLC assignment. We shared some documents for me to study. My contact attended EIM2011 and we talked about the application of some take-aways from yesterday, especially from Toon Abcouwer! When I arrived at the VLC Utrecht office I was in luck that my colleague at the assignment was at the office. We discussed our work and discussed some to-do’s. I started reading some documents for preparation the rest of the day. In between reading I started on actual preparation for a workshop that is planned for next week.

At the end of the day I had a meeting discussing the VLC Advisory Change Management effort. We discussed some theory and methodologies. We talked about the way we can spread the knowledge on this topic within VLC. This inspired me to look at the preparation for my engagement I worked on earlier today: learning starts at the beginning of a project!

For me a big extra is that it is the first time in my working life that I can go to a customer by bike!

PS1: my MacBook Pro battery lasted all day long 🙂

PS2: why do Dell printer find it so hard to print documents from Apple’s 🙁

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EIM2011 Day

Today was EIM2011 Day. We had some great speakers and a great audience. This summed up to a great and inspiring day. First Paul Baan kicked off the day with some fresh insights on Information Productivity. Jeroen Derynck updated us on Enterprise 2.0. Toon Abcouwer described the circle of life for organizations and the different needs for information. Roeland Dietvorst explained what the automatic processes in the brain do. Andy Boyd shared some insights on his work with Shell and the London School of Economics. The last speaker was Bert van Marwijk how told the story about the road to World Cup 2010.

Some take-aways:

  • Cost of Information = Cost of Systems + Cost of Information Overload + Cost of Information Assymmetry
  • Where is the fun in Enterprise Systems?
  • Collaboration counts for 36% of all business performance
  • Information used to mean power but today it means freedom
  • There is tension between desire, obligations and capabilities
  • 25% or less of all information can be put into systems
  • Organisations shift from status quo to crisis to innovation to enterpreneurship and back to status quo. Based on (un)certainty about desires and obligations versus capabilities
  • Our brain shape our view of reality
  • Asymmetric dominance (aka the decoy effect) forces choice
  • Misattribution of arousal changes our behavior
  • Stimulation of the Nucleus accumbens makes us want things NOW
  • Physical warmth can stimulate interpersonal warmth
  • Mirror behavior makes us happier and more receptive
  • We make decisions based on max. 30% written information
  • At Shell 50% of the answers come from people we do not know directly and these answers are  the most valuable 75%
  • You should learn when a project start to make use of new knowledge
  • The best enterprise search is to ask a coworker
  • Focus on a small number of important lessons and keep repeating over and over again
  • Success is made by people, they reach goals!
A day packed with a lot of inspiration and if you did not make it today you should visit EIM2012!
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Preparation and Scenario’s

Today I spent the morning preparing for a new customer engagement. The engagement was not sure when I started but the OK came later in the afternoon. Preparation focussed on a workshop format to build an infographic about business processes, information flows and systems. In the afternoon I had to move some appointments around in order to fit an important preparation meeting. I really dislike doing this for a number of reasons but for this time I actually was happy to do so!

In the afternoon I spent some time with a projectteam preparing a number of scenarios to fix some performance issues. We did a nice job on the scenarios and are ready to discuss them next thursday. When I got home I had to wrap up all scenarios in a nice document to share with the rest of the projectteam. In between I went out for a little run to clear my head. After the run I did some final work on the document.

It is always nice to see so many coworkers active on Skype (I am not sure if I like the bid from Microsoft on the company…) even late at night and I had two chats. The first on the document I was working on and the other one was concerning some business development.

Tomorrow is a big day for VLC when the EIM2011 event takes place!

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Three Times Information

A little early update today on two books and a blog about information. The first one is a blog by Erik Brynjolfsson about Economics of Information. Mr Brynjolfsson is a professor at MIT Sloan Management School and Director of the MIT Center for Digital Business.

The first book is on Competing on Information by three Dutch consultants from Nolan & Norton. I have ordered it but you can download the book by chapters. In a few weeks I will post a book review about it.

The second book is called Information is Beuatiful by David McCandless. It is a book about visualizing information to make it more understandable. Visualizing will enhance the value of information. This book shows some great examples. You can take a look at the companion site www.informationisbeautiful.net for some online examples.

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My first workday again?!

As 33 year-old of course ;-).

Today was the first day working with my new MacBook Pro. At VLC we have a Pick Your Own policy for laptop’s and finally I made my choice. For the last two years I have been working with a 13 inch MacBook with great pleasure, so I decided to stick with the model and upgrade to the fastest chip and RAM. The battery was great, the first signes of fatigue were at 15:30 after a full recharge! This is a great plus when I am on the road.

In the morning I spend some to with our accountant on the new Advisory unit. All seems very straight forward and it helped I have my own business. During the day I was occupied with a number of opportunities and did some preparation combining our Information Productivity Scan, Infographics and the Strategic Alignment Model.

Today I went to work on my bike again, it takes me 30 minutes one-way. This is a really vitalizing way to start the day and really refreshing after spending the entire day inside an office.

PS: if you missed my posting last friday, you did not! Friday is my day with my 20 month old son. We went to Amsterdam to change tires, did a nap and went for a long walk in the sun!

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Concentration on the phone

Today the morning started with a lot of phone calls. At lunch I felt I had spend the entire morning on the phone. For the occasion (as if I knew when I packed) I used my headset. Talking and talking with clients and coworkers. In our open office plan I used a conference room for two reasons: not to disturb the rest of the office and to have maximum concentration to the phone call. I need this to prevent forgetting to-do’s and really listen.

When I the office I faced the consequences of making a phone call while driving a car (and being less concentrated on doing both). I made a promise to deliver a slidedeck. The coworker was on my voicemail I forgot and he really needed it as soon as possible. When I got home I sent him the slidedeck immediately. But I had enough time during the day to make the slidedeck…

I learned a few years ago that this is typical Introversion behavior in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. That’s my excuse but, seriously, I really need to focus when I am on the phone!

Are you as sharp as you could be when you are making an important phonecall?