KnowledgeForward

Michael Sampson pointed to an interesting article in the Venture Chronicles on The Future of RSS which hones in on a fault of RSS (or “opportunity” depending on if you’re a glass half-full kinda person).  According to Jeff Nolan:

Basically the entire RSS market has been built around a use mode of subscribe-then-read, and that is likely to continue as an exclusive model for many users or in parallel to other use modes. The weakness in this approach is that you only know what you know, as in you have know about a feed before you can subscribe to it… and I generally work off the approach that it’s far more likely that the best content on any keyword is not necessarily found in my OPML.

There are an increasing array of companies that are working on a next generation of feed consumption use model, built not around the explicit subscribing of feeds and chronological consumption of content. In order for RSS to get to the next level of mainstreaming we have to think in terms of behavioral filtering of content and discovery of new content sources based on explicit preferences or inferred preferences derived from behaviors.

I’ll second that.  While I think RSS can (although not always) be better than manual methods for reading through a lot of information, it’s not the silver bullet for attention management.  I often use it as an example of something that can fall out of an enterprise attention management gap analysis, but it’s just one example and piece of a much larger puzzle.

People can use RSS readers to narrow down their view of what news channels they will pay attention to and ignore the rest.  Even if someone follows 200 feeds, at some point that list will become stale.  While you’d probably notice something outside of your feed set due to the magic of linking (someone you follow must be smart enough to notice things outside your periphery, especially people that do link and quote-heavy blogs), at some point new centers of gravity can emerge that go unnoticed for too long.  It’s like picking your set of friends and then never going to parties to meet new ones.  Or just listening to music your friends recommend without ever listening to the radio to see if you’re missing anything. 

I like the idea of leveraging more of the EAM architecture by adding rules, filtering, profiles, and proactive discovery to the RSS model rather than using it “as-is”.  I hope lots of vendors and users start experimenting with this and working the kinks out (decreasing type I and type II errors) so that in five years or so even late adopting organizations can start benefiting from this technology.

In interviewing for the open position on my team, I’ve had four conversations so far with people who were not applying immediately, but thought being an analyst sounded like a nice job and wanted to know how to position themselves for an analyst role in the future.  Here’s the advice I gave.

Of course, I first gave them a realistic view (warning?) of what the job entails.  When I first got an entry-level job as an analyst at Meta Group, I gave a good description of the job to one of my friends at the financial services firm I worked at previously.  She listened intently, nodded her head, and when I’d finished said “I’d rather have someone put a hot poker in my eye than do that job.”  It’s not what everyone would enjoy, and that’s fine.  I’d estimate there are only about 2,000-2,500 technology industry analysts in the U.S., so it’s pretty much a niche occupation.

Then, I described what I would (and did) do to position myself for an industry analyst position, whether it’s at Burton Group or any of the other technology research advisory firms as well.  I’m assuming here that you work in IT in a firm that uses (rather than sells) software.  It needs a few twists to be applied to people working at a vendor or consulting firm as well.  I’m also assuming you are not trying to get a “blank slate” analyst job (such as just out of college or total career change) since most analyst positions require experience.  There aren’t many intern or first-job analyst spots (at Burton Group it’s none - we require at least 5 years of experience for analyst hires, and the average on my team is actually about 15 years experience).

Start creating a portfolio of vendorless research positions

Analysts have to be unbiased towards any vendor, but if you’re coming from an enterprise or vendor you may have deep knowledge about the product you use (and specifically the capabilities that you’ve enabled) but none about the products and capabilities you don’t.  Rather than jumping into researching competing products, I’d first focus on creating frameworks, best practices, market segmentation, organizational structure recommendations, maturity models, and evaluation criteria that don’t even mention a vendor.  These exercise your capacity to think at a higher level of abstraction and then those frameworks can be applied across a slew of vendors using an analytical method of your creation rather than a self-serving one from each vendor.

Seek out speaking and writing opportunities

Depending on the analyst firm you go to, writing or presenting are a big part of the job.  Your current job may not require much in-depth writing or offer many chances for large presentations.  That’s when you have to take initiative to find opportunities, such as presenting case studies at a conference or speaking for local user groups or at universities. If someone really wanted a job with a lot of writing and speaking, wouldn’t you expect they’d have gone to extra effort to find writing and speaking opportunities for themselves in their current position?  For example, I had selected a special master’s thesis project (which wasn’t required) that involved developing a type of knowledge management and business intelligence methodology and wrote a paper on it.  I also proactively searched and found speaking opportunities at my two alma maters with professors I’d taken classes from.  These days it’s easy to set up a blog and start typing away.  Even if it doesn’t become a big hit, a potential employer can look at it for examples of writing skill, analysis, and long-term commitment to writing.

Get involved in some product evaluations

Try to line yourself up to be involved in some product evaluations.  The type of software doesn’t matter as much as the comprehensive analytical model you can demonstrate in making your selection.

Move into an R&D role

Many organizations have an internal group that researches new technologies and writes recommendations on if/how/when they should be applied to the business.  Both myself and another analyst on my team came from internal R&D groups (mine was called “advanced technology”) from within financial services and manufacturing companies.  These jobs are fun!  Plus they expose you to analysts, get you used to rapidly changing technologies, and providing opportunities for describing recommendations in writing and presentations.  An architecture team involved with product evaluations would be a good choice as well.

Read papers from the firms you’re interested in

Start learning their analytical style and applying it to your current projects.  Most of the firms have a rotating set of free research available on their sites or occasionally republish articles through partners. Burton Group’s free papers are here.

Determine which analyst firms are best for you based on what you like to do

Each analyst firm has a different mix of emphasis on quantitative research (like surveys), qualitative research (such as speaking with vendors and users, reading books/white papers, and searching), financial analysis, writing, presenting, advising clients, vendor consulting (marketing strategy), end user consulting (applying analytical and architectural frameworks), speaking to the press, and travel.  Ask yourself what you enjoy most and learn which firms emphasize those activities.

When interview time comes, do your research

Unlike applying for most internal positions, analyst firms, by nature, are easily findable.  As easy as it is to do a Google search there’s no excuse not to know what they cover, what positions they’ve been taking lately, and what kind of research they do.  An analyst is supposed to be a good researcher, so this is a good time to prove it.  Hint: all the analysts I know love to debate, so come in with an angle you think they’re missing or a position you think they’re wrong about and (gently) show you can find holes and defend a position.

A couple of questions came up in my EAM presentation on Monday night:

Q. It seems that the EAM conceptual architecture is all about the receivers and not the senders or messages.

A. First, I need to mention that by “Enterprise” I mean intra- and inter-enterprise.  In otherwords, it doesn’t apply to companies trying to grab the attention of consumers.  That issue has its own fields of study: advertising and marketing.  My intent here is not to help advertisers scream louder or to help create more pointed messages to surgically skewer personalized targets. I’m trying to help organizations improve the effectiveness of their own information workers by examining how to enable them with attentional technologies and capabilities to pull important messages closer and push less important messages further back.

That said, in reviewing my materials I have to agree that I spend more time talking about how to help receivers of messages than senders.  Most of my research in creating my EAM architecture and the questions I have received from larger enterprises are about the information worker trying to sort through information, handle their inbox, and deal with interruptions.  Outside of consumer advertising you just don’t see a lot of studies on the other side of the coin: how people send messages or store content.  I think this is because a decade ago we shifted from an age of information scarcity to information abundance, as my colleague Guy Creese has written and as is well catalogued in David Shenk’s book Data Smog.

Most of the technologies, capabilities, and processes used by creators of information to make their information easier to find are more in the knowledge management (and, more specifically information management) domain than EAM.  These include use of content metadata, versioning, aging policies, use of taxonomy and ontology, navigation, and content repository architectural design.

What I do talk about is how enterprises can provide an appropriate set of communication and collaboration mechanisms for senders, provide guidance to senders on which channels and workspaces to use and how to use them, and put monitoring in place to be alerted to explosive trends.

Q. If this is about what enterprises as a whole can do, how come my examples are about what individuals can do (for example, setting email rules)?

As I quoted from Gary Masada of Chevron in my posting on Cornering the Corner Office about Information Overload: “Technology can be an enabler that helps people do this.  But in the end an individual will have to do it.”

I am not recommending that CIOs and owners of attentional technologies figure out how to organize the time and workloads of their information workers or start setting up filters for them.  There’s a level of indirection here - the owners deploy technologies and processes that information workers can then use to help themselves.

For those of you in Chicago (who don’t plan to watch the Cubs-Reds game on May 5th) I wanted to let you know I’ll be speaking at the Technology Management Association of Chicago on Enterprise Attention Management in Arlington Heights, IL. Reception starts at 5pm, dinner at 6, and the presentation at 7. 

I’ve attached the description of my presentation below.  You can find out more and register at http://www.technologymanagementchicago.org/.

Enterprise Attention Management:  Addressing Info-Stress and Information Overload

May 5th, 2008

Each beneficial new communication and collaboration technology, from wikis to blogs, brings with it the burden of one more channel that information workers, already suffering from information overload, must pay attention to. This presentation describes how attention overload is afflicting businesses and how enterprises can create an Enterprise Attention Management (EAM) strategy encompassing technology, policy, and culture to improve the effectiveness and responsiveness of information workers.
Issues this presentation will address include:

• How attention fatigue is a gating factor for collaboration and communication projects.
• How “Attention Management” acts as a lens to understand and address these effects on information workers.

• How to define an EAM conceptual architecture to provide a unified view across attentional technologies.

I was having breakfast this morning before going to work to prepare for my telebriefing tomorrow on The Role of Enterprise Content Management in Content Globalization/Localization when I opened my Wall St. Journal (4/28/08 page A1; link) to read that nationalism may be thwarting globalization.  The article by Bob Davis points out that while globalization was supposed to be inevitable (hence the WSJ’s reference to Thomas Friedman’s famous globalization manifesto), nationalism and protectionism seem to be on the rise.

Trade talks are shelved.  Barriers to foreign investment are rising around the world. State-owned companies are expanding, particularly in oil and gas. Public support of immigration restriction is growing in countries from the U.S. to India.

So what do I say tomorrow about the need for IT organizations to get involved in content globalization and localization efforts?  I think I’m still on track in saying that there is a sharp increase in content globalization occurring and that IT can help.  It’s possible that some expansion plans in industries that could be brought under state control (energy and foodstuffs in particular) could be put on hold.  But for other industries, the drivers of IT involvement in globalization efforts that I discuss in my telebriefing are still very relevant.  These include:

• Containing or reducing costs: Whatever degree of globalization occurs, there will be a need to contain globalization costs
• Clarification of central and local control through governance: If power shifts are occurring and barriers are rising between central and local branches, governance takes on increasing importance
• Timing/responsiveness: The uncertainty of the globalization landscape places even more emphasis on an organizations ability to react quickly to changes
• Safeguarding brand image: Increased nationalism means increased attention must be paid to local culture and customs, so proper translation and QA processes become more important for a deeper swath of content
• Improving consistency: As with safeguarding brand image, inconsistent translations will have increased risk of harming the brand
• Need to handle increased complexity: Potential increases in regulation will increase the need for complex workflow that can handle documents based upon content typing

I’m not a politician or economist, so I’m (way) out of my element in predicting what effecting nationalism, protectionism, and a global backlash may have on international relations.  The article isn’t saying the slowdown is definite, but a possibility when certain threads in the news are connected.  But from an enterprise content management perspective I think the globalization storm is looking even more vicious than before.

Note: This is a cross-posting from the Collaboration and Content Strategies blog

I have a telebriefing coming up on content globalization next week that I wanted to alert you to.  I’m focusing mostly on the role of enterprise content management in globalization and have put in a slide on Web 2.0 impacts on globalization.  It’s for clients only, but non-clients can get an introduction through my podcast series on this topic.

The Role of Enterprise Content Management in Content Globalization/Localization
Globalization is profound, it’s irrefutable, and it’s irreversible.” These words, spoken by General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt, are a clear signal that the business world acknowledges a globalization wave that is unlikely to subside. But how has this wave impacted information technology (IT)? The authors and owners of content have often been insulated from this storm, but a stark increase in globalization demands is pulling IT in. In this TeleBriefing, Service Director Craig Roth describes how enterprise content management (ECM) processes and technology, from authoring to analytics, can reduce the cost, cycle times, and inconsistencies of localization efforts.

4/29/2008 at 2:00 PM EDT / 11:00 AM PDT / 18:00 UTC/GMT / 20:00 CEST
OR
4/30/2008 at 9:00 AM EDT / 6:00 AM PDT / 13:00 UTC/GMT / 15:00 CEST

Here’s the link to register for this TeleBriefing.

Ever since I’ve had my radar up on attention management issues, I’ve noticed many interesting techniques that people use to manage their time and attention.  While I’m generally focused on how entire enterprises can address information overload (what I call Enterprise Attention Management), I’m always on the lookout for what individuals do to help manage their time as well (personal attention management).  For anyone looking for an executive level view of personal attention management, I’d recommend listening to the first few minutes of this Channel 9 interview with Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft

Ray was asked how he balances the need to span a vast spectrum of activities and the need to go deep as well.  He said (rough quotes here since I am not that skilled at transcription)

Attention management is biggest challenge of the role; the pace is fairly brutal.  At the beginning of the year I’ll plan out how many hours I want to spend in different categories: some for high level strategic things, time with product groups, and I realized you have to create whitespace because day-to-day interruptions cause you to thrash if you just deal with incoming issues.  You have to create time to think about what’s happening in the environment.

I create whitespace by going away - international travel, “think week”, and other ways.  The best way I’ve found to clear my mind is to go to a conference that’s off the beaten path or go somewhere with my wife that’s not technology related.

When I was coding I had a four hour rule that said don’t code unless you know you’ll have four hours of contiguous time because otherwise you’re just introducing more bugs.

It’s the life management equivalent.

I wanted to alert readers to an opening for an analyst on my team here at Burton Group in the Collaboration and Content Strategies service!  I’m open on location, but it does have to be in the U.S. (Alaska and Hawaii are fine as long as you’ll pay for us to visit you for team retreats!).  I enjoy working at Burton and you’d be joining a great team we’ve assembled here.  Let me know if you have any questions (my contact info is in the About page).

You can see the full posting on the Careers portion of the Burton Group website, but here’s a quick summary.

Analyst - CCS

The CCS Analyst is responsible for creating frameworks, research documents, presentations, and blog posts for Burton Group’s clientele. The Analyst will work with customers, vendors, industry leaders, and other Burton Group analysts.

Requirements:

• At least five years experience researching, writing and presenting in one or more of the following areas:
  • Architecture involving communication, collaboration, content management, or portal systems (including enterprise, logical, and/or physical architecture)
  • Collaboration and content management capabilities of major vendor platforms including Oracle, SAP, IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, Microsoft SharePoint
  • Enterprise content management (including document and imaging management, records management, search, web content management)
  • Enterprise e-mail systems
  • Information architecture (including taxonomies and ontologies)
  • Real-time communications (including instant messaging, presence, Web conferencing)
  • Office productivity tools including document formats (e.g., XML, PDF)

An article in yesterday’s WSJ by Lee Gomes (4/16/08, page B1, You Can Enjoy a Book On a Mere Cellphone; (Hit Spacebar Now)) has a tidy summary of a statement that tends to make me cringe:

The biggest drawback to the experience involves the sheer proximity of the Internet and the constant temptation it provides for the aforementioned thumb to wander away from the realm of timeless literary art toward a cheap, quick-information fix in the form of email or blogs. This is one of the cultural problems of our time and I don’t have much to offer in the way of solutions, save to nag everyone about steely self-discipline.

While Mr. Gomes is referring specifically to the itch to check email or blogs, I’ve seen the entire attention management issue framed this way as well: that information overload and info-stress are like the weather in that everyone likes to talk about it but no one ever does anything about it.  Why waste much time talking about the dangers of our always-on, go-go culture if all you can do about it is nag people to buckle down and change their behavior?

I can understand that the average information worker feels that dealing with the overabundance and addictive nature of information (just as with food) is a matter of self-discipline.  But there are a handful of people in any organization that can take action to impact the productivity and stress of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of information workers.  I’m talking about CxOs and the IT owners, stakeholders, and champions of attentional technologies.  Cornering the folks in the corner office about Information Overload can pay dividends.

Enterprise Attention Management (EAM) pulls together the various puzzle pieces involved in the information overload issue and lays them out in a conceptual architecture that provides a view (a cross-section really) of the myriad technologies and processes involved.  Once laid out in this fashion, EAM can be applied to a specific organization’s situation.  For a demo of how this works, see my entry that applies the EAM to personal attention management and then think about doing that for the organization as a whole.

If you’re one of that handful of people I mentioned, you can take real action - actually do something about information overload for scores of people in your organization.  For example, if you’re the owner of the e-mail system, you can enable filtering rules, teach people how to use them, or place them on your list of evaluation points for an email product evaluation as your situation warrants.  If you’re a CEO or head of a large division you can lead by example in how you send out and accept communications (e.g., using appropriate channels, not accepting electronic interruptions during meetings, demanding full attention for short periods of focused collaboration).  If you’re in a position to roll out RSS technology you can accelerate its entry into the organization.  These are just a few examples.  Each is only a small piece of the puzzle, which is why the EAM conceptual architecture is important for laying out how all of these pieces interconnect.  And how they apply to each organization is different.  But only when they are laid out in the context of attention management can strategic direction become evident.

(Note: This is a cross-posting from the Collaboration and Content Strategies blog)

I’d recommend anyone interested in the cultural aspects of attention management to check out the special section in this weeks Economist.  In a bit of sociological research equaled only by Jane Goodall and her chimps, Andreas Kluth, San Francisco correspondent for the Economist, studies digital nomads and describes what makes them tick.  You can hear an interview with Mr. Kluth or check out the first article here, which has links for the rest in the series. Subscription may be required.

Hammers, guns, and Blackberrys are simply tools that surface the desires of the people that wield them, so the series correctly bypasses a discussion of the specific technologies used by digital nomads.  Instead he focuses on a wide array of topics about the culture of digital nomads, the work they do, and why they act as they do. 

The summary article at the start of the issue has a great description of the dangers of continuous availability and partial attention: “the old tyranny of place could become a new tyranny of time, as nomads who are “always on” all too often end up—mentally—anywhere but here (wherever here may be).”

About the prevalence of nomadic work among knowledge workers, he writes:

James Ware, a co-founder of the Work Design Collaborative, a small think-tank, says that nomadic work styles are fast becoming the norm for “knowledge workers”. His research shows that in America such people spend less than a third of their working time in traditional corporate offices, about a third in their home offices and the remaining third working from “third places” such as cafés, public libraries or parks.

The author differentiates nomadism from the archaic “telecommuting”:

Because it still tied workers to a place—the home office—telecommuting implicitly had people “cocooning at home five days a week”, he says. But people do not want that: instead, they want to mingle with others and to collaborate, though not necessarily under fluorescent lights in a cubicle farm an hour’s drive from their homes. The crucial difference between telecommuting and nomadism, he says, is that nomadism combines the autonomy of telecommuting with the mobility that allows a gregarious and flexible work style.

On how to make nomadic work work, he writes:

this requires “management by objectives rather than face time”. Not all workers thrive in such a culture; some prefer the structure of the traditional office. But “anyone who did well at college can work well this way,” he thinks. “The prof said ‘paper by Friday’ but didn’t care where you did it; it’s the same now.

I’ve posited some of my own theories about what drives email addiction, but the author quotes James Katz, a professor at Rutgers University, with another explanation:

This is, first, because of “random reinforcement”, the desultory pattern of rewards that comes with addictive behaviours such as gambling. A CrackBerry winnows through his e-mail throughout the day, knowing full well that most of it is chaff, but cannot help himself because of that occasional grain. The second reason, says Mr Katz, is that most people suffer from the illusion that more information always leads to better decisions, and there is always more information available on our phones and laptops.