All Posts in Policies and Procedures

|In: Industry Commentary|Last Updated:

Several years ago, I put Apple Newtons in the hands of my company’s 55 top executives.

No, it wasn’t my idea, just my project. Yes, it was an exercise in futility. My partner and I did our best to make the experience rewarding and the technology compelling. Its lack of integration with personal computers, unresponsive interface, and extremely hard-to-read screen led many of the executives to ask me, “Why is this better than my pocket calendar and a pad of paper?”

“It probably isn’t,” was my answer. “You may find having your whole Rolodex with you is pretty convenient, though.”

I shared our dismal results with Apple (two executives continued using the Newton throughout the two month trial) and our conclusions regarding its fundamental weaknesses. Apple responded that new Newton users had to be prepared to invest two months adapting to the technology.

And you wonder why Apple is in trouble.

I do see a big future for personal digital assistants (PDAs), though. Why?

Because people still want personal computers, and we’re busy taking them away!

Sure, we give them Intel boxes running Windows. We gripe about it, though, and we make them as impersonal as we can. We lock down the settings, forbidding users to change screen resolutions and wallpaper, and banning software of the users’ choosing. These are Enterprise Resources, we proclaim, and users have to recognize that these are the company’s machines, not theirs. In fact, we’d prefer to chuck PCs altogether and replace them with the much better NC — better, of course, because users won’t have any control over at all over an NC.

Microsoft doesn’t help, either: Although easier to use than DOS, Windows is so devilishly hard to fix when it fails that we’ll do anything to keep it from breaking.

Nonetheless, there are lots of us in the world of business who liked the freedom PCs gave us and want it back. One way or another, we’ll get it, too, because as Jeff Goldblum pointed out about life in Jurassic Park (it will “… find a way”), the market has a way of satisfying demand.

PDAs can thrive for the same reason PCs thrived: Users can sneak them in the side door, hiding them in their office-equipment budgets and using them as they please, not as we insist.

The successful PDA will supplant the laptop computer. Here’s what it will need to succeed:

  • Fast boot: When I turn it on, it had better be ready immediately. At most I’ll give it 5 seconds.
  • External keyboard: When I pull it out of my pocket, I’ll use what’s built in. When I’m in my office or hotel room, I want a full-size keyboard.
  • Streamlined but file-compatible word processor and spreadsheet: Compatible file formats allow guerilla computing. The word processor must read and write Microsoft Word files; the spreadsheet must read and write Excel. (Note to Lotus and Corel: convert to Microsoft Office file formats immediately. You’ll sell lots of copies to power users and renegades, and you’ll be positioned for the PDA market.)
  • Harmless customization: Let users have fun personalizing it. Give them back autoexec.bat.
  • E-mail integration: PDAs must synchronize directories and message stores with the desktop system every time they’re docked. As a side note, the directory must, Outlook-style, serve as e-mail directory and name-and-address book. Bad as Outlook is, Microsoft got that right.And the most important feature for the future PDA: No way to put it on the LAN. If it’s on the LAN, IS will control it. Give it a PC docking station and quit.

Now tell me I’m not promoting Windows CE. Please?

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Worthington, Minn., claims to be turkey capital of the United States. Worthington has competition, though. Example: In his autobiography, Dennis Green, head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, described his plan to sue the team’s owners if they refused to sell him a 30 percent share of the company.

Since a) privately held companies have no legal obligation to sell themselves to head coaches; b) writing an autobiography when you’re as unaccomplished as he is reveals an ego as big as Green’s waistline; and c) when you play hardball politics you’re best off doing it covertly; Minneapolis gets to include Green in its turkey production total. And at 285 pounds, he compensates for a large fraction of Worthington’s turkey production all by himself.

While you’re in the mood for turkey, here’s another turkey story for you from a reader I’ll call Stan, who worked for “a major US corporation.” The words are mostly his — I’m lightly paraphrasing from his description.

Once upon a time, Stan was a front-line manager responsible for keeping a large number of PCs up and running in five locations. Stan instituted a preventive maintenance program, and logged the results to help him spot trends — information that came in mighty handy on several occasions.

Then his management instituted a new trouble calls process. Instead of end-users’ calling Stan’s department directly, they were directed to call the front desk, which in turn called the help desk at corporate headquarters, which then opened a trouble report and paged Stan’s department, alerting them to a problem occurring probably no more than a several dozen paces away from their office.

Stan’s analysts would then log onto the corporate mainframe, find the trouble report, assign it to themselves, change its status to open, and then fix the problem. Afterward they retrieved the trouble report, closed it, and reported their time (including the “administrivia,” which was usually more time than it took to fix the problem), and what they did to fix it.

One thing you get from an advanced help desk system is statistics. Lots of ’em. And so Stan got some feedback on the success of his preventive maintenance program: Of all the offices, his had the smallest volume of trouble calls.

You know where this is going. Stan’s managers were devotees of the if-you-can’t-measure-you-can’t-manage school of process supervision, but not graduates of the be-careful-what-you-measure-because-that’s-what-you’ll-get college of advanced techniques. They measured productivity by number of trouble calls responded to, and therefore Stan’s office was the least “productive.” Management could not justify paying three salaries for such an “unproductive” office and gave Stan 30 days’ notice. Stan predicts that when the trouble call volume increases for this office (as it inevitably will), management will be able to point to its statistics to show how cutting one salary raised productivity.

OK, let’s be serious for a minute. Stan’s management made two basic conceptual errors. First, it designed its new process around management reporting, not staff effectiveness. Management reporting became the goal of the system, not a desirable byproduct. Problem management systems must always improve convenience for end-users and be unobtrusive and helpful for technicians, or they’ll fail.

Far worse, though, Stan’s management confused internal process management measures with external, business results measures. “Trouble calls responded to” merely measures a departmental sub-process, not a business result. The business result is measured by end-user up-time, however it’s accomplished.

Stan’s management, obsessed by numbers, had no interest in the business result. (No, I won’t name the company. If I did, companies that might do some soul-searching wouldn’t bother.)

Oh well. At least we won’t suffer from a turkey shortage this Thanksgiving.

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