There...I said it. I love Microsoft software.
Living in the software industry as I do, I just have grown to respect how they've solved all the secondary requirements that go into building software. I'm not talking about the core software solutions here. I'm talking about all the other software requirements that, while at regular software shops are afterthoughts that are frequently cut from a schedule, are never forgotten and consistently completed with a high degree of quality. And those are the requirements that so often impact the user's experiences and opinions about software.
Requirements like:
Usability
Too many times developers without any training in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and without a basic understanding of usability paradigms are left to their own devices to develop the screens that people use.
Help
Thanks to Microsoft, the F1 key is now synonymous with getting help, so much so that other software vendors are forced to use F1 as their help as well.
Installation
Maybe its just me, but installing Microsoft products tend to be some of the easiest products to install.
Backwards Compatibility
I have no real proof on this one - its just a gut feel. I do however get a warm cozy feeling inside when I have no problems opening my Excel 97 spreadsheet into Excel 2003.
So before somebody tries to convince you that installing a software product using apt-get that has its UI written in Swing on some abstract Linux distro is the wave of the future, give them an install CD for Microsoft Word. They'll be typing their first Word doc in minutes.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
From Metrics to KPIs
Asking the question "So what?" should be on the top of everybody's mind when either reading a report, or developing a report for consumption. I've been involved in many reporting and analytic product meetings where glossy eyed product managers want to hear all the buzz words like "role based dashboards", and graphical reports that show "trends over time". (my personal favorite is "should we look into using OLAP?") What they fail to see is that if they don't focus on delivering true information to the user, the system will just be a pretty operational reporting solution that won't be able to tell the user anything intelligent.
Lets say you have a report that shows you have accumulated $500.00 of sales in a day. In my eyes, that report relays a metric. Metric tells you what "the number" is. But what does that really mean? It doesn't tell the user if they're doing well or poorly. Are they doing well against yesterday's sales? A week ago? Against a forecast? Nope - it only says you've made $500 bucks in sales in a day.
So what?!
A very simple way to make metrics more meaningful is to come up with some way to define targets to compare them against. In the example above, if the system had a defined target for $600 of sales per day, a report could now show that you haven't met your target by $(-100.00). Seeing that number tells the user a hell of a lot more information, and screams back "THATS WHAT!". By my definition, that would be a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). It gives more then just the number; it tells you how you are performing.
Doing something as simple as defining targets to measure the metrics against will take your BI solution from its basic state to a state where you actually start providing answers to your users.
Jim on Technorati
Lets say you have a report that shows you have accumulated $500.00 of sales in a day. In my eyes, that report relays a metric. Metric tells you what "the number" is. But what does that really mean? It doesn't tell the user if they're doing well or poorly. Are they doing well against yesterday's sales? A week ago? Against a forecast? Nope - it only says you've made $500 bucks in sales in a day.
So what?!
A very simple way to make metrics more meaningful is to come up with some way to define targets to compare them against. In the example above, if the system had a defined target for $600 of sales per day, a report could now show that you haven't met your target by $(-100.00). Seeing that number tells the user a hell of a lot more information, and screams back "THATS WHAT!". By my definition, that would be a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). It gives more then just the number; it tells you how you are performing.
Doing something as simple as defining targets to measure the metrics against will take your BI solution from its basic state to a state where you actually start providing answers to your users.
Jim on Technorati
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Innovation Motivation
Biggest thing I've been struggling with is where and how to begin the process of starting something on my own. Do I look for small, simple and easy to solve business problems? Do I search for a complex business problem to solve? Or do I look to build the next generation of tools for problem solvers to use?
Each have their own pros and cons. Small and simple ideas are the low hanging fruit that are ripe for the picking. You might not need to quit your day job, and you might not need too much cash to get it going. Something tells me though that they aren't exactly the highest paying jobs, and because they are simple, the idea probably already has hundreds of solutions flooding that market space. It would be a good experience, but it might not be worth the time and effort.
Building solutions for complex business problems would be highly rewarding, both monetarily and creatively. The playing field is also probably less saturated, as now you're competing against the big boys - and if you can get into the market before the big boys do, they'll probably just buy you. The problem here is though this budding idea would need to take up 100% of your time. You would also most likely have to quit your day job. But for somebody who is married with a kid and a mortgage, that just might not be an option. You would also need some VC $, so be prepared to give up control of much of your company to get the idea off the ground.
How about building tools? Forget about building the house. Let the builders deal with that. What if you focused on building the newest and best hammer? Web 2.0 is a concept that essentially allows user communities to build, collaborate, share, etc stuff over the web. The software behind that, e.g. wikipedia, facebook, youtube, myspace, flickr, etc are just the tools that give the true content providers - the people - the ability to add real value.
I've realized something however. For me, this is not about weighing the advantages and disadvantages, and choosing the most profitable course of action (although that might be the way some people do it). Sure an entrepreneur's job is to identify problems and solve them to make a profit, but for some strange reason, I want to care about what I'm doing. I want it to matter. I want it to make a difference.
Therefore I've come to the conclusion that I've been going about this the wrong way. Ozzie Goldschmied and I have thought about dozens of ideas in all of the above three buckets - all of which are interesting, and could probably amount to some minuscule amount of success. However the one thing I think we've lacked is the passion and drive to make something of those ideas, and I think its because we both really in our heart of hearts couldn't give two shits about it.
I think the bottom line is - the people who succeed in what they do, like own a business, run a marathon, paint a painting, really care about what they are doing. If I want to be, and most importantly feel, successful in my profession, I need to care about what I'm doing.
Jim on Technorati
Each have their own pros and cons. Small and simple ideas are the low hanging fruit that are ripe for the picking. You might not need to quit your day job, and you might not need too much cash to get it going. Something tells me though that they aren't exactly the highest paying jobs, and because they are simple, the idea probably already has hundreds of solutions flooding that market space. It would be a good experience, but it might not be worth the time and effort.
Building solutions for complex business problems would be highly rewarding, both monetarily and creatively. The playing field is also probably less saturated, as now you're competing against the big boys - and if you can get into the market before the big boys do, they'll probably just buy you. The problem here is though this budding idea would need to take up 100% of your time. You would also most likely have to quit your day job. But for somebody who is married with a kid and a mortgage, that just might not be an option. You would also need some VC $, so be prepared to give up control of much of your company to get the idea off the ground.
How about building tools? Forget about building the house. Let the builders deal with that. What if you focused on building the newest and best hammer? Web 2.0 is a concept that essentially allows user communities to build, collaborate, share, etc stuff over the web. The software behind that, e.g. wikipedia, facebook, youtube, myspace, flickr, etc are just the tools that give the true content providers - the people - the ability to add real value.
I've realized something however. For me, this is not about weighing the advantages and disadvantages, and choosing the most profitable course of action (although that might be the way some people do it). Sure an entrepreneur's job is to identify problems and solve them to make a profit, but for some strange reason, I want to care about what I'm doing. I want it to matter. I want it to make a difference.
Therefore I've come to the conclusion that I've been going about this the wrong way. Ozzie Goldschmied and I have thought about dozens of ideas in all of the above three buckets - all of which are interesting, and could probably amount to some minuscule amount of success. However the one thing I think we've lacked is the passion and drive to make something of those ideas, and I think its because we both really in our heart of hearts couldn't give two shits about it.
I think the bottom line is - the people who succeed in what they do, like own a business, run a marathon, paint a painting, really care about what they are doing. If I want to be, and most importantly feel, successful in my profession, I need to care about what I'm doing.
Jim on Technorati
Monday, November 5, 2007
The first blog
Hi all - welcome to my first post.
Not too sure what I'm going to be writing about here. Theoretically, its supposed to be the avenue to bring my expertise and become the thought leader on specific topics. Then when people want to read opinions, comments, and discussions on those topics, they'd come to my blog because I was so well respected.
Perfect. So when I become an expert in something, I'll be sure to write about that.
What that means is that this blog will be a bunch of thoughts (and complaints) on what I do every day professionally: Build software, work in the software industry, and trying to come up with ideas to make (lots of) money in software.
Hopefully you'll find it interesting and come back for more.
Not too sure what I'm going to be writing about here. Theoretically, its supposed to be the avenue to bring my expertise and become the thought leader on specific topics. Then when people want to read opinions, comments, and discussions on those topics, they'd come to my blog because I was so well respected.
Perfect. So when I become an expert in something, I'll be sure to write about that.
What that means is that this blog will be a bunch of thoughts (and complaints) on what I do every day professionally: Build software, work in the software industry, and trying to come up with ideas to make (lots of) money in software.
Hopefully you'll find it interesting and come back for more.
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