Christian Anschuetz - Executive Portfolio and Blog

Birth of a Word

Many thanks to Luis Serpa for another great blog entry.  Not only was it right on the mark, at least in my opinion, it also ties nicely to a great presentation given by Deb Roy on the Birth of a Word.

If you want to see how intimate we are becoming with technology, just watch Deb Roy speak about how he was able to learn how his newborn learned his first word of English.

 

http://blog.ted.com/2011/03/10/deb-roy/

Understanding Your Baby (Err… I mean, USER!)

Christian’s Note: This is a guest post by Luis Serpa (@luiserpa), a User Experience Architect at Underwriters Laboratories. Read more about him at Standing-Out.com

 

Working on User Experience is a lot harder when users cannot properly communicate their needs.

I'm reminded of that now on a daily basis with my 4 months old daughter... In my line of work, Babies represent the quintessential user experience challenge: Understanding and satisfying the needs of someone with whom you have no common language, no shared experience or perspective.

A baby won't tell you if she's hungry, tired, cold or bored. Their main way of conveying any message is by crying, so you must observe them in their own environment to really understand what they need.

If you think about it, this is not much different from what happens in between IT departments and its users in global corporations like UL: even when all our users speak (fluently) the same language, which is rarely the case, they usually don't know how to explain their needs and, when they do, their explanation may seem like complete gibberish to someone without the same work background and life experiences.

Amazingly enough, these incomplete, roughly translated and out-of-context user requests are the base of system requirements in most corporations.

My point is that without careful observation of your users' actions and behaviors, we may end up answering only to the requests of whoever cries louder instead of learning the actual needs of our user base. This is akin to easing a symptom while leaving the underlying disease untreated.

A mistake like that could end up killing your baby and that's why parents go to such a length to bond with their offspring...

Another thing that babies have in common with corporate users is that they are constantly changing. What you knew about them last month is no longer valid now. They evolve and change very rapidly so you cannot trust that what worked before will work the same way again now. You need to keep observing them and find out what changed in their environment before taking new actions.

User Experience Design (UXD) in a project brings more than better interfaces, UXD techniques can help you understand your users' real needs, translate their requests and, most important still, validate their perceptions.

So, for your next project, add UXD to your planning and see how much you can increase your chances of success. Meanwhile, I will go back to learning a bit more of baby talk...

 

Pace of Change Increases as Tech Becomes More Pervasive

If, at the beginning of the year, I had said that the release of information via wikileaks and protests organized via Twitter and Facebook would topple dictatorships, I’d have been laughed off this blog. But these things have happened. We are living in a period of unprecedented change and this change is enabled at the most basic level by fundamental changes in the technology landscape.  As organizational leaders, it’s vital that we seek to understand these shifts, so that we better predict their effects on our organizations and so that we can use them to create new forms of business value.

The first shift is the emergence of the Cloud.  Today, a start-up business can buy hosting online, and get CRM and financials for free.  Instant, free (or very cheap), messaging to any endpoint is available to the consumer.  Publishing photos, thoughts or videos is as simple as point and click.  Web applications are emerging which challenge the dominance of incumbent vendors in every space.  The emergence of cloud platforms such as Salesforce.com, which carry minimal capital investment costs, has started to free organizations from the obsessive and destructive focus on technology cost typical of the last decade.  The old IT department dominated by TCO concerns is dying and the technological barriers to entry of testing a new idea have never been lower.

A second change is the Consumerization of IT.  A decade ago a new employee at a company, would have been impressed by the laptop they received on their first day at work.  Today, people complain to IT departments that they can’t use their iPads to access corporate resources.  Sometime during the last decade we passed an inflection point.  Today, the average person has access to consumer hardware and web applications which offer them vastly more control and utility than the applications and technologies that the typical IT department approves for use within the firewall.  Increasingly, with or without the permission of IT or organizations, these technologies are finding their way into the enterprise.  These shifts are irreversible.  The standard corporate IT department simply does not have the capability to provide an equivalent experience to Facebook and it never will.  The gap between the enterprise and consumer worlds will continue to widen and the user experience inside the firewall will become increasingly dated.

In parallel with these trends of Cloud and Consumerization, there has been a content explosion. Traditionally our companies have been the only trusted source of information and messaging about the products and services we offer:  the canonical source of content. Today, no more.  An explosion of online content, much of it generated externally, is available via the web.  Everything we say or produce is discussed, analyzed, sliced and dissected by the crowd.  Communities and expertise on products emerges completely outside the traditional channels and completely outside the normal mechanisms of control. Break a guitar on a flight? Expect a song on YouTube. Produce a particularly good TV set? 492 positive reviews on Amazon.

These trends are not be feared, but rather should be embraced.  We must recognize that technology is not an end in itself.  In fact, all technology exists only to augment human potential, and that value inherent in providing a limited set of prescribed tools to users unfamiliar with computers evaporates when everyone has a smartphone, when everyone is a technology expert simply by being a consumer.  Accordingly, we must learn to cede control of portions of the corporate technology roadmap to non-IT staff.  The users must be allowed to set the portions of the technology agenda that affect them most profoundly: the corporate IT mandated not-so-smart phone must be consigned to the dustbin of history.  Our colleagues must be encouraged to experiment with new devices and experiences, and to share their learnings and knowledge with their peers.  IT’s role must shift from detailing to the nth degree to ONLY acceptable technology, to defining the standards by which ANY device can connect to corporate content or workflows.  It’s clear that this implies radical changes in both the mission and the focus of IT departments.  nder this new model people can no longer expect the handholding traditionally provided.  Instead, IT must provide the basic configuration instructions and the facilities to allow communities to form and self-support.  The obsessive focus on cost must be replaced by a focus on delivery of business value.  Technology must become an integral part of the normal conversation in the business, not a strange fiefdom to the side.

Similarly, our enterprises must be willing to give over control of a portion of the message around their products and services to the customer.  The content created externally must be consumed and intelligently analyzed and, rather than seeing customers as essentially passive consumers of our content and services, we must embrace the opportunity to have them as active partners in the design and implementation of new products, in the creation of messaging around those products.  Those companies that most effectively combine platforms or facilities that empower and promote their customers as product ambassadors will reap rewards in the form of brand loyalty. And if all this sounds crazy, consider that these ideas are common currency in younger industries like gaming.

The best and most progressive firms have chosen to embrace these trends.   Those leading businesses are committed to finding ways to extend and enhance the tools chosen by co-workers and to leverage the feedback and passion of their customers to better serve their organization.  Many such firms are updating core technologies, often investing in unified communication and collaboration tools, and migrating away from older and less flexible technologies (think big iron PBXs).   And while they invest in the tools and capabilities that will unify their work force and connect their enterprises with their customers, they are implementing architectures and supporting processes that will capture more knowledge and ideas from their many content creators for the betterment of their firm and mission.

Also important, firms must make the strategic decision to empower their employees to select and own the next generation of devices used to access corporate content and data. This is the first step in a wider program to open the technology departments to the wants and needs of the business, and to transform the business and IT relationship.

As always, other options are available in response to these trends. We can put our heads in the sand and ignore them, becoming irrelevant in the process.  We can actively resist them by putting policies and procedures in place to limit technologies to those approved by IT. The best firms believe that meeting co-workers and customers where they are rather than telling them where they should be, and by empowering them to make decisions on the technology and tools that surround them, they will stimulate and democratize the process of innovation and liberate their organizations from the yoke of oppressive and outmoded  tools and policies.

 

Shifting Perspectives (or... How to Keep Up with Times)

Christian’s Note: This is a guest post by Luis Serpa (@luiserpa), a User Experience Architect at Underwriters Laboratories. Read more about him at Standing-Out.com

Everything changes all the time; it’s just the nature of our modern world.  By now, everyone that deals with technology is used to the idea that what you know today may not be true tomorrow.

The real issue is not how fast things change but how out-of-control we usually feel for not knowing where all these changes will eventually lead.  

Social Media, multi-touch devices, mobiles, tablets, streams, web2.0, cloud computing, games with motion detection, not to even mention all the new crazy startups ideas bringing even more new ways to see and use the internet. As an early adopter of technology of all kinds, I know more than 90% of those new ideas will be dead in less than a year, but any single one that survives will change how we experience the internet in ways that we cannot even try to predict.

Why does that matter?

Because even though we cannot keep up with technological evolution, we can (and MUST) keep up with users’ expectations and that will ALWAYS give us an insight on still developing behaviors.

About two years ago, a friend of mine wrote an article creating a lot of debate on twitter at the time.  She stated that social media would make Corporate Websites obsolete.  Two years later, users still rely on traditional websites to find information about a company, but she was right on one thing: Technology, Social Media and the Digital Revolution have already fundamentally changed how people interact with the internet, so the key point here is not whether Corporate websites are going to die or not, but how our entire digital strategy needs to evolve to include these new behaviors and expectations.

What WILL change?

1. Information Streams - Users’ online behavior are quickly shifting from “surfing pages in a website” to “consuming streams of interconnected information.”

It might look like it is the same thing, but it changes drastically how users experience the web and navigate through sites. Users are not going to look for information on a site but instead subscribe to their favorite information "Aggregator" (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flipboard, Google Reader, Quora, FourSquare, etc) and just “parse” the information that will come streaming by them. They will control how to consume the information, not us.

Traditional information architectures, ones that guide users through the site in an orderly fashion (sequentially) will not be capable of predicting or controlling the user’s navigation. Users will come from everywhere and land anywhere in our site.  All pages will be landing pages and will have to fully support the user’s objective and be personalized to tell a whole (and consistent) story every single time.

What you see today as a website will become just an end, not the means.  People will get there to confirm and convert, not to browse and consume.  Since their navigation will have no boundaries, our sites will require a more flexible information architecture where every piece of information can stand alone when pushed into a stream and still lead the user to other in-context information, cross-sell or call-to-action.

The definition of a "site" will also probably change to become more than just a collection of pages under a URL. It will include every digital manifestation of our brand and services wherever they reside in cyberspace (Facebook status, Tweets, LinkedIn groups, blog posts, comments, reviews, mobile apps, RSS feeds, emails and traditional pages).  With this behavioral shift, Homepages may lose most, if not all, of their importance.

2. Multiple Devices, Multiple Experiences –  Very soon, no one will accept having their information (and experience) is constrained to a single standardized device or form. Touch-screen wireless devices are changing the way people interface with information and will soon change the way people interact with websites.

The cloud is removing the boundaries of traditional storage concepts so users are starting to behave like if physical hard drives didn't exist.  Instead of having one single desktop PC where save all their important information, now they have several different devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc) that they use at different times for different needs. They change devices like they change clothes and they expect their information to be available equally and consistently in any single one without thinking about where the information is being stored in the first place.

The idea of "borderless information" is perfectly within our reach and, as a result, customer are starting to expect companies to provide them with personalized information that persists through time and across any device they are using at the moment, without ever needing to download anything again.

Now, If you have a touch-enabled smartphone or a tablet today, chances are that you are already addicted to the way you interact with it (I bet that at least once you accidentally tried to use gestures/finger movements on a blackberry or a computer monitor).  After playing Wii or Xbox Kinect, you probably feel a bit “limited” when you have to use a regular joystick.

The reason for that is simple: whenever you find an easier or more natural way of doing something you adapt to it almost immediately and going back to the old ways is like trying to unlearn how to walk… You just can’t.

In the following years, more and more devices will be touch-sensitive and soon there will be more users interfacing a website through touch than using a mouse.

The impact on companies websites is quite obvious here.  Multiple devices with multiple (different and sometimes unpredictable) experiences will force sites to evolve from the concept of "page" to "information asset".  Pages are bound to a specific format and structure that needs to be represented in a certain way to be correctly consumed.  Information Asset is a combination of data, metadata, attributes and rules that can be bundled in any format we wish without losing its core value or message, retaining in itself all possible connections to other information assets that may be relevant to the viewer.  An information asset could be interacted with via touch, mouse movements or even voice commands, because its structure is not dependent on a specific visual interface.

3. Augmented Reality – Augmented Reality (or Enhanced Reality) will eventually eliminate the need of physical devices or accessories altogether and the internet will be more ethereal than ever (a real web of dispersed information).

This is not science fiction. A few years from now we will be taking pictures by looking at things, receive detailed information about objects (and people) directly from the internet while we handle them, all without looking at a computer or cell-phone screen. There are ongoing studies on how to use the internet to “enhance” our perception of the world around us without the need of physical equipment or accessories.

A group at MIT created an amazing prototype using readily available materials under $350 and that was almost 4 years ago.  Imagine what would be possible to do with today's technology.

When the internet is no longer something you see through a display in some device, a website will be seen as just a collection of information about an entity without full context to what you are doing at the moment. At this point, the concept of a website in the way we experience today will become a distant memory of the weird way we used to do things in the past.

Ok, Now What? If you ask me how we can build an online experience (or site) capable of dealing with all of this, I’m not certain I know the answer, but there are 2 things I can say for sure:

1. Our user experience will be fast, ephemeral and dispersed. People will be (they are already) assaulted by information from all directions presented to them in quick bursts and ever smaller chunks. People will suffer more and more from information overload and the capability of capturing and retaining one specific message will decrease considerably (there are even studies showing how the new generation brains are adapting to handle the speed of the digital life). To stand-out from their stream of information, we will need to have a consistent digital strategy, comprehensive understanding of all our customer touchpoints, strong consistent branding and, above all, be able to CONNECT and ENGAGE with our customers on a personal level.  It is the ultimate one-to-one relationship for mass-consumption.
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2. No matter how traditional our users are they will be affected by these changes at some point. Moreover, they won’t be able to tell us until it happens, because they won’t see it coming themselves.  Survey and Market Researches are useless to predict behavioral shifts because these behavior changes occur on an unconscious level and users only start to rationalize how much their needs and expectations changed a long time after it’s happened. This is why innovative companies like Apple avoid asking their users for what they want in a product; instead they observe their behavior to understand what they need without knowing and only ask their opinion after the product is almost ready to market (e.g., the iPhone).  If we don’t adapt to our users’ future needs and behaviors, our digital strategy is doomed even before we define one.

——–

So traditional websites WILL die… we just won’t notice! 

They will be replaced with something new and better suited for this different perspective and expectation. We will look at them and believe they have adapted and evolved.

Maybe that’s all the same thing anyway…

But the real question here is: will we keep up with times and allow our digital strategy to evolve before our users change or will we hang on to what we know today until everything around us has changed? Are we going to keep up with the times or forever chase our own tail while trying to keep up with the Joneses?

It’s totally up to us.

What is your opinion?  Do you have an idea on how we can do all that or on how our future user experience must look like?  Please share your ideas here!

3rd Brick Layer from the Left

I was recently reminded of the power and importance of culture in determining the effectiveness of an organization.  My reminder came, ironically, while attending a leadership course in Orlando where the primary instructors were members of the Disney Institute.  The purpose of the Disney course was to teach, among other things, leadership excellence and the role of culture in driving superlative employee engagement and performance.

Whether you love or hate Disney (hard to imagine anyone hating Disney), one can not deny that they have an incredibly powerful and profitable business.  From just over $6B in 1991 to over $36B at the end of 2009, it is a company that knows both how to grow, and how to create a customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.  And both of these things create great returns for investors.

Despite their business acumen, however, I found the curriculum of the Disney Institute to be less inspirational that I had expected.  A great portion of the "class" was educating attendees on how great Disney was, and despite the promise of also hearing about the problems and challenges that would normally accompany such a large firm, the bulk of the course seemed more like a Disney sales pitch than a real course on either service excellence or leadership. 

One section of the course covered the importance of culture in determining a firm's performance.  This portion of the class, while certainly important, was taking far too long to get to the point; which was, in a nutshell, that culture can be designed such that it supports consistent delivery of exceptional quality service.  50 minutes into this discussion I excuse myself for a quick break.

As I head to the water fountain I see a man in the hallway working on his computer.  The only thing noteworty about this gentleman was the shirt he was wearing; two Latin words spanned his chest - Semper Fidelis.  As I walk by I simply say, "Semper Fi Mac".  He quickly and enthusiastically answers back.

Two Latin words.  A three word greeting.  From there it turned into a 30 minute discussion of "when were you in?", "what units did you serve under?", "do you remember Camp Upshur?", etc.  In an instant I was connected to this guy in a manner and on a level that people that work together for 30 years in corporate America never experience.  It quickly occurs to me that this is the definition of compelling culture.  That two people completely unknown to each other connect and share with great pride distant memories of a common organization is something that Disney could only imagine possible.

As the conversation closes, I mention why I am in Orlando and how the instructors at Disney could well learn from the Marine Corps.  His response fascinated me.

"I consider myself the 3rd brick layer from the left, for I fought on the Barbary Coast.  I bled in Nicaruaga during the Bannana Wars.  I was there for the Civil War and both Great Wars.  And I was one of the last to leave Saigon.  I am forever part of the Corps, and the Corps is forever part of me.  To this day I believe that, as others did before me, I laid the bricks that future Marines will walk and build upon."

Replicating the strong and forever binding culture of the Corps is probably not possible in the corporate world.  Nonetheless, I think organizations can design their culture that creates not just great outcomes, but that also creates great teams.  Great teams consist of both productive and enthusiastic employees.  And all this greatness results in superlative service and, in almost every imaginable case, profitability.

The key to success?  Great people and a culture that binds them together.

Now, go build it.

 

Back in 1775...

235 years ago today the Marine Corps was born.  Happy Birthday Devil Dogs.

Only a few Americans choose the dangerous, but necessary, work of fighting our Nation's enemies. When our chapter of history is written, it will be a saga of a selfless generation of Marines who were willing to stand up and fight for our Nation; to defend those who could not defend themselves; to thrive on the hardship and sacrifice expected of an elite warrior class; to march to the sound of the guns; and to ably shoulder the legacy of those Marines who have gone before.

Commandant J. T. Conway

And so the cadence goes...

"Back in 1775, my Marine Corps came alive"

Truth-Tellers Wanted

We have all probably heard that it is always a good idea to have at least one staff member that is a truth-teller; that person that always says it like they see it.  I was reminded of inadequacy of this statement while listening to a gentleman that was visiting this old concept when an attending member of the crowd spoke up and strongly disagreed.  The audience member's response was that he would always keep the truth-teller, and fire the rest.  He had no time nor place for anyone but those that spoke the plain, and sometimes painful truth.

Now here was a man I could understand and relate with.

The point?

Every leader needs to surround himself / herself with truth-tellers.  And once that not insignificant feat is accomplished, must work to ensure that the environment, the policy landscape, and the leader's very actions support ongoing and continuous honest and direct discussions.  For feedback is often hard to both give and receive, but we must learn to accept it, be thankful for it, and thus promote a clear tolerance for even those, and perhaps especially those facts that are the hard hear.  For not knowing the truth is almost always more painful and dangerous in the end than knowing the facts upfront

Truth-tellers wanted.  Liars, misleaders, and those that spend more time "managing up" vs. leading need not apply.

Embrace Your Inner Maverick

The best leaders challenge the concept of "business as usual" and drive positive change.  Often this change comes with great discomfort as both firms and individuals rarely embrace transformation, especially when established norms are tested.  As a result, many leaders that challenge an organization's "conventional wisdom" are often labeled maverick. 

If you are part of an organization and are willing to critically examine the status quo, even if it is with the sincere interest of creating positive outcomes, you too may be called a maverick.   If that happens, welcome the title.  Embrace your inner maverick.  Take pride that you have the courage to challenge the "elephants" in your firm.

The Power of Belief

Long have we heard about the power of the human mind. Many believe the power so great that we can even heal ourselves by willing it.  Most certainly attribute a wide array of benefits by simply thinking, or visualizing, the desired outcomes; from sports to academics the technique of visualization is widely practiced.

Few things illustrate a point better than a story, or in this case, a joke. As evidence, I give you the following bit of humor called One Marine:

A large group of Taliban soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand-dune. "One Marine is better than ten Taliban".  The Taliban commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune whereupon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence.

The voice then calls out "One Marine is better than one hundred Taliban". Furious, the Taliban commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge gun fight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again silence.

The voice calls out again "One Marine is better than one thousand Taliban". The enraged Taliban Commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune. Cannon, rocket and machine gun fire ring out as a huge battle is fought. Then silence.

Eventually one wounded Taliban fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander, "Don't send any more men, it's a trap. There's actually two of them."  

While this is intended to be humorous, make no mistake that United States Marines believe they are that effective, that fearsome. They work, train and fight with the unshakable conviction that they are an irresistible force. And while many factors contribute to this real ferocity and effectiveness on the field of battle, the belief in themselves, their undeniable certainty in their strength and prowess, is core to the reality they create; namely, that they are the most revered and feared (by their enemies).

This post isn't about the Marine Corps though.  It is about the power of belief. Imagine if we successfully instilled such strong convictions in our colleagues in the workplace.  Imagine if the people we worked with truly believed they were a force in the marketplace and that they were the very best at what they did. 

Imagine the results.   

When Great Isn't Good Enough

Some time ago I sat with Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, at a round table to discuss what qualities differentiate a good Chief Information Officer (CIO) from a great one. Given the task to list the most critical five differentiating traits, the group of 12 CIOs set to work. A few minutes later Jim queried the table.

The technology leaders gave their responses; good communicators, business acumen, technical proficiency, governance and the ability to align with the business, and other similar responses were listed as the key ingredients for that great CIO. Awaiting my turn, and happy to go last, I presented an alternate vew, namely that the qualities that result in a great CIO are no different than those necessary for a great CEO, CFO, COO, and so forth.  Or more specifically, vision, self-awareness and the ability to meaningfully connect with people and rally an organization around a common goal is what makes great executives.  Is it not obvious that the best CXOs are the best leaders?  And isn't great leadership based on the same fundamental traits and principles regardless of position or role within a firm?

If you have read Good to Great you know that Jim deliberately shies away from claiming that leadership is core to moving a firm from good to great. Only Jim could tell us why that is, but I suspect that he feels the term leadership is too soft, too ambiguous to attribute to greatness. Or, perhaps it is partially a marketing move, as shelves are filled with tens of thousands of books on the topic of leadership.  What I do know is that Jim and I had a spirited conversation on the topic.

As I left the discussion I bade farewell to Jim. This great author and mind shook my hand and said that he was sorry to hear that I was unable to make a subsequent discussion so he could "disagree with me some more".

In that, Jim and I were aligned.