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By Krishna, March 31, 2007

Some of my friends have asked me to start my jokes by introducing them as such and then saying when they have ended – so that they can laugh at the right time. So:

(start) Once upon a time, there was a man who was having some tough times in his life. He could not figure out a solution to his problems. So he prayed to God, “Please let me win the lottery.” However, his situation did not improve. He lost his car a few days later to a creditor. He prayed again, explaining his situation. A few days later, the creditors came again threatening to take away his house. Again, he begged God, “Please God, let me win the lottery. Otherwise, I will lose everything.” Suddenly, he heard a deep voice telling him, “John, please meet me half-way on this. At least buy a lottery ticket.” (end)

The point is that in many situations, although many people are willing to help us, we do not place ourselves in a good position for them to help us. But sometimes, we do not even do what John did – we do not even take the first step to ask for help. Some examples:

• We assume that people are too busy to help us by looking at a closed door, a powered-off cell phone or a “Busy” status on their IM. In many cases, they may have been busy for some reason, but after that, they forgot to change their outward status. If you want help, knock on the door. Leave a voice message. Buzz the person. If the person is really busy, they will tell you so or get back to you later.
• We sometimes make assumptions whether someone will help us or not. Instead of asking a simple question, “Can you please do me a favor?”, we tie ourselves in knots and are forced to deal with the situation ourselves.
• We make our complaint, but we don’t tell the other person what solution we want. This makes the helper try to guess what we want and come up with a wrong or different solution which doesn’t meet our needs. It frustrates both us and the helper.
• We sometimes think that because someone has not helped us in the past, they may not help us in the future. Unless there was some dispute between you and them, it is very likely that some other factor (not related to you) was responsible. This may have changed now. Very likely, the other person is feeling guilty that they could not help you before and they will be more enthusiastic now.
• We assume that people in a higher social or professional position will not help us and we nurse irrational grudges against them. Actually, most senior and successful people will do exactly the opposite – they want to have your loyalty, co-operation and respect, which they won’t by rejecting your requests. Most have, in fact, go to the top by being of help to others.

Human beings are social creatures. Most people value community and friendship. They will help if they can. Just ask.

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By Krishna, March 30, 2007

Today, I was re-organizing my web bookmarks – the ones I have been collecting over the years. Although it was to be expected, I was surprised to see how many bookmarks were totally outdated – mostly relating to technologies that have bit the dust or been replaced by newer ones. There were many websites that have gone out of business or re-located – so those URLs are no longer valid.

The same situation happens in other cases too – like when I am organizing my computer files or my personal papers at home. Always, I find a lot of stuff that has totally outlived its utility, but I have been holding onto them for too long. And this when I think of myself as being too organized.

There are many problems with keeping old stuff around: too much clutter, too much time, energy, space and money to maintain them and the difficulty in recognizing what is truly needed and perhaps accidentally destroying them.

In some instances, I like keeping things around for nostalgic reasons. For example, when I was a young teenager, I used to write down trivia facts from various sources in my school library. But I realize today that apart from the memories, that information is useless, because today anyone can find those facts on the Internet in a few seconds through Google or Wikipedia.

This also applies to bookmarks and other sites that allow one to capture content. So here is a shift in my thinking.

1. I see no point in collecting links that have good content unless I don’t have time to read them now and want to save them for later reading.
2. Once I read the content, I should use the information in some way:
   1. Create action items to follow up on, such as reading some article on healthy food and making a note to eat that.
   2. Share the link with others using a service like del.icio.us.
   3. Email the link to people or blog about it – the latter is much better as it can be searched upon later.
3. Delete the link. The chances that I will look at that content again is very low. Why keep it around?

The only links worth keeping around are services that I use so that I can quickly launch them – for example, Yahoo!, MSDN, New York Times, etc.

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By Krishna, March 29, 2007

To state a rather obvious point, the Internet and web-based technologies have enabled organizations to manage projects using teams and employees in different geographic locations across the globe. However, despite the increase in such activities, effective team effort still continues to be challenging. Here are a few high-level guidelines that can help:

1. Plan for miscommunication and misunderstanding: Misunderstandings happen between two people in neighboring cubicles. And they will always occur if one person doesn’t have the entire information that the other person has. It is definitely worse with people in different locations when information flow is highly limited and each person interprets incoming communication according to their knowledge and experience.

   If you expect and plan for such problems, you will be pro-active in providing as much information as possible so that the other person can understand what you are talking about. If you don’t plan for that, both sides will get frustrated at the other party’s “incompetence” and “lack of understanding”.

2. Use different methods of communication: Don’t restrict yourself to one way of communication. Sometimes, emails are fine. Sometimes, you need to pick up the phone and talk to people. Maybe, you should use a desktop sharing tool to demonstrate an application or show an example. Or, use a whiteboard to illustrate a point through diagrams. Or use video conferencing, if available. If everything else fails, maybe someone should fly out to the other location and spend a few days.In simple terms, do what it takes to get the information across and don’t limit your options of how you can communicate.
3. Write it down: Although this is true for all projects, it takes on a different dimension in remote collaboration. During phone calls and discussions, many points may get lost simply because of fundamental human limitations. It is very difficult to remember everything said during a talk, even if everyone is paying full attention (which is also not always the case). Also, while a normal conversation includes information conveyed through gestures and facial expressions, this is not possible in a non-video teleconference.So use documents to spell out what each side wants. And when there are questions and clarifications about the content in the document, put that back in the document. This leaves less things to memory or chance. Any disputes are easily resolved by referring back to the document.

There are many tactics that will help, but I won’t go into them here. The important thing to realize is that the nature of such collaboration is fundamentally different, harder and more complex than one-office interaction. It requires different methods and a whole deal of patience and perseverance to make it work. But to directly apply tactics in local collaboration to a remote collaboration situation and expect them to work seamlessly is a hopeless dream.

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By Krishna, March 28, 2007

I recently finished reading “Managing in the Next Society” by the late Peter Drucker. It is a very good book that discusses about the future of business in a world fundamentally changed by the advent of the digital economy. He also explains how different countries are placed with regard to taking advantage of the new business environment. One of the points he mentioned, namely, judicious use of procrastination, struck me.

Drucker mentioned how the Japanese bureaucracy failed to take action to resolve two major crises facing their economy, but instead decided to ride the problem out. One situation was the precarious situation of the Japanese farmers after World War II and the other was the multitude of small shops that were not profitable or efficient. In both cases, each problem resolved itself due to changing social conditions.

The point was this: Is it sometimes more effective not to do anything? Our normal tendency is to attack the problem at hand and come up with some action plan to resolve it at the earliest. And I think that is a good thing. But can an action plan be “wait and watch”?

I believe that some situations may lend themselves to a course of inaction. Here are some general situations:

1. Doing something now may worsen the situation: Sometimes every course of action possible may lead to serious risks and worsen the situation. For example, in a project that is already late, adding more resources may introduce even more bugs leading to greater project delays.
2. The future may have better circumstances for taking action: Possible actions may have conditions ripe for them, but a later situation may be. For example, Internet video hosting sites would have instantly failed in the early days of the Web because of poor bandwidth of end users. Today we have YouTube.
3. A tipping point has not yet reached: A course of action may be very meaningful today, but has less support among those who would implement them. One must wait for a crisis that allows such actions to be accepted. Politicians are usually masters at this.

The problem with procrastination is that one cannot really predict that the future will be any better. The Japanese certainly didn’t – they did what they did in the “hope” (not the certainty) that the problem would go away. So delaying action is a leap of faith. It can also be frustrating to followers and on-lookers who can mistake such behavior for apathy or cowardice.

So use this tactic sparingly. Use it wisely.

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By Krishna, March 25, 2007

Being in the information technology field sometimes divorces one from reality. A particular case is the extrapolation of results based on Internet audiences as compared to what is happening in the real world. This was brought into focus recently when I examined some of the details from my web analytics.

Logically progressing from available data, I could infer that:

• Most people in the world live in the United States, Europe, India and Japan. Hardly anyone lives in Africa, South America, Australia and the former Soviet republics.
• Most people in the world speak English. A few people talk Chinese, German, Italian and Spanish, but they are insignificant.
• High-speed Internet connection is available to 75% of the population.
• Almost an equal number of people use Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. [Not true. Read here]
• Nobody uses any search engine other than Google. Yahoo who? Live what? [Not true. Read here]

I am always amazed at the political polls on the Internet on various news websites. The Internet audience is fundamentally different from the actual voting public and the results of these polls are less than worthless – they totally distort the truth and serve no purpose other than to manipulate readers.

A big problem about the Internet is that people trust it too much. They are very likely to believe anything they read on the Internet without any further research or asking questions. How can one avoid this?

1. Always look for the negative argument. If you read an article saying, “X did this”, then spend a few minutes searching for the opposite statement.
2. Read both sides of the argument. For example, if you read something in the New York Times, read its counter-argument in the Wall Street Journal and vice versa.
3. Get information from different sources – TV, newspapers, radio, books, magazines, authoritative sources, trusted friends, etc.
4. Be a skeptic. As Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.“

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By Krishna, March 25, 2007

Here are 5 blogs that I really love. They are all related to various aspects of software development. If you are a software professional or an IT manager, I am sure that these will be relevant to you. What is particular great about these blogs is the amazing quality of archived information. If you have any spare time, it would be put to good use if you visit and spend as much time as possible reading the old articles on these sites:

1. Joel on Software: I was first introduced to Joel Spolsky through his book, “User Interface Design for Programmers” – the paper copy, not the online version. It was thoroughly enjoyable and I started visiting his website. This was before I even knew what a blog was. Joel writes about many different aspects of software development, especially analysis, design and project management. The writing is so lovely and lined with such wonderful anecdotes that you have a huge grin on your face when reading it.
2. Coding Horror: Jeff Atwood, in comparison, deals with more technical issues including straight programming. Jeff writes articles with great depth and uses images and statistics to illustrate his points very clearly. It is one of the most subscribed-to blogs on the Internet. The site has the benefit of a vibrant community that posts some very insightful comments to complement the articles.
3. Creating Passionate Users: Kathy Sierra is associated with the very popular “Head First” programming book series and the popular javaranch.com (which used to be one of my favorite Java sites in the past). The “Creating Passionate Users” blog is primarily about aligning your product and services to the needs of end users. A key feature of the blog is its use of simple graphs to explain usability concepts. Dan Russell (a Google researcher) also contributes to this blog.
4. Berkun Blog: Scott Berkun is the author of the popular “The Art of Project Management“. As you would expect from him, he writes primarily about management in the software environment – people and projects. Very useful to any IT manager.
5. Hacknot: Funnily enough, I don’t know who the author is. But this site contains a set of impressive articles about software development methodologies and design decisions. Every article is highly researched and serves to debunk hype and common myths about software issues. For example, the latest one is a detailed analysis against the hype of dynamic languages like Ruby and Python. The articles can be freely downloaded as a PDF in addition to reading them online. You may not agree to all the arguments, but you better know about them.

Other useful sites: Eric Sink and Scott Hanselman

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By Krishna, March 24, 2007

More than a decade ago, I read an interview with Bill Gates. I apologize for the lack of proper reference here, as I am unable to recall the name of the book which contained the interview. But the point I remember was that Gates talked about how Microsoft Excel lagged behind other spreadsheet products in the market for a long time. But when graphical user interfaces on operating systems became very popular, Excel was able to surge ahead because of the investments that Microsoft had made in optimizing it for a GUI environment.

Regardless of whether the story is true or not, it raises an important point today. Despite the enormous resources of Microsoft, it has been lagging significantly behind Google, Yahoo! and other companies in web-based services. Since Microsoft-bashing has become a fashion statement, most analysts have started writing about the demise of Microsoft and about Google as the empire-in-waiting.

That may yet happen, but there are some competitive openings for Microsoft which may change the technology landscape:

• Although Windows Vista has had a lukewarm opening, it will become the pre-dominant operating system in the next several months as companies upgrade and consumers buy new machines. That literally translates to hundreds of millions of users and computers. Vista’s integrated search features means that desktop search products are on their way out. Desktop widgets may also go the same way because of the Vista user interface and gadgets. And if the Vista security features match up to the marketing, Microsoft has scored significant points against critics. I could go on, but suffice it to say that Vista is going to create greater use of operating system functionality that will lessen the demand for online applications.
• The Office 2007 products with the new Ribbon-based UI and OpenXML document formats are effective weapons against the encroaching threat of online word processors and spreadsheets. It buys Microsoft some more time by presenting another entry barrier for competitors because of end users who will increasingly be used to the new Office user interface at work. So instead of hurting Microsoft, what the online desktop application market will do is effectively kill Office’s competitors, namely, OpenOffice and Star Office. Most anti-Microsoft fanatics are blind to this possibility.
• Live Search is nowhere near Google Search at the moment (in fact, suggesting it would be laughable), but there are 2 questions here:
  • Will Live Search reach the “good enough” stage that Microsoft can effectively bundle Live Search as a default within the Windows environment and not have users switch over? If you remember how Internet Explorer was terrible initially and then became “good enough” to displace Netscape, you will understand what I am talking about.
  • How will the search market splinter? Google itself has various search categories – web sites, images, blogs, products, etc. Will Google be busy defending its turf against many different entrants and not pay enough attention to Microsoft’s threat? Microsoft has enough money and resources to take the backseat for years until it can forge ahead.
• The YouTube acquisition and the subsequent failed media negotiations/lawsuits/counter-attacks are an unnecessary diversion for Google. It dilutes their video search focus. Perhaps more importantly, management will pay heavily in valuable time and effort defending such an expensive investment and making it profitable. The question is: Having spent $1.65 billion in stock, what will be the return on investment in YouTube for Google? Microsoft has been making noises to exploit the copyright situation and present a more friendly face to the big media companies.

Google has a lot going for it, but will the Empire just lie down and be rolled over? If the past indicates anything, it will be a tough fight to the finish.

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By Krishna, March 24, 2007

Many conflicts in business arise because of misunderstandings between different people. Companies don’t understand what consumers want. Management misinterprets what employees say and vice versa. This is not a theory or off-hand observation – it is a fact of life.

Misunderstanding often produces results that one party in the arrangement does not like. And unfortunately, very frequently, insults are thrown around. For example, consumers rail about “incompetent” customer service. The service representative gets angry dealing with “stupid” customers. Management is upset about “lazy” employees. Employees, on their part, spend their time gossiping about “clueless” managers.

Everybody thinks that the other party “just doesn’t get it”. The ironic part is that no one ever thinks that they could be making a mistake. Everyone thinks that they are doing the best they can, but they are held back by the vices of others.

I believe that many of these problems would solve themselves if each person had the following thought process:

1. I am going to assume that the person(s) I am interacting with has my best interests at heart.
2. If that is the case, why is he or she behaving like this or producing results like this?
3. Is it because of something I have told them? Or is it the way I interact with them?
4. Is it because I haven’t communicated something to them?
5. Why don’t I tell them what I want completely and clearly, instead of having them guess it for themselves?
6. How can I ask them or tell them something in the most pleasant manner? How about “please” and “thank you”?
7. If I ever have to interact with them again, how do I leave this transaction with the most goodwill?
8. What do they think of me?

It is always better to attribute the most charitable reason to someone’s behavior instead of automatically assuming the worst. In the past, to my regret, I have done the opposite at time, and almost always, found that the problems were due to miscommunication rather than purposeful bad conduct. It is quite difficult to rebuild trust after such incidents.

Promoting empathy is not only useful in business, but also in every aspect of life – personal relationships (family, friends, relatives), community life, politics, etc. Yes, sometimes, the other person may be actually wrong. But very likely not and, unless there are extenuating circumstances, it is better to be careful than ruin relationships and interactions with other people.

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By Krishna, March 24, 2007

This is the last in a series of posts regarding how companies and their leaders and managers should change their organizational strategies to suit different market conditions. The previous posts are here, here and here.

Obviously, this is not a market where a company should be. Many companies, however, do find themselves in this situation because of various reasons like:

1. Resting on one’s laurels: The organization may have been the leader at one time and has grown complacent over time. If it had maintained the same competitive focus as it had in the past, it may have been in a better condition.
2. Lack of innovation: The company continues to milk its past successes without planning for the future.
3. Ignorance or disdain of external happenings: The company is inwardly focused. It doesn’t pay attention to trends in the market place and among consumers. It becomes arrogant and dismisses the activities of competitors without seeing them as possible threats.

There are external factors why the market is shrinking. Demographics, social changes, changing consumer tastes, competitive innovations, etc. all contribute to reducing demand for a particular good or service. However, when a company is in a state where it depends on declining products and services for the bulk of its revenue and profits, it has only itself to blame.

Management at different levels of the company usually is the primary guilty party for this state of affairs. When things are going right, they fail to notice contrary signals in the market. In bigger companies, this happens because management is more heavily shielded from the end customer’s complaints and suggestions. However, smaller companies, who are closer to the end user, fail to take advantage too, because sometimes change means significant investment of time, money and effort - which may be a stretch for the resources of that company.

Companies typically use R&D divisions to avoid landing into such situations. However, many companies don’t do well in commercializing innovations for various reasons. One is that the new product or service needs sufficient support in development and marketing effort before it can become a sustainable success. Secondly, the launch of the new invention may be wrongly timed – it may have to be shut down and re-launched at a later time. A good example of the latter is when existing technology (like household Internet bandwidth) is not capable of supporting the innovation.

What can a company already mired in a declining industry do? Sometimes, there may be little to salvage. Most talented employees may already have left the organization for greener pastures. The remaining employees and managers are low on motivation and capability. Capital reserves may have shrunk to insignificance. No new product or service offering has potential.

But perhaps all is not lost. The first step, though, is to infuse a spirit of fightback into the company and generate momentum. This may start with a change in the leadership and management team by bringing on or promoting managers who are action-driven. The company must reach out to its existing customers (some of whom may be disillusioned or angry with it) and see how it can serve them better - perhaps by introducing simpler or different variants of its products or services.

Restoring a company from this situation is a long-haul game. It requires perseverance and enormous patience to deal with setbacks on the road to recovery. Of course, there are always quick-fix artists who can bring back profitability to a company by laying off people and cutting expenses everywhere. But without coupling that to steps that can align the company with market demands, it is a futile exercise that only delays the end.

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By Krishna, March 20, 2007

This is the third in a series of posts regarding how companies and their leaders and managers should change their organizational strategies to suit different market conditions. The previous posts are here and here.

Many management books, especially the older ones, are written for companies in stable markets. Their key assumption is that companies and managers have sufficient time on their hands to implement activities and processes that will contribute to the success of the organizations. Nothing wrong in such assumptions, since many markets are, indeed, less dynamic with relatively low growth rates. Competition exists, but is not business-threatening.

Stable markets are usually the end result of rising markets. When a new market emerges, companies rush in to tap the potential. There is brutal competition. Some firms succeed while others go bankrupt. The level of innovation decreases as market potential is reached. The remaining businesses stake out their market segments and establish their brands. Barriers of entry (capital costs, brand names, etc.) prevent new companies from breaking into the market.

A stable market will remain so until there is a drastic innovation that changes the rules of the game. The Internet did this for many companies. It lowered marketing and distribution costs that presented obstacles to many entrant businesses. Because of the snowball effect in technological advances, every industry could be potentially turned inside out because of new discoveries and inventions. Aside from that, political, social and economic changes may also pose great threats to the stability of a market.

With that in mind, it must be understood that today, the right method to operate in a stable market is to prepare for sudden disruption and innovation. The wrong approach would be to assume that things are going to stay great for ever and create a company with processes, employees and partners that makes it difficult to react to changes.

The most important step in this direction is to create the right culture. This means things like:

• Nobody and nothing in the company is sacred and can be criticized openly within the company. When people resort to resignations to make a point, it is already too late.
• There is an inclination to getting things done instead of controlling them. The more control there is, the less fluid the business is.
• There is an awareness of what is happening in the outside world. People focus on not only understanding their current work better, but also thinking of what could come down the road.
• The competition is treated with respect. When you wake every morning knowing that the competition can put you out of business, it is likely you will do something about it.

A point to remember: Let the entire company think and plan – not just the chief executives.

Unlike the rising market situation, human resources are where the company needs to place its bets. Why? In a stable market situation, there are many different uncertain possibilities for the company and it needs every single employee to contribute with every resource at their disposal. In a rising market situation, when time is at a premium, the company has less flexibility to try different approaches – and hence sometimes a few “stars” may make a greater difference.

The management team must be composed of experienced people who are willing to experiment. I am not taking about rash gambles by people who don’t know what they are doing. Instead this is about controlled ventures of exploring various ideas and seeing what sticks. Try and discard OR try and continue. And quickly. This needs leaders who have knowledge based on their past successes and failures, but who also treat such experiences as guidelines, not doctrines.

A final comment: The Innovator’s Dilemma concept challenges (and rightly in my opinion) the idea of existing businesses being able to use disruptive innovation successfully. But there are solutions to the dilemma, prominently in terms of establishing separate divisions that can invest correctly in bringing the technology to fruition. Also, many businesses tend to ignore sustaining innovations that competition latches on.

The biggest danger is to dismiss the competition (however small they may be) and be under the delusion that consumers cannot go anywhere else.