Archive for February, 2010

If any of you follow my personal quasi-blog on Posterous, you will know that I’m a big fan of the Cohen Brothers movies and in particular “The Hudsucker Proxy“.

While researching for my last post, Think Like a Reporter, I came across the following clip and thought, “that’s the pain that we solve!!”.

If you’re a spreadsheet jockey, this may strike a little close to home and you may not want to watch!  I’m kidding; by all means, watch.

And a HUGE thank you to SnifflesMcGee for the awesome and timely video edits!

Enjoy!

Walter Cronkite, Amanda Lang, Tom Brokaw, Woodward & Bernstein, Barbara Walters, Larry King, the entire cast of 60 Minutes;

What do all of these people have in common?

These guys all make a living through establishing rapport (trust), listening, and through their skillful use of questions while interviewing.

Think Like a Reporter

As a business professional, whether you’re in accounting & finance, sales, marketing, or IT, you need good information about your environment.  Some of the best information tends to be locked up in the head’s of all the people you work and interact with through the normal course of your day.

Why not try “interviewing” your colleagues?

I’m talking about anything from stuff about business process to procedural and administrative workflows, operations design, and business and financial report requirements. Pick a topic and ask questions on it.

The opportunity exists to understand all the systems operating around you better when you start thinking like a reporter and asking good questions.

Let’s be clear.  I’m NOT talking about badgering, browbeating, hectoring, pressing feet to the fire, inquisition style questioning that’s designed to embarrass or belittle your colleagues.

So, what makes a good reporter?

I’ll go into a few pointers and some media, but I would also encourage all of you to watch the CBC’s Amanda Lang interview some people.  In my view, she is far and away the best question-asker in media right now.  She’s a great example of doing all the right things through the course of an interview to engender trust of both the interviewee and the audience as well as to ask insightful questions that allow for detailed answers.

The Role of a Reporter

Mathew Ingram, formerly a technology reporter with Globe & Mail and now blogger with GigaOM, sums up the job of a traditional reporter beautifully in his recent TEDx Toronto talk, Five Ways New Media Will Save Old Media, as:

“we called people up and asked them irritating questions and then wrote down what they said”

Whoops! Sorry, wrong clip.  Do we have the right clip?  Do we have a clip?

Ah, okay, what he said was,:

“If you’re writing about a story, somewhere someone out there knows more about that story than you.  In fact, a lot of people might know more about that story than you.  So, you should allow them to tell you what they know.”

This is the essence of reporting.

Now, when he said this, he was actually talking about having newspapers incorporate comments and input from readers into the process of journalism and not specifically about interview etiquette.  But, in the New Media world there’s less and less difference between the audience and the subject.  Here’s Mathew’s TED talk where he describes this evolution:

I think Mathew makes a good point as well in recognizing the importance of having a dialogue going.  In “traditional” reporting, there may have been the perception of a one-way exchange.  The reporter asks, the subject answers.  That’s only half the story.  It’s a conversation and like any good conversation it’s a two-way street. But, it’s a conversation with purpose.  You are the guide.

Simple Tips

Broaden your sources

Think about this question: Where do we get our information?  Bob Woodward, one of the journalists that brought down Nixon in the Watergate Scandal, tells us in the following clip that we get information 1) from people 2) from documents (or evidence) and 3) from the scene (observation).

He make a great point about talking to people.  He says, talk to A BUNCH of people.  Not just one person.  In a day, he may talk to a dozen people around the same issue in order to gain that broad perspective of views.

Asking Questions

Basic journalism tells us to focus on the Five Ws (that isn’t really 5… or just Ws, okay, so don’t use Journo’s for calc’ing your Net Profit):

• Who? Who was involved?
• What? What happened?
• When? When did it take place?
• Where? Where did it take place?
• Why? Why did it happen?
• How? How did it happen?

Of course, all questions are not created equal.  Journalism 101 blog lays out some ground rules about the soft skills, but suffice to say I don’t think you want to make people feel stupid.

In general, keep an open mind and ask open-ended questions.  Keep that question engine going in your mind so you can delve more deeply as opportunities present themselves.  LISTEN, so you can key off of what the subject is telling you.

Remember, you are questioning yourself during this process as well.  All of those assumptions you may have embedded in your thinking need to be questioned throughout this process.

Say Thank You!

and, of course,

Be Prepared

‘Nuff said!

Here’s some additional resources that should help you build up your skills.

Media Training Basics: Mastering Tough Questions from the Media by Harvard Business Service

How To Ask Better Questions by Judith Ross at Harvard Business Review

Learn To Ask Better Questions by John Baldoni at Harvard Business Review

The Four Principles of Interviewing by Columbia University

From Chapter 13 of Sun Tzu’s famous, Art of War, on the use of spies:

“The means by which enlightened Rulers and sagacious Generals moved and conquered others, that their achievements surpassed the masses, was advance knowledge.”

“Advance knowledge cannot be gained from ghosts and spirits, inferred from phenomena, or projected from the measures of heaven.  But must be gained from men.”

Added Bonus

Sun Tzu’s Five Types of Spies

1. Local Spy

2. Internal Spy

3. Turned Spy

4. Dead Spy

5. The Living Spy

Enjoy!

If you are the average Internet user, you probably think the term “cloud” refers to weather. But every time you use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linked-In or Flickr you are “living in the cloud?” Cloud computing is the next stage in the Internet’s evolution, providing the means through which everything — from computing power and infrastructure, applications and business processes to personal collaboration — can be delivered to you as a pay-per-use service, wherever and whenever you need. Momentum for cloud computing is building and it is on the verge of a tipping point. Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of the tipping point is defined as “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.” Interestingly, it is the consumer market that has driven cloud computing to this tipping point but the corporate world has shifted into position to drive the next phase of cloud growth.

Amazon Changes the Game

Amazon is the ultimate consumer company, making something as simple as buying a book, a customized and easy customer experience. Amazon has applied their deep consumer knowledge to cloud computing. After years of designing and developing their own platform for Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos took this knowledge and intellectual property and spun it into a new business, now leading the charge in cloud computing platforms. Platforms like Amazon’s are known as “infrastructure as a service,” providing businesses with extremely cost effective alternatives to traditional IT models. Other platforms gaining traction include Microsoft’s Azure, but Amazon enjoyed a strong head start. Cloud platforms like Amazon’s allow software vendors to launch new applications at break-neck speed, paying only for what they need, by the hour. This model is revolutionizing the IT world and the up-time guarantees in the cloud are better than most internal IT organizations can offer. The interconnecting and scaling services hosted in the cloud enable IT professionals and other software vendors to link applications in endless creative and unique ways, enabling “web mashups.”

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

The cloud is cheap, some would even say ‘dirt cheap’ and it allows a business to off-load all the ugly computing tasks which have overwhelmed IT departments for years, from both a cost and resources perspective. Cloud computing allows a business to pay for computing power, based on actual usage, at a rate of 10 cents an hour. The recent global financial crisis has changed the way we think about our economy. Consumers and organizations are actively seeking simple and lower cost alternatives to just about everything. Using the cloud allows businesses to prototype and launch new initiatives faster and at a price point that is unmatched. A user can create a simple software as a service application, build a prototype in a day, create an account on Amazon Web Services, and make the application available to consumers in minutes. Furthermore, a Twitter feed can produce a thousand instant alpha users. No sales people, no marketing, only the cloud and a social network.

People Drive Change

Cheap and easy is critical but ultimately it is people that drive change. The popularity of cloud computing is due in part to a whole generation of users who have been chatting, texting, tweeting, and facebooking since they could walk. Online collaboration and public content sharing is the norm for these users and the cloud is part of their DNA.

But cloud use is also growing because of the many users in organizations who have been forced to endure cumbersome enterprise software applications, ridiculous IT policies, and limited visibility into disparate business data. These are the people who have been exposed to consumer applications like Facebook and Flickr and now expect their business software to be as easy to use.

Ultimately, the most exciting change-driver is IT. Old school IT is starting to change and will be the biggest adopter of cloud in the enterprise. IT is finally realizing the suitable role of enabling business success and results, rather than maintaining systems, fighting fires and ensuring job security. IT managers seem to agree on the need to find the best technology to address their business issues in the most cost effective way possible, whether it be in the cloud or on-premise. Cloud technology removes the need for physical hardware and infrastructure security requirements, which allows IT to devote more resources to higher priorities tasks that will improve productivity gains. Moreover, IT is realizing that the need to listen closely to the knowledge of workers at the frontline of an organization, who are demanding simpler, easier and more collaborative applications. Cloud computing addresses all of these issues which explains the massive adoption of cloud applications like Saleforce.com, Google, Amazon and many others.

The Cloud meets Self-serve BI

The cloud will have a huge impact on business intelligence over the next few years and is fueling the growth in self-serve BI. Demand for simple, cost effective self-serve BI is not new. Crystal Reports was originally envisioned as an out of the box, easy to use application for every user in an organization. But business intelligence like Crystal Reports has never really reached the ‘Promised Land’. Only 20% of people in an enterprise organization use business intelligence, mostly because it just isn’t that accessible to an average user.

True self-serve BI should allow a user to search for and locate a solution online, access and load their own data, create their own reports and dashboards, and invite, share and collaborate with other users. Ideally, it also means they can research and buy a BI application online without the assistance of a sales person.

Can the self-serve barrier finally be broken? The cloud is the best thing to happen to BI, making it possible for users to find, try, buy, analyze, share, collaborate, and learn.

Being a Vancouver company located right in the heart of downtown, we are living and breathing the Olympic spirit right now! We look out our window and see this:

So, hopefully, you can forgive the indulgence of another post with an Olympic focus.

That said, I would like to tie in the theme to something business related.

I’m big sports fan.  I like to participate in ‘em and watch ‘em.  When you strip away all the noise, that’s still what the Olympics are still about – sport.  So, what is sport?  When you get down to the human level, I think it’s the act of pitting our human wills against a standard of excellence.

It’s about DOING.

It’s about being IN THE MOMENT.

And I think we can all identify with the rush that comes from being at our best.  We all maintain our “faith in distinction” and I think most of us practice it everyday without consciously being aware of it.  Maybe you experience it when you’re playing Halo, or Foosball, or even when you’re busting through a stack of month end reports.  As much as we may try and fight it, our work benefits from these euphoric moments, no matter how fleeting they may be.

Have you ever been:

- In the zone?

- In the groove?

- Running downhill?

- Bringing your “A” game?

- With the wind at your back?

- Able to “get out of your own way”?

If you have, I think you can say that you’ve experienced the Olympic Spirit.

What does the Olympic Spirit mean to you?

Go Canada Go!

(Sorry, the clannish xenophobe in me is acting out a bit this week as well.  I’ll try to get back on point for next week.)

A decade long journey has finally brought the arrival of the 2010 Olympics to Vancouver. This past Friday the opening ceremonies officially kicked off the 21st Winter Olympics in our fair city. Canada has previously hosted two Olympics, Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988. I have always watched the Olympics on TV but I have never attended a winter or summer Olympics event. I always imagined that living in the host city provides a very unique perspective. It is not just a 2-week event it is a decade long event that has its ups and downs. There were some significant cost overruns that got their fair share of international press and as you can imagine the construction seemed relentless at times. I admit that I did grumble a bit while commuting to work. But, in the end our city has been transformed: new highways, rapid transit lines, convention centers, sporting facilities, technology infrastructure and much more. I am not going to provide commentary on whether I think the Olympics provides the ROI required to justify such a commitment by a host city. Quite frankly, I don’t really know. But what I do know is that a I am huge supporter of sport in Canada and I think it is a worthy investment by both our government and more importantly corporate Canada. But I digress…back to the Olympics.

I attended the opening ceremonies this past Friday and as I watched the athletes parade into BC Place stadium I couldn’t help but think about the years of dedication and commitment these athletes have poured into their sport. Like Vancouver, the Olympics for them is more than a 2-week journey, it is a life long passion that has and will shape who they are even when they have retired from their sports. The ceremonies left me with immense pride for my country, city and athletes. I have said to almost all of my friends and family that I am surprised how outwardly patriotic we have been over the past month. Dare I say we have a hint of the “American vibe” going on. Flags are flying, chants of “Go Canada Go” and a sea of red and white swag on just about every person walking down the street. If you are not from Canada you may not understand this but our country has had a long internal conflict with ourselves when it comes to defining our identity. It is not that we don’t love our country but we struggle to articulate what makes Canada Canada; and, even if we feel we know we never want to talk about it too loudly. We are humble and at times afraid to say what we believe. For many, the now famous Molson “I Am Canadian” ad campaign gave Canadians something to rally behind without having to say it themselves. Yes, a beer company provided a voice for Canada. Sad but true.

If you attended or watched the opening ceremonies you probably heard Shane Koyczan’s “We are More” slam poetry rant. If you don’t know who Shane is don’t worry. Nobody else in Canada did either! That was his coming out party and Canadians, along with the rest of the world, seemed to love what he had to say. It had the “I Am Canadian” vibe to it but thankfully it wasn’t a beer commercial this time. Here is Shane delivering his poem during his audition for the 2010 games. The version he did in the ceremony was better in my opinion but this will refresh your memory a bit.

There were a few highlights from the ceremony that really stood out for me. The first was the initial short film projected on the big screen showing the most amazing aerial footage of Vancouver, Howe Sound, the Coast Mountain range, the Squamish Chief, and several scenes from around British Columbia. The footage was capped off with a wicked individual snowboard sequence starting from a remote mountain peak, down a steep face of fresh powder, culminating in a live jump through the Olympic rings into the stadium. The footage of Vancouver and its surrounding ocean and mountains resonated with me in a big way. As an avid back country pilot I see our amazing province from this vantage point on a regular basis and it was exciting to see it shown to the world. The second highlight was K.D. Lang’s amazing “barefoot” performance of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Both performer and writer define Canada’s diversity in their own unique ways. Lastly, the biggest highlight for me was the one minute of silence for the Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili , who lost his life only hours before the opening ceremony. I know this highlight may seem strange but there was something very moving about 65,000 people in complete silence for that long. Believe me….it seemed much longer than one minute. If you want to watch the entire opening ceremony you can check it out here.

The icing on this cake is that on Sunday night Canada won it first gold medal on home soil. Alexandre Bilodeau squashed the jinx that has haunted Canada since Montreal in 1976 to win the men’s mogul competition on Cypress Mountain which overlooks the City of Vancouver.

So what does any of this have to do with Indicee? Absolutely nothing! It isn’t very often that your city gets to host an event like the Olympics and I felt I needed to do something very “un-Canadian” and brag about it. Vancouver is an amazing city and being a business leader in this city makes me proud to be building Indicee here. We have a long history of creating business intelligence software in Vancouver, both Crystal and Indicee started in Vancouver, and I believe it differentiates us and helps shape our culture. I recently commented in an email to the company that we have team members that participate or compete in just about every possible outdoor sport conducive to Vancouver: skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing, hockey, back country skiing, kiteboarding, surfing, rock climbing and several more. I think we could create our own Olympic team! I wonder if I can convince the International Olympic Committee that Indicee is really a country that deserves a spot in the Olympics. I will let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, tell me what your favourite (that’s Canadian by the way!) Olympic moment has been so far?

Photos credits: Snowboard Ring Jumper – REUTERS/David Gray, Cauldron – Matthew Stockman/Getty Images