Tripping Over Categories

I'm imagining a conversation between a couple of merchants one or two thousand years ago. One is using a quill to write an invoice, and the other says to him "You need to be careful with that religious technology. It's fine for copying out gospels, but we have to worry about forgery. Seals just aren't up to the job, and the quill manufacturers aren't doing enough to solve the problem". Or, around the same time, can you imagine two monks complaining that religious technology was being used to paint pictures of the local landowner's friends, or to write out stories like "that Beowulf thing".

Our imaginary merchants and monks are tripping up over categories. Pens and paints may have emerged in a religious context, used by one group of people, and their initial use by other groups in other contexts was undoubtably fraught. But to think of them as 'religious technology' seems ridiculous to us, and would have done little to further their successful adoption.

I wonder if we are tripping over categories in just the same way around what we call the consumerisation of technology. So, a couple of recent examples from Gartner analysts. Nick Jones' very fine blog talks of "consumer devices" and "consumer platforms" in highlighting iPhone Exchange / Activesync problems. Similarly, Mark McDonald talks of "consumer-based technology increasingly [becoming] a consumer tool".

Both are, of course, highlighting real issues. I just wonder for how long the distinction between 'consumer technology' and 'business technology' will be sustainable - and whether making the distinction is already counter-productive. Certainly it must surely increase the risk of opportunities being ignored or written off, because they rely on technology from the 'wrong' category.

Moral Business, Enabling Laws

An interesting discussion with a group of IT leaders last week, about sourcing partnerships. The question being discussed was how we can make them genuine partnerships in nature, not just in name. I was really struck (and encouraged) by the group's belief that this was not only desirable but that it was possible too - albeit not necessarily in every situation.

Emerging from the discussion was the conviction that relationship lies at the heart of how this can be done. If partnership is to be real, then it will be underpinned by a relationship of trust. This means (obviously) that the contract is not what makes a partnership really work - although a bad contract can wreck it. Thus the contract's role, in reality, is to define outcomes, to lessen the likelihood of things going wrong, and to address what happens when something does go wrong.

Trust is a moral term. As I form a view about whether or not I will choose to trust someone, I am making (at least in part) a moral judgement about their character and likely behaviour -based on my perceptions. I may form a low view, and still choose to trust them, but I'm making a moral assessment, none the less. The same applies to organisations. The obvious, and non-controversial, conclusion is that business has a moral dimension. I note, though, that relationship, necessitating the forming of moral judgements, is desirable, and a key for success in sourcing.

At a bit of a tangent, admittedly, this resonates with questions about the nature of law. I suggested that sourcing contracts are there to stop things going wrong, and to address the situation if they do. That's a classic view of what laws are for - and one that relies on agreement re right and wrong (or on the ability of one group to impose their view on the whole). I find it interesting that we seem increasingly to be passing laws to enable behaviour, rather than restrain it (eg The Human Fertilisation & Embryology Act of 2008) - and we're doing so in areas where agreement is far from uniform. That troubles me.

Jobs vs Flash: Just which battle has Apple won?

I read with interest Steve Jobs' open letter about Flash and why Apple won't use it on iPad, iPod and iPhones. Well constructed is the least one could say about it. It's been followed by a WSJ interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, summarised on WSJ blogs. Both are well considered by Charles Arthur on Technology Guardian - here on Jobs' letter, and here on the Narayen interview.

It posed two questions for me. The first is 'has Apple won this battle?' My bet is yes. And I think this has at least as much to do with the time Adobe seems to be taking to bring fully-featured Flash to mobile platforms, as to do with Apple's behaviour. Will Flash be as key on mobile devices as it has been on desktops and laptops? Don't think so.

But the second, and more interesting question, is exactly which battle has Apple won? Is it just about Flash on mobile devices? I suspect not. Here's the hypothesis:

• Mobile device (smartphones, tablets, media players, etc) uptake, I think, is growing faster than desktop and laptop, and will continue to do so
  
• So, mobile devices account for larger and larger shares of use, and begin to set the direction, rather than desktop / laptop devices. We'll see (five years? ten?) a time when mobile establishes the pattern and desktops and laptops follow. Already there are signs of this in user interfaces and application design.
  
• At the same time, and symbiotically, consumerisation of IT proceeds apace. So, developments in consumer technology point the way for corporate computing. Think about it - Apple vs Adobe in setting consumer technology standards relating to media. Make a call.

So, the battle Apple has won (or the war it is winning) is surely against Flash overall. Note that most of Jobs' arguments don't apply to mobile devices alone. If this is true, then there are implications for the corporate IT world too. This includes how long we go on using Flash for web applications.

But, that's only part of it. Apple's strategy for corporate penetration seems very different from (say) 20 years ago. Then it was about attempting to demonstrate that the Mac was a better solution for the corporate desktop - I remember a KPMG-produced analysis arguing that the Mac had better corporate connectivity than the PC, for example. Now, the strategy includes ensuring that there is a foundation for integration with eg Exchange, but the battle is fundamentally being fought elsewhere. The pattern I see is Apple fuelling and riding the wave of technology consumerisation and then surfing it all the way to the corporate desktop (and perhaps more importantly, whatever follows on from 'desktop').

So, watch how this one plays out. It's about much more than iPhone apps and browser functionality.

A World Without Secrets (Part One)

So, Gordon Brown has been caught saying one thing publicly, and another in private. That's a bad day for him - both because of the displayed disparity between public and private, but also because the private comment was unjustified.

Integrity has sometimes been defined as the absence of any difference between public and private person - and I get that. I want to be the same person in public as I am in private. On that basis, Brown got it badly wrong.

On the other hand, I know that I don't live up to this, not by a long way. I therefore find it far easier to identify with Gordon Brown in his frustration, his fault and his apologising than I do with George Osborne who said:

"We have found out the prime minister's internal thoughts... and I think they speak for themselves ... What people will see is the contrast between what he was saying publicly and what he was saying privately"

It must be nice to be as confident about your own behaviour as that - or perhaps he's being a tad hypocritical? I'm with Nick Clegg who told Radio 4's PM programme:

"If we all had recordings of what we mutter under our breath we'd all be crimson with embarrassment... Gordon Brown has now gone out of his way to apologise. He was quite right to do so, and I think that's that."

Good on him. We really do live in a World Without Secrets.

Unwritten Rules

So, there's an unwritten rule that you shouldn't blog in your 52nd year. Because it's unwritten, I think I'm the only person that knows about it. Well, that's my excuse for not posting for a year.

What have I learnt during this silence?

• Blogs can continue to resonate - one ex-colleague, reading my blog in March this year didn't notice posts were 12+ months old, and said he liked them. I suspect it's a bit like stopped clocks being right twice a day.
• An increasing proportion of the insight I come across is in blogs - which sets a higher threshold for me subscribing, but means blog results are a much bigger part of business-related searches. Sets a higher threshold if I expect anyone to read anything I write. And I like some corporate blogs too.
• It was all too good to last. The Obama Car Wash on the Cowley Road is now The Only One car wash - I suspect this is about disillusionment with the president rather than a car wash with messianic pretensions - but, on the other hand, this is the Cowley Road.
• Having a daughter marry can be a wonderful experience
• Establishing a network that works both online and offline is immense fun - and that CIOnet appears to remain the only international online and offline network for CIOs and IT leaders. You're not a member yet? I think we're doing something a bit different, and of real value. Contact me for more

So, there's another unwritten rule about blogging in your 53rd year. I'll follow that one.

The Mail, the messenger, the media

There seems general agreement that the Mail's 'Facebook could raise your risk of cancer' headline was even more ridiculous than the 'Social websites harm children's brains' one that rapidly followed it. Certainly the Mail's reporting wasn't terribly nuanced (in a blog I have to tell you that I'm understating). Much of the response was well argued, and engaged with the topic amirably (eg Jackie Ashley) - but much also seemed no more nuanced and no less ridiculous than the Daily Mail pieces themselves.

A few things struck me. First, the strength of feeling this topic generates - the first comment on this post arrived when all I'd posted (accidentally) was a title I'd abandoned by the time the comment arrived. The risk is that I leap to my own position without actually listening to what's being argued. Certainly I came across that.

Second, and linked to this, we tend to shoot the messenger. The fact that the piece was in the Daily Mail instantly rendered it poisonous for some. Now, I don't much like the Daily Mail, but neither do I much like some of the stances and weak arguments I find in the paper I read every day. I read it because of the quality of much of its writing, not because it agrees with me. There were a lot tweets and blogs that merely focused on the author's well-established dislike (however justifiable) of the Mail, and seemed to use that to avoid engaging with the underlying argument.

Third, I'm struck by the "either / or" nature of much of the comment. So, maybe it's not that kids go out less because they spend time on Facebook OR that they spend time on Facebook because they go out less. Maybe both are true, mutually reinforcing. Maybe social media allow us to connect and interact in truly valuable ways previously impossible, AND, maybe there could be downsides as well. Seems ironic to me that media that have arisen with post-modernity (both / and) are used so extensively to promote modernist perspectives (either / or).

Finally, as a number of pieces highlighted, research is ongoing in this area, and it's complex. But you don't have to look hard to identify research that points to changes about which we might at the least be ambivalent. So, for example, research suggests Generation Y prefers to use blogging, texting, and IM in preference to the face to face and telephone communication preferences of preceding generations. We also know that communications effectiveness is highly dependent on non-verbal elements and tone of voice (the 7%-38%-55% rule). Put these together and we have workforces that are increasingly able to connect and communicate widely and rapidly (good), but who prefer to use communications media that are less effective for communicating emotion, lack of congruence, and nuance (bad). It's both / and again.

What do I want to learn? Like much of the above, it's pretty obvious. Work hard to engage with arguments, neither trumpeting my established positions, nor shooting the messenger. Recognise the potential for 'both / and' positions. And go gentle on the social media revolutionaries. Chesterton spoke sense: "The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." I find it very easy to be wrong about both.

What do names say?

Following on from the previous post about positioning, I like the Obama Car Wash in Oxford's Cowley Road.  "Can we make the alloy wheels shine and get that difficult muck out of the door sills?  Yes we can."  Makes me wonder about competing car washes, though.  What would you expect from the Sarkozy Car Wash; the Brown Car Wash; even the Berlusconi Car Wash?  Perhaps not.  Sarah Palin used to own a car wash.

Main theme here, though, is positioning and naming around money.  There seems general agreement that one of the causes of the economic crisis is greed - specifically the pursuit of money for its own sake.  The idea that we'd let the desire for (easy) money grip us as a society is an idea that people now entertain as possible, even if they don't fully agree.  There are eloquent posts from consumer and business perspectives, arguing that there's got to be more than getting and spending money.  

Just to be clear, I love what you can do with money - whether that's securing a home and a level of comfort for my family; accessing the arts, sport, holidays, food and drink; or giving it away to effect change where it's needed.  I understand that without money life can be much more difficult.  But I'm also aware of the pull of money - that it can hold you and grip you, whether you have plenty or little.  

So it's from these perspectives I react to the Motley Fool's new web site for consumer finance - lovemoney.com.  It's there "to help you build a relationship with your money". 

 But I don't want a love relationship with my money.  I'm intrigued that the lovemoney blog talks about ensuring that its name had to fit with company values - (not spelt out, but not previously about "loving money", I think).  And what are we to make of the the little heart in the logo?  Seems to me the obvious implication is that this is a site about loving money - albeit with a logo that brings a light touch to it.

I don't get why you would choose this name.  "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil and some by longing for it have ... pierced themselves with many griefs".  That (from the Bible) seems more obvious that it's been in ages, and in our post-Christian culture is a quotation that still resonates.

I exchanged e-mails with Saul Devine - MD at The Fool.  Much credit to him for a thoughtful and generous engagement (in line with how I think of The Fool).  The gist of his response was that the literal meaning of the name is not the intent of the service, and that the brand messages inherent in the site are contrary to the more negative associations of the name.  He stresses that the service is about responsibly handling money - and I've always found it to be that.

But surely that just means the name is wrong?  In naming a business or a service would you not work hard to avoid names that point your customers in the wrong direction?  Would you not avoid names with associations that your site had then to overcome?  Yes, I get the potential for ironic naming; yes, I understand the potential for whimsy, for ambiguity, for attracting attention.  But this still seems a very strange choice to me.

Just to be clear I normally like the Fool's content a lot.  I find it helpful - and reckon it lives up to the 'wise fool' stance pretty well.  But I'm likely to visit a site called lovemoney.com less frequently - because I just don't want to love money.  

The point of this - not to beat up on The Fool - but that names matter.