Work

business & working

Anniversaries

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June sixth is my first anniversary of being a free agent – Jarche Consulting is one year old today.
Of course, a far more important anniversary is the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Given my own military background, I would be remiss in also remembering those brave soldiers in the 1st Canadian Infantry Division who continued to fight in Italy through 1944; sometimes known as the D-Day Dodgers. Here are two verses from the song "The D-Day Dodgers", sung to the tune of Lili Marlene:

We are the D-Day dodgers out here in Italy
Drinking all the vino, always on the spree,
We didn’t land with Eisenhower
So they think we’re just a shower.
For we’re the D-Day dodgers out here in Italy.

If you look around the mountains, in the wind and rain
You’ll find the scattered crosses, some which bear no name.
Heartbreak and toil and suffering gone,
The boys beneath them slumber on.
They are the D-Day dodgers who’ll stay in Italy.

God bless you all.

Keep It Simple

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Jay Cross talks about focusing performance improvement efforts on "worker effectiveness improvement, not KM" [knowledge management]. More and more people are disillusioned with large-scale KM, document management and ERP efforts, that force workers to comply with an imposed structure. I remember delaying the use of Goldmine in my last job, because I had my own system, and really did not want to realign my processes with an imposed one.

Perhaps the reason that blogs are popular, in spite of their limitations, is that they are easy to use, and there is no imposed structure. Many of us believe that our way is the best way, and need proof that doing otherwise would be beneficial. I find that blogging is becoming more and more about building my personal knowledge repository, while staying connected to wide-ranging conversation. As Jay states in his post:

KM should leverage natural processes, not try to change the basic ways things are accomplished.

An organisation’s entire KM effort could start with simple technologies. It could provide a blog to everyone, letting workers blog as they wanted. RSS aggregators could keep an eye on blogs of interest, and maybe even a blog rating system could included in the performance management system. Yes, the better writers would get better rankings, but so would those who solve problems. A bottom-up approach to KM, at a minimal cost, makes a lot more sense than betting that some centralized system, with a huge training bill, will solve all of our problems.

Oil and Silicon

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Rob Paterson talks about a new energy strategy, and our dependence on oil. His post specifically addresses the idea of energy self-sufficiency on Prince Edward Island. Rob cites Stephen Roach, on our oil economy:

In my view, the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìtrue?¢‚Ǩ¬ù shock probably comes with $50 oil. A sustained increase to that level for 3?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú6 months would represent a surge of more than 70% above the post-2000 average ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù on a par with fullblown oil shocks of the past. The recession call probably wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be too far behind in that instance.

Will increasing energy costs drive a boom in virtual work, virtual learning and virtual communities? Will it be the next oil crisis that finally proves John Chambers (CEO Cisco) correct with his often quoted statement that e-learning will make e-mail look like a rounding error? The Chinese demand for oil will ensure that we will continue to live in interesting times.

The Beginning of the End of Work

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Rob Paterson, a very interesting person who writes some of the best articles in the blogosphere, talks about the end of work as we know it. This is a recurring theme for me, as I’ve worked in very large bureaucracies, dot coms, and a university. Basically, it’s getting easier to be a free agent. Rob sums up the advantage of hiring a free agent versus a corporate consultant:

This then raises the larger issue of the erosion of the corporate ownership of tools and processes. Even lowly me has an office equipped way beyond most corporate counterparts. We have not only 2 PCs but 2 iBooks, a La Cie backup and all the peripherals. I can produce documents and do research that only a few years ago would have taken several people. Now I can do it all at home or on the road. Talking about on the road: I am even spared Hotel costs. I have family houses where I can stay for free in all the major cities in Canada and in London and Amsterdam. If pushed, I could stay with friends in many other places. My clients get my full attention and they do not hire the big guy and then have all the work done by a kid. They get all of me.

The free agents that I work with all give real value for their fees. We all know that we are only as good as our last project, and that one bad referral could be the end of our business. We are all focused, but constantly exploring the peripheries, without office politics to distract us. Personally, I’m working twice as hard, for half as much, but when it’s my work for a valued client it’s really satisfying. However, I have more time to read and explore because my boss lets me.

When you engage a free agent there is no hype, no marketing mumbo jumbo about "leading edge technologies, providing enhanced human capital return on investment". We just solve problems, or do work that you don’t have the time or staff to do. You get our full attention, and we do ALL of the work. Not a bad deal.

Collaboration by Jay Cross

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Jay Cross has made his ASTD 2004 presentation notes for "Collaboration Supercharges Performance" available, as well as the link to the entire 87 minute presentation in Macromedia Breeze. I have enjoyed all of Jay’s Breeze presentations, and the audio quality is excellent. It’s great to see this sharing of ideas made so easy for those of us not able to attend ASTD.

Looking for Stories on Learning Outsourcing

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Hal Richman and Eilif Trondsen from SRI Business Consulting Intelligence are writing a series of three articles for ASTD’s Training and Development magazine (Sept-Nov 2004) that build on their recent report on Learning Outsourcing: Strategic Opportunity Perspective.

We are interested in stories, anecdotes from training staff in any organization that has undertaken training outsourcing.

If you have interesting stories that you would like to share, check out the post on Passion4Learning.

Ensemble Collaboration gets Rave Reviews in Washington

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Ensemble Collaboration launched this week and is getting some very good press. The local Atlantic Canadian press of course reported this, but so did the national Globe & Mail. From Canada East:

The degree of acceptance for the product surprised Mr. Watson. One potential customer said he would fly to Fredericton next week to visit with company representatives.
“Honestly, the most frequent question was, ‘How soon can I get it?’ Mr. Watson said. “The opportunities seem to be much greater than we anticipated and the market seems to want to get this sooner rather than later. And that was only the first day.”

It’s good to see some excitement in the business again. Congratulations Ben!

More on ASTD 2004

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The best coverage so far on ASTD 2004 is from e-Clippings. These posts include an overview of Harold Stolovitch’s session, quoting Harold on the definition of "technology":

Technology is the application of organized and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.

This is the correct definition of technology when applied to Human Performance Technology [my field] – which is NOT about information technology, but solving problems in an applied way.