gordon is human too

After World War II, New Zealand donated two wooden dispatch boxes to the UK Parliament.  One of these boxes is used by Gordon Brown as a lectern. Black ink marks have been appearing on the box and the article on Stuff and elsewhere suggests it was a surprise that it turned out to be the pen of the PM causing the damage. They even managed to report a quote from some official announcing “Of course, we can’t say anything.” Really? Why not? He may not even know he’s doing it. Is it really better to have this reported in the media instead? For goodness sake, he’s human, try talking to him.

i <3 iphone

Today I made a little purchase and am now the proud owner of an iphone. I’m a touch-screen girl from way back so it suits me down to the ground. I almost forgot to have dinner I was so enthralled with setting it up.

But, Vodafone, honestly, how paranoid are you? I had to sign an extra DIY form promising not to hack the thing. For all the other licensing agreements you have to click to agree to as you set the thing up do they really need that extra scappy piece of paper signed by me. Apple must have them running scared.

your screen is not my screen

The last presentation to note from the 8th Annual Strategic Intranet Summit is Greg Comfort’s. The three things to remember were: mind your assumptions, get staff involved and evolution not revolution.

His point about assumptions were ably demonstated by the use of a loan laptop. It didn’t have the font he’d carefully chosen and defaulted to Arial or something similar. The scale was wrong and not the look he’d been going for. It is so true, you can never know how many different ways people will find to do things. I remember visiting the desktop of a colleague who always commented they could never find the intranet no matter how carefully they typed the URL.  It turned out they’d been typing it in to Google, not the adress bar.

Getting staff involved – make the intranet something they need and want to use. Give them a way to interact – updating profiles, sharing photos. I liked one idea – showing what other people are searching for/using on the intranet - I like the idea of seeing what is the most commonly used. 

Lastly avoid the big launch – smaller incremental changes are better. Boy do I know that one from personal experience.

a fully clothed Mike

Last time I saw Miramar Mike speak at a conference he took his clothes off on stage. Mike is talking about web 2.0. His talk came down to two main things, it is all about being open – sharing data/content and it is all about the people – not the technology.

There were some quotes to amuse: 

Search is just a box with a button labelled search – Google has raised expectations ridiculously.

Mike’s talk was a good reminder of the fears and misconceptions people can have – every wiki is not wikipedia, and the edit button can be frightening – you want to participate but fear getting it wrong. 

He also made me reflect on my web 2.0 life, I blog, I twitter, I re-blog on tumblr, I post photos to flickr, I’m on Facebook and Linked-in, save articles/sites to del.icio.us and have been known to edit items on wikipedia. What I can’t figure out is what I filled my time with before the internet existed…

make the pencil disappear

Joker

The presentation which has had the biggest impact on me is Michael Sampson’s.  He managed to get many Dark Knight metaphors into his talk and even mentioned Mamma Mia. The one I liked the best was the comment that just like the Joker, intranets should make the pencil disappear. I must admit I was sitting there thinking ouch, that’s one gruesome metaphor. If you haven’t seen the Dark Knight, well, google it but it isn’t pleasant. Anyway, the intranet aspect, with a whole lot less violence is that we shouldn’t have it filled with forms which have to be printed out, filled out by hand and delivered somewhere. The thing is, although I may screw my face up when I think about it, I won’t forget that in a hurry.

Michael managed to weave the latest incarnation of the Batmobile into his talk too.   He talks about: Capability, Possibility, Applicability, and Changeability.  He uses the transformation of the Batmobile to the Batbike to illustrate this.

On the matter of change Michael notes that people hate change being done to them, but usually are happy to change themselves as they like to improve.  I’ve thought about this one before in organisations.  So often change is dictated from the top and managers declare how fond they are of change and how change is good for you. If you have control over how much change and when I think it makes all the difference. It comes down to who has the power and control of the change situation. 

At the beginning and end of his presentation Michael showed us some images and asked us to think about what they meant. The images were of earphones, a person using a laptop, TV screens and a fourth I can’t remember.  After a few different guesses the room got to the realisation they were all to do with isolation.  Thirty-five years ago there were more commonly shared experiences with those around you. You probably all watched the same thing on TV the night before (if you had a TV). If a family listened to music they proabably all listened to the same record. These days everyone is doing their own thing, the chances of those physically closest to you have common experiences is more remote yet of course with the internet it is easier to find someone on the opposite side of the world.

it depends

Dale Hartle’s presentation left me with a quote I’d love to put up on the wall – there’s no room for it depends in business processes.  Porirua City Council are in the process of moving to a one stop shop for customer enquiries and putting in place the tool their staff need to deliver a consistent service.  Processes have been mapped and are served up in a template form then arranged so everyone can find them.  Dale got involved with the project right from the start so was able to develop a template from the beginning rather than have  someone else come up with something which wouldn’t translate so easily to the web.

Dales’ performance also highlighted the importance of being passionate about the topic you’re presenting on. Her PPT wasn’t the flashest but she had the personal energy and content so it made for an engaging presentation.  He had one other key ingredient – the ability to tell a story. Her use of photos and quotes from people brought her topic to life.

do bees scare you?

If you are an elephant you will have answered yes to that.  Yes, really, its true. Honestly, just go google it then come back and read on. Cairo Walker from Step Two Designs told us the story of her work with WWF.  Boy am I jealous of the places she’s travelled to with that job. Cairo talked about collaboration and what her work has shown you need to make collaborative work a reality.  She listed 6 things: serendipity, relationships, compelling need, emotional engagement, remove barriers, and experience.  As I listened to her speak I think three things dominate – the compelling need, a way to communicate and people. Serendipity certainly played an important part in her story but for me that comes back to the people aspect, take an interest in those you meet and find a way to connect.

So what’s all this got to do with Elephants being afraid of bees? Cairo spoke about and African village having trouble with elephants entering their village. Strategically placed beehives removed the problem. With her travels, Cairo discovered someone in India having a similar problem and looking for a solution and Cairo put the two people in touch.

UPDATE  In the hour or so since I wrote this the serendipity aspect has been bugging me. Making discoveries by accident.  I’ve been having a philosophical discussion with myself and I just can’t entirely accept the role of serendipity in collaboration.  I believe the choices you make create the oppotunities you get.  I have to think of serendipity as a “nice to have” but the need, people and way to communicate as essential.

8th annual strategic intranet summit

I’ve just spent two days immersed in all things intranet.  I was lucky enough to get a free pass and I almost didn’t go. I’m pleased I did as I met some really interesting people.  On the whole, most of the presentations were interesting too.

My fascination with trends in presentations means I just have to start with that. There were plenty of movie clips (but no popcorn), a definite reduction in the numbers of words on slides and a few more people are managing to work audience participation into their presentations.  The idea of telling a story is also becoming more than norm than the rare breath of fresh air it used to be.

I contemplated blogging from the conference but I wasn’t sure if there’d be wifi and I didn’t think there’d be free wifi like there is at webstock.  Besides, a day later I find it interesting which presentations have stuck and which ones I barely remember.

The 2 days were ably chaired by Dorje McKinnon and he managed to make an impression from the start. In introducing himself and his role he put up an image of Mao. Uh huh I thought, this conference has a sense of humour and that relaxed me.

I’ll do separate posts on the presentations which stuck as I get time over the next couple of days.

stop reminding me to tag off already

Grrrr, as more and more passengers move to snapper it is really starting to grate.  Between the bubble noise and the reminders to tag off, I want to kick the snapper reader on my way off the bus.  Surely they can turn this off or down?

And yet again the number 14 timetable is on some other planet. Tonight the 6.20 arrived packed to capacity at 6.30 and didn’t stop.  Well, there was no room for anyone else so I’m sort of pleased it didn’t stop but it was raining and freezing cold so it added to my grumpiness. The 6.36 finally arrived at 6.45 but thankfully just had enough room for the frozen passengers who’d arrived just after the 6.03 left early. We need another bus during this time – it is ridiculous. The time it takes for the bus to shuffle and regurgitate its load before finally spitting out passengers at the bus stops as it travels through the suburbs is only adding to the delays.

And what makes me maddest of all?  Seeing all the 43 and 44 buses drive past practically empty during this time. Can’t we steal one of those for the 14 route instead?

trial by media or trial by jury

In any story there are going to be two sides.  Reputable media will try their best to cover both sides.  Sometimes they fail as one side wont talk.  No-one likes being sued so the major papers tend to be pretty sure of their facts before putting something all over the front page.  A newspaper needs to make money though and there are only so many “saved cat” stories they can publish.  They need to hunt out the good, the bad and the simply odd in the world. 

The newspapers need to find some aspect to the story with which the reader can identify.  When that story is a private one, a relationship gone bad, potentially silly actions carried out on both sides as a result how do you make it something the country wants to read about?  Well obviously it helps if you throw in a celebrity.  Better still if you can manage to attach it to a social ill.

So now Veitch has been charged and suddenly his former colleagues are referring to him as “Mr Veitch”, no more matey matey Veitchy any more.  I still don’t understand why he said anything when the story broke and I wonder if the story would have had less fuel without his words.  The other party has remained silent.  All we see of her is the same smiling photo.   Veitch is in a no win situation, whatever he did or didn’t do and whatever the circumstances his story has attracted the social ill of domestic violence.  So now he has to fight the charges and the public preconception.  An the media – how much effort are they putting into the other side of the story?