Finding the chase and cutting to it

but not many companies are comfortable taking the approach Google has or indeed IBM…

Indeed, at the moment, many companies are so busy trying to balance reorganisation against redundancies and making money against keeping old customers happy and new ones to your door.

 Where you have very large companies, there are often people who see better ways of doing something (e.g. expenses, time management, media production, community building) and often take the initial first steps to making that change, maybe to a paper, or even a prototype.

This is then the basis for their elevator pitch which they can demo until, within the company, they find a sponsor.  Initial development can then be funded and it can be released, a programme of support built round it and such ideas are then proper, supported and aligned projects.

Hey, I thought things had moved on a bit since then

they have, but funding models have not.  When Gary Hamel talks about needing a different way of motivating and enabling people in the creative economy (please don’t laugh, the economy is out there, whatever shape it is in), how can these, often small, projects be meaningfully funded?

Often these ideas and tools have the potential to form your operational tool set, your knowledge repositories and the means of accessing them, or ways of making the processes works as efficiently as possible.

These ideas may even form your next product catalogue.

How to support the ideas

at the moment, enabling your team, indeed your company, to be as agile as possible and be able to reward those with the potentially great ideas is not easy.  The space to gamble feels restricted to the few with the right ear.

Why not give each person in your organisation some “support credits” (I’m waiting for a better name)? In a large organisation these could be around 10 credits per person.

These can support anything: from a set of web pages that support a process to a video service to a search tool to a new way of looking at the filing.

When someone uses such a tool, they can support it by paying the team who run it one of their “support credit”.  (Think micro payments, an internal version of paypal supporting an individual to do a particular job).

So

OK, lots of the small things that make a huge difference need machine space to run on, need people to originally do the idea and then keep it alive.

Often, this work is unseen in a larger organisation and when changes are needed the original team can no longer support the item because they have had their prorities changed and no-one saw this as being a big thing.

I still don’t get it

OK, if this idea has consistently got, say 1000 credits, it’s not a small thing to a group of people in your company, indeed either 1000 people have paid 1 credit each or 100 have paid 10 each – so to them it’s important, either to a 1/10 of their “support” budget to 100% of it.

Maybe your organisation could not support actual cash going towards this piece but it’s obviously a key thing.

And now, not only do those “supporters” know it, but so do the team in question and everyone in the organisation.

But no-one will do any proper work

Fair point.  This is where group policy comes in: prioritisation and focus.  “Support credit” work needs to be correctly assessed and plans built around them.

Do this, and the effect may be survival of the fittest applications (imagine if your expenses system received no “Support credits”) and evolution of tool sets for no external expediture.  It could allow for organic growth of powerful tools  (viral comms) and a low cost way of recognising who comes up with these ideas.

I broke my arm three weeks ago, you already know that.

I’m not saying it’s been easy, in fact of the first two weeks, I was in quite a bit of pain. It’s not uncommon for a distal radial fracture to become dislocated and that happened to me.  So, the bone was fixed in place with some K wires.

Yet, I’ve learnt a lot. How to dictate, tie a bow with one hand (I mean a bow as in a shoelace and not a bowtie), how to open bottles and packets, use taps and other things. Humans are very adaptable. But I am so looking forward to getting my hand back.

I’m looking for to be able to type, drive, ride my motorbike, have a proper bath – you know with water touching my skin, and not having to think that doing things.

I did think not being up to work would be awful: I’m not exactly capable of doing anything independently. I’ve actually enjoyed the break. If I’m not working, I don’t need as much money to live, which is a real eye opener. If I were fully functional, would I have enjoyed it as much?

I woke up on Saturday, 18 April, really looking forward to the day.  Orwell’s was having an open day and after that I was looking forward to going solo ride before meeting up with my family.  My son was going to his friends party and I was looking forward to hearing all about it.

The sun was shining and I was meeting my family at Orwell’s.  I got there early, met some friends, looked at the bikes and had a good time.  My son and husband turned up a little later.  They had some lunch and then left.  So Kenneth could tend his friend’s birthday party.

Originally, I hadn’t planned on going to the roller disco my son’s friend was having at a local sports centre.  It was such a nice day; I really missed my family.  So I decided to meet them at the sports centre.  I got their way too early.  So i having quite a great for I could see the cake arrived: the cake looked amazing.  It was such a lovely day, I just enjoyed the sun.

I chose quite quickly to help out, but wasn’t really sure what I could do. As the children got their skates on, it was obviou that some of the children could skate and then some didn’t really know how to skate, some had some experience a while ago and they were not used to the skates.

So I decide to help a couple of the children.  They have been left on their own, mostly because they could basically skate, they just lacked confidence.  I realised I was saying is really easy: you just lean forward, bend the knees, don’t fall over.  It had been years since I had skated and I really fancied having a go at it.  I looked at my husband, said what I was thinking.  “Ask then,” said Jon.

We were having a good time

I asked the lady if I could have a pair of 5 1/2 they only had sixes so I tried them.  They weren’t great, a little big on the left foot, but they did.  I’d never used skates were with breaks before; it’s a strange.  In the end, I never used the brake, as I wasn’t sure how to.  Stopping was a little awkward, I was managing: sitting down on the chase was worth.  I found it quite tiring John Waite got me a Coca-Cola which is really nice.  Jon also put on some skates.  He was dancing to the music, he looked awesome.  After while when all the kids are skating well, actually I should mention the birthday girl skating shoes really good, a limbo was set up so the children could skate under the bar.

Personally I thought this was beyond my the capability.  Then again Jon was awesome and managing it with ease.  Well, he made it look easy to me.  I still wasn’t keen.  It looked tricky to me.  And I was enjoying going round in circles.  My little boy was getting quite tired and I kept him company but felt I was cramping his style, and he should be enjoying his friends.

The limbo has been getting lower and lower which made it less accessible to me.  They suddenly put it up far fewer children seemed be using it, so I fancied my chances.  A full good run up, and I could clear it.

So that’s why did. In fact, my head hit the bar while I was shifting trying to clear it.  Because I was going so fast I got pushed backwards and as I was falling I thought I got three choices here:

1. hit my head
2. land my bum
3. put out my hand

Webwise, I have a terrible name. No part is unusual: Watkins is 131st in the list of UK surnames) and Sam is often a shortening of many forenames. So basically, webwise, it’s a waste of space.

But there are worse things than a common combination.

Sam Watkins was a soldier in the Confederate army and has a wikipedia entry.  I am not pitching for a wikipedia entry, I’m just saying, I am not necessarily an easy person to find on the web.

I’m also a realtor in Florida (if only) and there’s a country singer who appears in Cambridge, although she is a Samantha (I’m not).

So, privately and where possible at work, I am Sam J. In a multicultural UK that occasionally causes some confusion, but on the web, it means I am fairly differentiated.

Does this matter: I’m not sure. In marketing terms, being unique is very important but there are definitely times when being on a quiet blog somewhere is pretty good. 🙂

I’ve been working on my presence the past few weeks.  I did a presentation in the University of Nottingham which went down reasonably.  Which is good, it was my first one for AGES outside of my company.

I’ve one coming up at the end of April too.  I feel reasonably relaxed about these at the moments and I think this is because life isn’t sequential.

I code for a living and enjoy it – I like solving problems and making life better and coding enables me to do that to some degree.

So, I’ve written a small, very basic video sharing site in my company.  But I am not allowed to do anymore work on it :-O.

This is a dilemma – what’s there is fine, but it’s lacking two things that would make it really useful.  I’ve put the first one in surreptitiously, which I’m not supposed to have done.  The other is going to take some major work – which means finding a different way of approaching the problem.

This is way more important in my brain than a presentation I need to do in a couple of weeks time.

Not convinced I have my priorities right!

The new Honda Insight is a clever hybrid offering low tax costs and high fuel efficiency and lower emissions.

My first bike, better fuel efficiency than a Honda Insight and same tax group. Slightly less room for luggage and passengers though 🙂

And I’m really disappointed.  It’s a pretty car, enough room for four people and the same tax band as a 125cc motorbike (that’s £15 to you and me) but to be honest I can’t see me ever getting one.

Which is a shame really.  I drive or ride a 30 mile round trip during the week.  It’s mostly on dual carriage way and takes me about 25-35 minutes on a normal day.  If I used the Insight for this journey it would engage the electric motor for a whole 6 minutes.

At work, there are electric power sockets which, with the Insight I can’t make use of and the car is between £15-19K with a tiny boot.  It’s just not worth the expense for me.

And the tech isn’t that new – a good small engined car with a fibre glass body would be a much better option environmentally speaking and easier to maintain.  (Oh dear, I’ve just described a Smart car! Seriously though..)

So I wish Honda had spent the launch money on this car on pairing up with a fuel distributor in the UK and brought over it’s Califonian launched FCX Clarity used.  Given the current situation, I think that would have been a worth while thing to do rather than a car which isn’t actually very useful and is going to be out of date in five years.

I should say I didn’t test drive the Insight and it did look very nice.  Just not better or more environmentally better than a second hand diesel or small, light petrol driven car.

For me, the decision is usually made by answering a simple question: What benefit do I get if I upgrade?

I am not actually that good at answering what harm may the upgrade do. The only time I have been badly caught out by this is with my own personal wiki.

I used mediaWiki as my primary wiki tool. This is for a great many reasons but the thing I really love about it is the ease of producing beautifully rendered mathematical formulae.

I have happily been upgrading from version 11.1 to 13.2 – 13.3 brought a very nasty surprise – SimpleSecurity stopped working! 🙁

SimpleSecurity is a lovely way of handling permissions on singular pages – which is perfect for a document producing tool or a collaborative tool where, perhaps, you’d like the opportunity to get something to a certain stage before presenting to the world. I always feel that SimpleSecurity gave something the blog world has had for a long time – a scratch area which may be shared before going public with a more polished version.

This has all gone. So watch out before making that upgrade – check the pluggins you love can make the grade in the new environment.

WH Auden called the postwar times the age of anxiety but I am wondering in we’re living in a time of downright fear.

The news has been talking of impeding recession (as an asside, I love the facebook group,  ”

I absolutely refuse to participate in a recession“) and as a result, shock, horror, gasp, pub closures are on the increase!

Whether large business or employee, everyone seems to be cowering and waiting for everything to pass.  Which is making things worse.

I am not saying everyone should rush out and make a huge purchase but the actions taken by the more savy governments seem to have stop the banks going down the pan.  (Politically I am not sure the right thing has been done longer term, but I do think this has meant things are still a float).

I’ve had friends complain that as they have no debt and loads of investments which are now worth nothing – but you have a house, a job, inflation is in the right direction for and you’re still employed, and young.

I think that’s the biggest surprise – it’s not the older people who are concerned, it’s the 30 somethings who’ve been sorted for a while.  Isn’t that strange?

I live in the UK.  Climate wise, it’s OK, we get to grow most crops and the winters are not too severe and the summers are not at all monotonous!

Snow storms do bring this country to its knees though.  Major routes are focused on as they are a lot easier to manage but that leaves many streets where people live unnavigable.  But that makes sense in terms of logistics – focus on the many and let individuals fend for themselves.

Why don’t we have Snow Duty?  Every 4 years, one in every four house in a street has Snow Duty meaning they have snow and shovels and they are responsible for keeping their street clear.  Part of the package is a reduction in your council tax – so you get paid for your labour and the inconvience, even if you don’t actually have snow that year – the 25% of the population is enough to ensure that injury and illness and plain being away mean the street is covered.  Where people don’t pull their weight their neighbours can complain a system can exist for recouping the money.

This would still leave some minor roads unmanaged but it could really help London and the denser villages in the country.

I (like many others) research web 2.0 and its many forms.

I produce two blogs, run four wikis and have produced various user generated content sites from scratch.

In five years of doing this I am coming to the conclusion that there is no single correct answer for achieving a goal.

Platforms are evolving all the time: I love word-press but I wouldn’t dream of using anything by 2.7.  I love TWiki – a powerful incarnation of the wiki with many powerful tools and my ultimate preference for creating web sites with many contributors (I even formed a company offering consultancy on this) but for small, quick collaborative tool mediaWiki is perfect.

So, there are a lot of great, evolving web tools out there.  Go on, try one a as solution for your problem.