Thoughts and observations on the intersection of technology and business; searching for better understanding of what's relevant, where's the value, and (always) what's the goal ...
Notes from SAPPHIRE 09
Yesterday at work was "catch-up day" from a week at
SAPPHIRE 2009, the annual user conference for SAP. As with the
JDA/Manugistics conference earlier this year, there were concerns that attendance was going to be low, because so many companies are limiting travel expense. At the conference, I did hear that attendance was only was 60% lower than last year.
Conferences like this are great opportunities for IT to do a ton of learning - about the specific technology, of course, but also about the state of mobile computing and collaboration, tools that we are apparently trying to get the rest of the business world to adopt. Experiential learning, real-world experience - always better to talk about something that you know works / doesn't work in a practical setting. (No, I don't suggest you replace Quicken with SAP at home, although that might be a growth area for
BbD).
Twitter at a ConferenceI wrote up my trip report / internal blog entry yesterday (Friday), but I was twittering a lot during some of the sessions, so it was an easy write up - I just cut-and-paste from my personal timeline. Using the Blackberry during the conference was a pretty good experience; I could take fairly detailed notes on what was being said - plus, I can throw out passing Tweets on the way. Near-real time knowledge sharing - very nice for folks in the Tweeterverse, watching the information go by.
Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to engage in a Tweet-versation with these client devices; the screen is too small, and you only see what you are typing. I did, however, latch on to the #sapphire09 hash tag to come up with a workable monitoring process. I found that
search.twitter.com presents a
decent RSS feed, one that the Blackberry browser consumes quite nicely. I don't know if this is a "native" RSS reader in the blackberry, but it worked amazingly well - I made a
passing mention of one of the sessions I attended, and someone
asked for more detail - so I ended up
tweeting almost every slide.
ApothekerThe Tuesday morning address by Leo Apotheker started with some doom and gloom about the economy, but that was just a lead-in to SAP's new branding message of promoting "clarity" for the enterprise; making pertinent business information easy to access, easy to see. Some of my tweets from the speech … I clearly (sic) have a different editorial style ...
- Apoetheker starting with the doom and gloom #sapphire09 7:38 AM May 12th
- My inner cynic is subsiding - I actually like the appeal for "clarity" #sapphire09 7:42 AM May 12th
- Are "clear enterprises" like "glass houses"? (Sorry, cynic is back) #sapphire09 7:44 AM May 12th
- Is he about to say sap could have prevented the economic collapse? #sapphire09 7:56 AM May 12th
- Ah, just the story of how goldman sachs did ok because they actively manage risk #sapphire09 7:57 AM May 12th
- We need a simple example of how a manufacturer manages risk #sapphire09 7:58 AM May 12th
- SUGEN KPI Framework for enterprise support - nice focus on transparency #sapphire09 7:59 AM May 12th
- Props - a pretty effective live demo of a blackberry enabled work process #sapphire09 8:03 AM May 12th
- The carbon footprint app looks interesting - this is a recurring theme for recent presentations for me #sapphire09 8:17 AM May 12th
- I think its a harsh. retroactive self criticism when this "speedy query" demo admits that a simple query would take 'weeks' #sapphire09 8:27 AM May 12th
- SRO crowd at presentation for information "dashboards" - yet another recurring topic, still unmet need #sapphire09 1:11 PM May 12th
- Sap guy was apparently unable to say "eat our own dogfood", too closely related to microsoft hhh #sapphire09 1:19 PM May 12th
The most interesting areas of Leo's conversation had to do with the metrics being created by SUGEN (not), a collection of all the national user groups (like ASUG). SAP continues to get lots of pushback from the customer base about their increased support fees, and these metrics are going to allow us all to see how SAP is performing.
Plattner
The Wednesday morning address by Hasso Plattner, one of the founders of SAP and a pretty interesting guy, started out like a technical lecture at engineering school about in-memory databases and columnar data. By the end, it had transitioned to a Business Objects demo and a tool "easy enough that a CEO can use it". Here are some tweets from that speech …
- Hasso on speed [sic] - spotlighting the reams of data and the need for decent access tools #sapphire09 7:44 AM May 13th
- Hasso is very professorial - if it weren't for the subject matter, methinks more would pass on the talk #sapphire09 7:53 AM May 13th
- Ok, reading other #sapphire09 tweets now - is a shoe dropping right now? Re sap and hardware ... #sapphire09 7:57 AM May 13th
- Someone should register spaghettibeforecooking.com #sapphire09 7:59 AM May 13th
- Maybe hasso's point is that clarity / speed yap from yesterday is not smoke and mirrors - solid tech supporting this sales stuff #sapphire09 8:16 AM May 13th
- Insert only - like the old one-write accounting systems - ledgers in pen. Make a mistake, back it out. Complete auditability #sapphire09 8:19 AM May 13th
- Is insert only / read only db stuff analogous to RISC chips? Who needs elegance when you think Real Fast. #sapphire09 8:20 AM May 13th
- Head-snapping shift from professor to jester #sapphire09 8:23 AM May 13th
- Hasso rips on EIE processing (everything in excel) #sapphire09 8:24 AM May 13th
- Oh, I think he just said he is talking about t-rex #sapphire09 8:29 AM May 13th
- Hasso is definitly tech at heart, rips into classic demo style of demo on mini data set #sapphire09 8:30 AM May 13th
- hasso's enthusiasm is honest, like the literate engineer given a moment of exec management's attention #sapphire09 8:34 AM May 13th
- Awesome animated pipeline #sapphire09 8:41 AM May 13th
- Boy he started slow but has he hit stride in last 10 min #sapphire09 8:43 AM May 13th
- Table scans not considered harmful #sapphire09 8:48 AM May 13th
This was pretty interesting technology - high-speed, insert only databases. Not sure what that means for the long term of our existing databases, data warehouses, and hardware. But hey, it's only capital - right?
Elsewhere On the WebPreviously ...- Two observations from SAPPHIRE (April 24, 2007)
- Supply & Demand and Expectations for SAP talent in the US (April 30, 2007)
- Innovation That Matters - Substance Over Style (January 12, 2008)
- Five More Realities for Driving Business Value from Technology (January 30, 2008)
- The Innovation Generation - Communication Styles (April 1, 2008)
- Opportunistic Insights from the RSS Stream (June 5, 2008)
- On the Road: Business Travel, Fall 2008 (October 13, 2008)
- Field Notes: Video Conferencing for Business Conversations (March 22, 2009)
- Five Stages of Twitter Relevance (April 21, 2009)
Technorati Tags: blackberry, collaboration, SAP, sapphire, sapphire09, #sapphire09, technology, twitter
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Third Time's the Charm? Blackberry Bold
I recently had to part ways with my
Blackberry Pearl - some
heartache, I suppose, but time and product innnovation march on. There is a lot to like about the
Blackberry Bold - I am definitely happy to have made the change ...
<aside> ... although my inner conspiracy theorist sees a case of planned obsolescence. Apparently, others have experienced the same problem - a sticky trackball that refuses to scroll down. Try as I may, nothing would improve the situation - and so I was compelled to upgrade. </aside>
- Acceptable Form Factor: Yes, the Pearl was "perfect" because of it's candy-bar size - unlike the classic 7200 series, which felt strange when held up to your ear as a cell phone. Bottom line - the Bold still fits comfortably in jacket, shirt, and pants pockets. Plus, when I'm using it as a phone, I've typically got the Bluetooth headset plugged in.
- QWERTY is Back: You can get used to the predictive typing on the Pearl's compressed, two-letters-to-a-key keyboard, but the Bold's "standard" layout has help reduce my typos considerably (alas, I have to take ownership of misspelings again).
- So That's What WiFi is For ... It didn't register until I connected to my local Tomato to get out to the intarweb - much faster than anything I'd ever seen before, very useful.
- Improved Screen: More real estate really helps here, and the applications are much more useful. Not just the "native" Contacts, eMail, and Calendar clients, but the web browser as well; pages just render better on this thing. I mean, it was usable before, but now it's actually quite effective.
- More Applications: A few more games, big deal - I don't play in meetings anymore. However, there is a wide range of free, Blackberry-aware apps that are really useful - the Google suite, of course, plus Facebook and the Wall Street Journal. I've even re-downloaded Twitterberry, which has made a few updates since I last played with it (trying microblogging again ...)
<aside> I heard of a law firm, touting the effectiveness of their corporate-supported iPhones with enthusiastic praise for the Bloomberg application. "How wonderful", says the barrister, "that we can proactively contact our clients when a story comes across the wires involving their firm". What do they call that app - iAmbulanceChaser? </aside>
- Subtleties that Really Deliver: No, I'm not an iPhone hater - but I have discovered a number of little features - not widely talked about, but spot-on useful - that apparently are not matched in the BBKWT. Face it - the Blackberry is spooky self-aware that it's a phone, first and foremost; open up an eMail, and if a phone number appears in the body, you can click on it to initiate a call. Or start a conversation with Messenger, and click the green phone button - a pop up asks if you want to call the person you are chatting with. Nice.
- My Desktop: I also like the fact that I can add custom folders and rearrange icons, even moving them within these new folders. The home screen gives me space for six icons, so I've got a folder for messaging apps (email, gmail, IM, SMS, and tberry), Internet apps (browser, Google apps, WSJ, Facebook), plus direct licks to calendar, contacts, and Google Maps (my fave application for the handheld).
No, it's not perfect - I don't understand why I can't create shortcuts for my favorite web sites (
Bloglines,
Ping,
Weather Underground, etc.) in the folders - but I can see myself growing more independent from the
luggable [notebook]. If I could only get a decent
VNC client ...
Previously ...- eMail on Blackberry Changes Definition of Acceptable eMail (September 19, 2005)
- My first month with the Blackberry Pearl (February 26, 2007)
- Rare event: Design problems with my Blackberry Pearl (May 24, 2007)
- New Twitter features starting to make things more relevant (June 3, 2007)
- Communication is the responsibility of ... (August 19, 2007)
- Innovation That Matters - Substance Over Style (January 12, 2008)
- The Innovation Generation and User Interfaces (April 9, 2008)
- Stretching Your User Interface Design Muscles (April 16, 2008)
- Finally! Relevant Applications for YouTube and Twitter in the Enterprise! (July 11, 2008)
- On the Road: Business Travel, Fall 2008 (October 13, 2008)
Technorati Tags: blackberry, design, hands on, innovation, productivity, technology, twitter
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Three Dimensions of the Conversation - Millenials and Web 2.0
Three Dimensions of the Conversation - Millenials and Web 2.0
Catching up on some old links - all related to the impact of Web 2.0, and especially the incoming Millennials, on the workplace.
- At internetnews, Kuchinskas has laid out a pretty good summary of concerns about the philosophy of information sharing on the public Internet - this doesn't translate well to many corporate environments (see previously). Most of the article frets about the inevitable introduction of malware to the trusted network, but I think the hidden danger is the possibility of sensitive corporate information getting out. Publicly traded companies especially need to be concerned about this; the distinction between copyrighted artistic expression and corporate intelligence may be lost on those fresh out of college.
- Via Kottke.org, an interesting concept from Kevin Kelly; folks whose professions have been Turing'd (ie. outsourced via computers / technology advances) are generally more open to working with new technologies. This is a bit contrary to my previous post, and it makes sense - they've already been hit by the train once, and are certainly not going to get hit again. Besides, it's fun to extend the list of theories you never thought could be automated (like real-time driving directions) or eliminated (like newspaper classifieds) ...
- ... which leads me to this list (from SEOmoz) of things that the Millennials have never seen. Variations on this theme appear almost every year, the kind of world events or social movements that incoming college freshmen have never experienced. Nice to see one that puts the relative pace of technology change in the same perspective.
- We're finally seeing corporations like IBM and SAP working to add Web 2.0 and mash-up [clown-suit] capabilities into their major products. Another article calls out some research work that IBM is doing with current college students. I thought it was cool because I did some work like that in my senior year on a project sponsored by IBM. We wrote a virtual disk interface for the IBM 370 (yes, I had a PC XT with a mainframe for a floppy disk ...)
- In Computerworld, Thibodeau writes about the introduction of texting into the business world. I have this functionality right now with my Blackberry, and had it in the past running MSN Messenger on the iPAQ - so I know that texting has value to business. However, I don't think you'll get rid of IM for the folks still working at the desktop. I validated this with my teenage daughters - they favor texting because they're not in front of the computer as much as they are walking about with a phone in their pocket. However, I do note that my oldest prefers texting even when she's surfing the web in between social engagements. At best, there will be a nice mix of these styles, and hopefully we'll see e-mail traffic (and useless attachments, Reply All, and unmanageable inboxes) fade away.
There was a recent Q&A thread from LinkedIn Answers on the general topic of managing the Millennials - a representative sample of the three dimensions the topic encompasses:
- Millennials are new elements in a threat matrix
- Consumer technology entering the business
- Communication challenges between the generations
Previously ...
- eMail on Blackberry Changes Definition of Acceptable eMail (September 19, 2005)
- Gee, this social network - presence - IM - knowledge management - collaboration stuff really works (September 25, 2005)
- My first month with the Blackberry Pearl (February 26, 2007)
- Corporate Web 2.0 is Spreading - Here comes the Blog (May 15, 2007)
- Consarned whippersnappers (Generational Diversity) (May 20, 2007)
- The Right Web2.0 Tool for The Job (July 16, 2007)
- The Best Way to get Web 2.0 Into the Enterprise (March 3, 2008)
- The Innovation Generation - Communication Styles (April 1, 2008)
- Why are those Old Programmers so slow in picking up on the Intarweb? (April 6, 2008)
- The Innovation Generation and User Interfaces (April 9, 2008)
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Thoughts During a Power Outage
Thoughts During a Power Outage
I am sitting in the cube outside my office, connected by wireless to our corporate network in an otherwise darkened office. The power is out - started around 3AM, and it is apparently affecting a large area, not just this building.
- Kudos to the infrastructure team that strung up the wireless access points here - thanks for plugging them into the same circuit that is powering the emergency lights. not sure if that was by design or a happy accident, but coupled with notebooks running on their batteries, we have the ability to get some communication of status out to the world.
- Some concerns about battery life, however - I use a Dell Latitude D620, and it is (in my opinion) really poor at power management. I expect to get about 60 total minutes of work out of the thing - kinda sad if you ask me.
- No affect on my Blackberry - I am sending and receiving just fine. If you haven't checked out Blackberry Messenger, I'd look into it - definitely useful for sending out quick updates to key folks.
- Not sure if it would do any good to call folks on my teams re: working from home - zero insight as to when the power will come back on. I just made an entry into my internal blog, so I suppose if they happen to catch that post (or this one!) before they come in, they can give me a shout on the cell phone to let me know if they are coming in. Use best judgement - if you had a meeting scheduled, for example, I would definitely come in, just in case.
- I just spoke to someone who did make it in - another early bird like me. He heard on the radio coming in that this is affecting a big part of the area.
- I tried to Google for a status update, but am not able to find anything. That might be something nice for Commonwealth Edison / Exelon to set up - definitely a shortcut that I would set up on my Blackberry.
- This is definitely a case for Twitter - unfortunately, that's blocked by our network policy.
I'm having a bit of fun here, blogging at near-real time to capture thoughts. Part of continuous improvement and innovation is capturing learnings from any situation, so this is my great experiment on blogs as news delivery (as opposed to spouting opinions / capturing deep thoughts - my regular meme / schtick).
That's all I know at this time ...
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New Twitter features starting to make things more relevant
New Twitter features starting to make things more relevantHere's a new plugin for Firefox that's helpful for my use of Twitter - twitterbar. Yes, there's a number of plugins designed to integrate Twitter with Firefox, but this one seems to work fine. Note that it works better now that I've upgraded to Firefox 2.0 - always a good idea to keep up with your software upgrades.
Also, the good folks at Twitter have completed some nice updates to their mobile site - here's how it looks in my Blackberry browser ...
Click on the picture for a full-size image!
These are the kind of incremental improvements that applications go through until they settle into that comfortable niche of relevant, soon to become in use daily. I will admit I am forcing myself to enter "tweets", but that's because I now see them as adjuncts to my CV page; I'm taking them off of this blog - not sure if they are useful here - but if someone is looking to understand what I'm working on Right Now, that's the place to look.
Technorati Tags: blackberry, twitter, Web 2.0
Labels: blackberry, twitter
Rare event: Design problems with my Blackberry Pearl
Rare event: Design problems with my Blackberry PearlI've finally found a design issue or two with the Blackberry Pearl. That's an accomplishment of a sort - I've written about how I like this thing, it's been quite handy.
However, today I was calling for technical support for something (not the Blackberry ...), and I was prompted by an Automated Voice Response (AVR) system to enter my name using the numbers on the phone. You know the drill ...
|
1
|
ABC
2
|
DEF
3
|
|
GHI
4
|
JKL
5
|
MNO
6
|
|
PQRS
7
|
TUV
8
|
WXYZ
9
|
Unfortunately, these aren't the letter patterns that appear on the Pearl's keys. Oops, er, ummm ...
Luckily, I was in my office, and could look over to a desk phone and do the translation. If I was on the road, however, I'd be out of luck; looks like I'll need to add an item in my MemoPad, in case this ever comes up again.
The second issue is just an annoyance. Our corporate Blackberries must be password protected with forced changes every 90 days. I have no problem with this approach, it's just that the Blackberry software gives no warning when your current password expires. On the regular network, we get a warning that our password will expire in a few days - this lets me schedule a time when it's convenient to think of a new password and note the change. With the Blackberry, I am dead in the water with no warning, and must makeupanew
password on the spot. This is not always convenient ...
Technorati Tags: blackberry
Labels: blackberry
Noisy little Blackberry Pearl
Dave Taylor made a comment on my previous post ...
... One negative that's really bugging me ... is that the Pearl puts out a LOT of RF
interference. Enough that I'm really surprised it got an FCC approval
to be sold, actually. Try it: have your phone near any sort of speaker
system and after a minute or two you'll hear buzzing and other random
noise. It's so bad that I can't have my Pearl on my desk because my
external computer speakers just emit loud buzzes and are darn
distracting. Haven't figured out the range, but it's at least 3-4 feet
but less than 10 feet or so.
Yes, I've absolutely experienced it - for the past 18 months, as we've been rolling out Blackberries where I work, it's been a recurring thing - interrupts meetings when the speakerphone console starts chirping, and everybody reaches to move their 'berries away.
I've become used to it - it's not just Blackberries, even my iPod will throw out some RF intereference at night. Plus, when I need to keep close to my phone / email, I like to keep it next to my bed - and that becomes a tad problematic when the speakers go off at all hours.
However ... now that you mention it, Dave, I believe this might be a relatively recent phenomenon. At my previous employer, on-call 24x7 was pretty much expected of all in IT, and I slept with the Blackberry on the nightstand every night - and I don't ever remember this much RF noise!
[hmmm ... googling ensues ...]
Found the answer - see here , here , and here ... and a short explanation (attributed to RIM) ...
Unfortunately, this "buzzing" is a characteristic that is
unavoidable on any mobile phone that operates in the GSM 850/1900 MHz
range (not just BlackBerry, but all other phones also).
Essentially, whenever the phone transmits or receives on the
850/1900 MHz band any nearby speakers are "excited" and there is an
audible buzzing.
The only suggestion I have to reduce the annoying buzz, is
to keep the BlackBerry handset away from any speakers (or any wires
leading to speakers). So when you set it down on your desk, try putting
it as far away from the speaker as needed (or you can turn off the
speakers when they aren't needed).
This is a trait of the GSM design and not specific to BlackBerry.
Labels: blackberry
