Mind you, I only had time for a quick skim of this article, but from what I've read, I can't agree more. It's title "IT's top 5 training mistakes" pretty much sums up the focus. What I find most interesting is in my own experience companies roll out software packages and seem to care very little if the actual person sitting in front of the computer has any idea of how to really make it work. The Microsoft Office suite is a classic case in point. It's not that Office doesn't have an amazing breadth of features, it does. It's more that the average user may use only 10% of those features and still consider themselves highly computer literate and a power user. That's why Office is really quite vulnerable in the future. The web 2.0-based, totally online, Office replacements don't have to be feature-rich, they have to do that 10% really, really well.
That's not to say that users shouldn't be trained to use use some of the missing 90% of the features that they ignore or have no idea exists. This is where IT really falls down. I believe that all organizations need a position entitled the "Director of Staff Efficiency." In this role, you would literally watch each team for a week to see what they do. What you'd find would be truly scary. Examples would be 100's of hours wasted on typing and retyping the same emails due to a lack of knowledge of how to use simple templates. Excel users who again, repeat reports over and over in extremely manual ways fraught with the potential of human error that could be, and should be, completely automated. Web users who really have no idea how to efficiently manage their online sourcing or information research. Nothing earth shattering from the technology side, but deadly time-killers and big shots to a corporate bottom line.
Yes, I know that the big buzz word nowadays is business process automation (BPA), but I'm talking about process review on a much, much lower level. It's time to get into the trenches, tackle your training needs, and focus on efficiency. Let's face it, nobody likes repeating manual processes over and over but this is the life of many American workers even if they sit behind spiffy new computer with the latest and greatest software. You'll have happier employees, better quality output, and faster, more efficient project completion.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Bye Bye Google!
Well, 1 year has come and gone and I find myself with just a few days left here at Google in Santa Monica. As my year contract comes to a close, I wanted to thank everyone at Google for a fantastic experience, great people, and a wonderful learning opportunity. Google is truly a unique environment in general, and this particularly true of their staffing organization. That being said, I'm on the look out for my next opportunity.
It's my hope that I will be able to find a management role in technical recruiting an a progressive organization hopefully a bit closer to home (Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, or even downtown LA off of a train line are key target area for me). I love working with companies who specialize in open-source development. Why? I'm very interested in education in general and truly believe that the internet, and open-source, provides a parallel learning path for engineers (parallel to more "traditional" educational institutions). I'm not referring to online colleges/universities. I'm referring to the organic, cooperative, collaborative learning that open-source inspires. Working in such an environment where I can play a key role in bringing in exceptional talent from this unique pool of candidates is my ideal. I'd also be very interested in considering roles in staffing programs, corporate evangelism and outreach to technology communities as opposed to traditional recruiting.
Wish me luck!
It's my hope that I will be able to find a management role in technical recruiting an a progressive organization hopefully a bit closer to home (Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, or even downtown LA off of a train line are key target area for me). I love working with companies who specialize in open-source development. Why? I'm very interested in education in general and truly believe that the internet, and open-source, provides a parallel learning path for engineers (parallel to more "traditional" educational institutions). I'm not referring to online colleges/universities. I'm referring to the organic, cooperative, collaborative learning that open-source inspires. Working in such an environment where I can play a key role in bringing in exceptional talent from this unique pool of candidates is my ideal. I'd also be very interested in considering roles in staffing programs, corporate evangelism and outreach to technology communities as opposed to traditional recruiting.
Wish me luck!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
OLPC giving up on core principles?
Please tell me it ain't so! In a recent article by Business Week, there are hints that OLPC, the makers of the XO laptop for children (i.e., the $100 laptop) is rolling over and giving up their moral principles by handing over the farm to Microsoft.
From the Business Week article:
"OLPC will hand more of the development and support of its XO laptop and its core software to technology companies, including Red Hat (RHT), the leading distributor of the Linux open-source operating system, and Microsoft (MSFT), which is just now putting the finishing touches on a version of Windows for the XO machine."
Let's put this in perspective...
First, I'm one of the people who jumped at the chance to contribute to the OLPC's "Give One Get One" program where were allowed to purchase two XO units and one would go to you, one to a needy child. All good so far. When I got my machine, I was just thrilled and taken back to my days when I got my hands on my first Mac 128K. Here's a machine that needed refinement but had lots of promise. I could see how this little machine could change the lives of children all over the world. While I was a little surprised at the number of "rough edges" in the OS and software, it's clear that there are a lot of people involved in cleaning things up. I like to think that the XO in the next 6 months will really be quite remarkable, even more than it is already.
Now, I have to say that I think that the OLPC program has some definite, well... biases. First, the whole program is based strongly on a constructivist learning model which, by and large, I think is good although totally strict constructivism causes some problems of it's own. For instance, in strict constructivism children essentially guide their entire education which may have some limitations. Also, more traditional or "classic" education may be ignored or shunned to focus more on activities that are considered to be more applicable to today's world. That leaves out a lot of classic literature and subjects like Latin. Oh well, nothings perfect and there is no reason that a kid couldn't find the classics on Project Gutenberg and read them if they wanted on the XO!
On top of this emphasis on constructivism is a definite bias toward all things open-source. Closed source bad, open-source good. OK, again I can see that the OLPC program is doing all it can to maintain independence in the future direction of the laptop and it's OS and activities. In general, I agree with this approach but there are some limits. For instance, having a browser that does not, out of the box, support the Flash plug-in for video and animation is a big limitation in the real world. The supplied OS replacement for Flash just doesn't cut it since it doesn't work in too many instances. I'm not sure if this decision was based more of a philosophical stance on OS software in general or an inability to make a deal with Adobe which would allow for unfettered distribution of Flash. This does not mean that I don't support OS software and in fact, when at all practical, I strongly support using open-source. Considering that simply having a Flash player proved to be a big problem I'm about to fall off my chair with the notion that Microsoft will play a major role in the XO's future (sorry if I don't buy Microsoft's recent announcement of welcoming the OS world with open arms). That's why I go back to my original thought "Say it isn't so." Only time will tell but this new announcement is, to say the least, bewildering.
From the Business Week article:
"OLPC will hand more of the development and support of its XO laptop and its core software to technology companies, including Red Hat (RHT), the leading distributor of the Linux open-source operating system, and Microsoft (MSFT), which is just now putting the finishing touches on a version of Windows for the XO machine."
Let's put this in perspective...
First, I'm one of the people who jumped at the chance to contribute to the OLPC's "Give One Get One" program where were allowed to purchase two XO units and one would go to you, one to a needy child. All good so far. When I got my machine, I was just thrilled and taken back to my days when I got my hands on my first Mac 128K. Here's a machine that needed refinement but had lots of promise. I could see how this little machine could change the lives of children all over the world. While I was a little surprised at the number of "rough edges" in the OS and software, it's clear that there are a lot of people involved in cleaning things up. I like to think that the XO in the next 6 months will really be quite remarkable, even more than it is already.
Now, I have to say that I think that the OLPC program has some definite, well... biases. First, the whole program is based strongly on a constructivist learning model which, by and large, I think is good although totally strict constructivism causes some problems of it's own. For instance, in strict constructivism children essentially guide their entire education which may have some limitations. Also, more traditional or "classic" education may be ignored or shunned to focus more on activities that are considered to be more applicable to today's world. That leaves out a lot of classic literature and subjects like Latin. Oh well, nothings perfect and there is no reason that a kid couldn't find the classics on Project Gutenberg and read them if they wanted on the XO!
On top of this emphasis on constructivism is a definite bias toward all things open-source. Closed source bad, open-source good. OK, again I can see that the OLPC program is doing all it can to maintain independence in the future direction of the laptop and it's OS and activities. In general, I agree with this approach but there are some limits. For instance, having a browser that does not, out of the box, support the Flash plug-in for video and animation is a big limitation in the real world. The supplied OS replacement for Flash just doesn't cut it since it doesn't work in too many instances. I'm not sure if this decision was based more of a philosophical stance on OS software in general or an inability to make a deal with Adobe which would allow for unfettered distribution of Flash. This does not mean that I don't support OS software and in fact, when at all practical, I strongly support using open-source. Considering that simply having a Flash player proved to be a big problem I'm about to fall off my chair with the notion that Microsoft will play a major role in the XO's future (sorry if I don't buy Microsoft's recent announcement of welcoming the OS world with open arms). That's why I go back to my original thought "Say it isn't so." Only time will tell but this new announcement is, to say the least, bewildering.
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