Fluffy Clouds Of Innovation

We Are Recruiting!

2009-12-01T23:24:00.002Z

We are currently recruiting for several key positions, please get in touch via the Trinity website or with me directly...
Usual company info is available here: www.tesl.com

I've been here for nearly 3 years and I think it's a pretty awesome place to work, we have a well established and exceptionally talented organisation and we need more exceptional people to join us!

We offer excellent career development and have some really exciting opportunities in the pipeline!
Senior Consultants/Architects - £60-80k +
http://www.tesl.com/TESL/Careers/Jobs/Strategic+consultant+Microsoft+SharePoint+Architect.htm
http://www.tesl.com/TESL/Careers/Jobs/strategic+consultant+Web+Application+Architect.htm
http://www.tesl.com/TESL/Careers/Jobs/strategic+consultant++Microsoft+CRM.htm
http://www.tesl.com/TESL/Careers/Jobs/strategic+consultant++Business+Intelligence.htm

Please get in touch via our Website (www.tesl.com) or with me (see below) directly, I am happy to answer any questions and if you'd rather have an informal chat then I'd like to hear from you...
At this time I do not want to hear from agencies, the roles are all permanent (although contracts may be offered from time to time).
email: antonyc@tesl.com
web: www.tesl.com
Twitter: @soulsailor
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/AntonyClay

Is Google OS a SharePoint Killer?

2009-11-19T20:59:00.001Z

It’s early days, really early days… but what if, just what if Google OS delivers all the collaboration and business functionality you actually need:

Blog
Wiki
Email
Documents
Team Collaboration
Spreadsheets
Data
etc

How far away from that are we, they have all the apps now… well not very far at all by the sounds of it (http://mashable.com/2009/11/19/google-chrome-os-launch/) and although the SharePoint bashing is usually a crock-o-crap and I am definitely a fan, maybe just maybe, a device that boots really quickly, allowing individual, global and team working may just be the thing that seriously challenges Microsoft SharePoint.

All Google OS needs is proper integration between it’s business and collaboration services and Microsoft will have a proper fight on their hands, this will take time, I think it’s a 3 year battle, but Google OS v2 will definitely be the one to watch!

Just thinking…

Just saying…

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,SharePoint,Google,"Google OS",Collaboration

Ant Having Naked Conversations in Twitterville

2009-11-16T21:13:00.001Z

Last week I was lucky enough to get invited out to Dinner with Shel Israel (@ShelIsrael) Co-Author with Robert Scoble of “Naked Conversations” and now Author of “Twittervile, How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods” and Adrian Moss, Head of Head Web 2.0/SocMed Practice at Parity who was hosting Shel on his UK leg of the book launch (see my review here).

It was a chance encounter, I’ve been a virtual friend of Shel for a while, following his blog and tweets for ages, and was lucky enough to get some thoughts I had included in the Twitterville book. I had been looking forward to the chance to meet him at the Social Media Summit but a client engagement meant I wasn’t able to attend… an email dropped into my inbox early last week inviting me out to Dinner with Shel and Adrian the night before… #Win!

So I headed down to London last Wednesday night, found a great pub nearby for us to meet at, Somers Town Coffee House, somewhat fitting, relatively quiet, filled with lots of interesting people and a stack of conversations going on… So Shel and Adrian rocked up, we exchanged pleasantries and got the pints ordered, some jokes flowed and we sat down to what was going to be a great hour of frenetic chat about:

Social Media
The Midlands Car Industry
Naked Conversations
Family
Twittervile
Jobs
Culture
Public Speaking

That was a hell of a lot of subjects to cram it an hour or so, but as with great connections and platforms like twitter, it felt like I’d known these guys for years, just as Shel had said in a tweet early that day:

“Dinner w/ @soulsailor is another example of meeting an old friend for the 1st time, one of the things that makes twitter so very cool.”

It was a great pint and Shel is, just like it says on his business card, a “nice guy”..

So then it was off to Snazz Sichuan, check out the menu… it was SCARY and required a fair bit of effort from us all to find something that wasn’t going to kill us or make us regret it on the throne in the morning #BlameAdrianMoss was an apt hash-tag for the evening!

The reality was that there was some great food and beer at Snazz Sichuan, the staff were very courteous, and the conversation continued in the same vein as in the pub.. All in all it was a great night, it was an honour to meet Shel, it was good to see Adrian and we all had some very interesting conversations that need continuing…

There’s a hell of a lot of power and satisfaction in taking an online conversation offline… Go meet those virtual friends and acquaintances for the first time.

Technorati Tags: Twitterville,"Naked Conversations","Shel Israel",Parity,Soulsailor

Welsh Lightbulbs…

2009-09-28T23:33:00.001+01:00

A few months ago I had a great session with a prospective client of mine in a welsh government body, talking about how SharePoint could enable their business processes in a range of ways… I got to pen my initial thoughts at EndUserSharePoint and the post is here:

http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/09/14/a-sharepoint-case-study-switching-on-the-right-light-bulbs/

It was an interesting short engagement, but one that seems to be being repeated more and more. There seems to be a heap of clients that are looking for SharePoint as an appropriate platform for enabling their document centric business processes and that are seeking people and organisations like us to support them in their strive for business justification..

Technorati Tags: SharePoint,Wales,Government,Strategy,"Case Study",EndUserSharePoint,Soulsailor

Twitterville by Shel Israel – Would you live there?

2009-09-25T18:29:00.001+01:00

Yes I would, and I think I’d probably want to own the pub on the corner ;-)

Disclosure: I contributed to the book.. page 262\263.

@ShelIsrael is a great, well respected guy; his blog posts have great insight and his Twitter stream is diverse and one of my (@SoulSailor) favourites and, assuming he ever makes it over to England, I can’t wait to have a few pints and talk about twitter and life at an “English pub” in Rugby ;-) just like he promised!

Firstly, let me make it clear that book reviews aren’t my thing… I read, I enjoy and I move on so be warned!

This is a book that you absolutely need to read if you’re not sure about Twitter, your just dipping your toe in or if you wanna know the hows and the whys…The book is in three main sections… a kinda “how it started”, “what people are doing” and a sort of “beginners guide”.

For me, Twitterville is a positive journey through the characters and impacts that Twitter has had since its inception. Some have said in previous reviews of the book that it’s too positive, well Twitter is what you make of it and I think that Shel does a great job showing what is possible to achieve with the platform..

The sub-title of the book is “How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods” well absolutely yes they can, but it’s clear that although a positive book, Shel makes no bones in the stories he tells, as to how freaking hard it is, the dedication, innovation, foresight and determination that one needs to succeed, but the platform is there, the villagers are waiting to hear what you’ve got to say, you just need to bring to Twitterville the catalyst, that's what is key!

I’m not going to comment on the last section of the book.. this is clearly aimed at the newbie.. a kinda step-by-step approach to getting engaged into the conversation and adding value… I can see this “completes” the journey depicted in the book, especially if this is a whole new world to you, but for me it gave nothing that I didn’t know or agree with; it doesn't detract from the books value, just skip it as Shel suggests :-)

The apparently random (to me) tweets through the book give some light as to what can be said in 140 characters… but to some extent they felt a little too random… but hey maybe that’s a true reflection of the twitter stream?

I really enjoyed the first sections in the book, how it all got started was explained very well with some great insights into both Twitter and the early adopters, really gave a sense at how far the Twitter platform had come over it’s short life and how much it has been shaped by the community rather than inside Twitter HQ…

The bulk of the rest of the book is a demonstration through well articulated stories of how a cross section of Twitterville are using Twitter to help their personal, business or charitable aims… I found the stories compelling, realistic and in most cases I was reassured that my own visions were being played out elsewhere in some way and were therefore attainable.

As many have said already Twitterville seems like the younger sister of “Naked Conversations”, it’s arrival is timely and the context seemingly flows naturally from what was said by Scoble and Shel previously but applied to the platform of the present; I’m sure Twitter won’t be around in the future but platforms supporting the subscription and publication and reuse of a stream of SAM’s (Simple Activity Messages) will absolutely be an integral part of the future technology landscape.

Overall this is a great book, rounded, accurate, appropriate, educational and most importantly eminently readable…

Go grab a copy, get a pint and sit down in your local pub and educate yourself…

Social Sales Cycle - Create or Die!

2009-05-20T00:09:00.001+01:00

So we are in a recession, inevitably the chase is now on for Revenue Protection & Revenue Generation…

According to Heidrick & Struggles, the No. 1 focus for C-level executives in 2009 is the customer—acquiring new ones, increasing retention and improving their lifetime value, in that order.

Eighty-eight percent of the executives surveyed said acquiring new customers was important, and 87% said the same about customer retention. Least important on their list of priorities were improving marketing’s impact on shareholder value, retaining talent and expanding to new geographies.

This makes sense in current economic conditions—if a business is struggling, further development gets pushed to the back burner. Talent is easy to come by when unemployment is high, and if sales increase, shareholder value will naturally follow.

The question is how to increase sales.

Most significant to senior executives was optimizing the efficiency of the marketing mix across the business (including digital marketing), followed by responding more rapidly to growth opportunities and improving the consistency of marketing and sales communications.

The time for the Social Sales Cycle is most definitely here, and it’s likely that in your organisation there isn’t a Social Sales Cycle… or at least not a recognisable one!

If you asked any Sales Person or Account Manager though, they will absolutely agree that sales, relationships and opportunities are best achieved looking at the whites of the clients eyes and breathing the same air…

But this is social, personal, emotional, communicative… this is Social, isn’t it?

Traditional Sales methods around client engagements are certainly the start of the Social Sales Cycle, it’s like the root, but to make it really work, to maximise its effectiveness and to make it really resonate in todays culture and your industry or sector then you need facilitators and that is where social media needs to be embraced to amplify and control the effects of “voice” and “emotion” in business settings.

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004900.html

I don’t need to say any more, but you do….

Create Reputation
Create Conversations
Create Stories
Create Connections
Create Brand
Create Opportunities
Create Revenue

Create the companies Social Sales Cycle…or die

Technorati Tags: "Social Sales Cycle" "Create or Die" "Social Media" "Social Networking" Connections Conversations

Social Media in the Sales Cycle or Social Sales Cycle?

2009-05-13T21:23:00.001+01:00

~~Social Media in the Sales Cycle~~

Social Sales Cycle…

I don’t think that this should be as scary a prospect for any corporate organisation as perhaps we all initially perceive.

Chris Brogan wrote a good summary post earlier this week titled Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle. Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations, and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value and is well respected in “social circles”…

His key point is that the sales cycle has a number of points, roughly:

Prospects
Awareness
Leads
Customers
Evangelists \ Support

..and that for each of these engagement points between a supplier (just like you) and the client, traditionally differing approaches and tools were used, and that now, in the era of connections, social networks and transparency, a range of Social Media tools are relevant to be used in addition or replacing traditional marketing, sales and engagement methods… some of these tools include:

Email
Blogging
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Forums
Flickr

But these tools are not the focus of this post, more the person wielding the tool and their responsibility within the supplier organisation and the sales cycle.

All organisations have a number of overlapping areas that make up the “Sales Cycle” and a set of tools and techniques..

Sales
- Sales methods
- Relationships
- CRM
Marketing
- Web Site
- Telesales \ Direct Mail
- Campaigns
- Events
Senior Consultants
- Relationships
- Social Media – Blogs, Twitter, forums etc
- Authenticity – Technical Delivery, Events etc
Rest of the organisation
- Relationships
- Social Media – Blogs, Twitter, forums etc
- Authenticity – Technical Delivery, Events etc

As has been discussed at length both personally, within Trinity and across our sectors, the way we do business is changing, the ability to influence clients, drive client satisfaction, raise awareness, revenue generation and revenue protection has absolutely expanded outwards from Sales & Marketing and into the hands of each and every employee, within the organisation and this is especially so for an organisations senior consultants, technologists and strategists..

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin illustrates that point very well.
"Marketing", the word, has become tainted by the apparent lack of interest that most professional marketers pay to their markets. They seem to not be listening to the market...

Guess what, the market stops listening to them...

So we need to be aware, understand our role, power, influence and impact on “sales”… I’ve only been at Trinity for a couple of years, but even in that time I’ve seen a marked shift in the sphere of influence of our Strategic Consultants and certainly in my role and with my skills it’s apparent to me that we are all becoming a powerful mix of Technologist, Strategist, Marketer and Sales Person…

So I ask you all to think about “Social Media in the Sales Cycle”, who should be “selling” and what role do you have in the “Social Sales Cycle”?

Who should be blogging?
Who should be delivering content through our web site?
Who should be “listening” to where our brand is?
Who should be attending events?
Should we Tweet?
Who should be speaking?
Who should update CRM?
Who should have the relationships?

The Ant Clay view of the world is that anyone with a voice, with authenticity, with trust, with brand, with respect, with experience and something positive to offer for your organisation and its clients (new and old) should “be involved”….

Involved doesn't mean leading, owning or solely involved… involvement, many voices, authenticity an employee crowd-sourced sales cycle :-)

If you’re in any doubt that the world is changing have a look at the great presentations out there on marketing, social media, new ways of working etc.. Matt Groves did a great presentation on “Building Trust via the Web” at a team meeting earlier in the week… He gets it, I get it, do you or your organisation or your clients??

And Finally: Doing a Google search for “Social Sales Cycle” brings back zero hits! That phrase is mine :-)
Update: it now brings back one result from a tweet of mine! http://twitter.com/Soulsailor

Written with Windows Live Writer

Technorati Tags: "Social Sales Cycle"

The Digital Nomads - 12*6 Service

2009-03-15T00:53:00.001Z

Looking around at the majority of my peers in the industry, within my organisation and more prevalently in our customers, its blatantly obvious that the 9-5 Monday to Friday working ethos is dissolving far more rapidly than perhaps we would like to admit we are very much into the global warming phase of the work-life balance ecology…

I’m a typical (tell me if I’m wrong) IT Strategist… I have a laptop, I have connectivity at home, work and in between, I have a work phone (Blackberry) and a personal digital device (iPhone), I’m rarely unconnected and I have an absolute bucket-load of things on my mind, such as this lot:

So how does a typical day flow for me and where do the edges of the old, “nice” 9-5 get bled to death?

between 6am – 7am
Wake up slowly
Check email (iPhone maybe Blackberry)
Shower etc
Breakfast with family (unless I’m on the road early, then its just breakfast with the dog!)
iPhone - Scan RSS, Check Twitter… replies, DM’s and scan through a few pages of tweets… Favourite those I think may be worth consuming properly
between 7am – 8:30am
Go to work \ client

Car and usually catch up on phone calls..
Train then its email, calls, tweets, RSS… maybe knock up document skeletons, ideas, brainstorm etc…

Work..laptop\iPhone checking backchannels occasionally when\if appropriate
sometime between 12pm – 2pm
Lunch…iPhone - Scan RSS, Check Twitter… replies, DM’s and scan through a few pages of tweets… look in depth at any Favourite’d items
Work..laptop\iPhone checking backchannels occasionally when\if appropriate
between 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Go to home

Car and usually catch up on phone calls..
Train then its email, calls, tweets, RSS… maybe knock up document skeletons, ideas, brainstorm etc…

between 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Kids & wife… eat, kids to bed, (or eat later)
TV \ Music
Laptop \ iPhone - Scan RSS, Check Twitter… replies, DM’s and scan through a few pages of tweets… look in depth at any Favourite’d items
TV \ Music
between 9:00pm – 10:30pm
Catchup on emails, admin, proposals etc
TV \ Music
between 10pm – 2am
Laptop \ iPhone - Scan RSS, Check Twitter… replies, DM’s and scan through a few pages of tweets… look in depth at any Favourite’d items
between 11pm – 2am
Sleep..

Thats crap isn’t it… I mean I’m productive in the day…and when travelling… but why the uncompromising activities in the evening?? And worse a cut-down version of the above @ weekends too!

I guess the only excuse (and its a poor one) is that I, we, all of us are trying to just cling to the ever-changing digital world that keep incessantly revolving, changing, innovating and leaping ahead across time-zones, technologies, cultures and strategies…

The only way we can stay ahead of the game is to plug in and consume and participate, share, add value and learn…constantly…

There must be a better way to stay ahead of the game without “bleeding eyes” and pissed off families…Isn’t there??

Technorati Tags: work,life,balance,consulting

Does a Pure Architecture Muddy the Business Waters?

2009-03-12T00:34:00.001Z

Recent conversations with a range of clients and peers has led me to some soul-searching and thinking regarding IT Strategy, Business Outcomes, Enterprise Architecture and Technical Implementation.

Specifically I’ve been pondering the relationship, benefits and possible contradictions between a true loosely coupled Service-Focussed Strategy and that of a Strategic Platform (typically single vendor).

From an architecture-purest perspective, a loosely coupled service strategy offers significant benefits both from a business perspective, technology delivery, flexibility, openness and lack of vendor tie-in; however those benefits come with a cost as far as I can see that, unchecked far outweighs the benefits…

Taking the widely adopted scenario whereby you separate out UX, Logic and Data Storage and deliver these using “services”, that works great; I love the fact that I can instigate business processes from a number of end-points, it’s great that I can consume the data through a range of interfaces and I absolutely think it’s the only way forward to enable me as an end-user to remix the data and add my context and expertise to it in an open manner…

But in an organisation this flexibility without constraints will not enable the delivery of business outcomes… rather the flexibility will become anarchy, end users and technology implementors will be confused, it will hinder productivity and the ability for the platform to deliver the users business outcomes!

Our role as IT leaders, strategists and pragmatists is IMHO to to take the architectural vision and deliver those principles in an appropriate manner, this means making sure we don’t facilitate:

Multiple User Experiences
Multiple Dev languages & tools
Loss or confusion of context
Increase in complexity

Architecture validity is a key concept, but delivering business outcomes and supporting business strategy must come first and to do this, Architecture and Strategic Platforms need to have a more mature relationship between themselves.

What rules the roost in your organisation?

Does Architecture drive and shape the business solution?

Does the Strategic Platform cut the corners off the Architecture?

…or does the Strategic Platform deliver direction and pragmatism to the Architectural vision?

Technorati Tags: strategy,architecture,enterprise,"business outcomes"

What’s in a colour – Azure?

2008-10-27T23:35:00.001Z

So today the Wikipedia entry for Azure got changed..Why? Because Microsoft just changed the game..again…Today, Microsoft has announced Windows Azure, the Microsoft new cloud computing platform; it’s been a long-time coming, some thought it was too late, but by the sound of the info that’s streaming out of PDC today, it’s here and packing a huge punch.

Before I get into some vague details (I’m on leave this week and I’ve got a porch to build!) I have a new definition that’s relevant to this post…bare with me! A lot of people that are talking about the anti-cloud, traditional services use the term on-premise, but to me that conjures up the feeling of a system and a person tied to the Enterprise…

Shore-Side Computing - software deployed @ home, on the desktop, laptop, set-top etc but served through traditional means… Shore being a safe place to seek, a harbour, a sanctuary… the Cloud is more adventurous less predictable, less defined…

Anyway, the potential power of harnessing cloud computing, Microsoft’s cloud services, Microsoft’s data-centres and then creating business apps based initially upon a combination (shore-side or cloud-side) of:

Windows Azure for service hosting and management, low-level scalable storage, computation and networking
Microsoft SQL Services for a wide range of database services and reporting
Microsoft .NET Services which are service-based implementations of familiar .NET Framework concepts such as workflow and access control
Live Services for a consistent way for users to store, share and synchronize documents, photos, files and information across their PCs, phones, PC applications and Web sites
Microsoft SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Services for business content, collaboration and rapid solution development in the cloud

Is surely gonna allow those companies that invest, have vision and a Tribe-like mentality (such as Trinity) to go out and create some extremely valuable business outcome-orientated applications that reside in “the cloud”, on-shore or a combination of both…Wow!

..but once the mist & fog lift, leaving only the Azure, the people will start drawing comparisons… what about Salesforce.com’s application platform, core CRM + a range of application services?

I guess the reality is that Microsoft has leverage, it has momentum and adoption… switching consumer and valued business and “developer” services through to the Azure will drag attention to the sky’s, away from Google, Amazon, Salesforce and the like… Microsoft has the ability to deliver.

A lot more on this once I’ve built the porch!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows Azure,Cloud

Personally, Technically, Legally & Eventually….

2008-10-27T22:37:00.001Z

Man this has been way too long. My blogging sprint over the past four or five years came to a crashing halt with the advent of our third child… time just seemed to disappear!

Anyway… I’m kinda back, we’ll have to see how much time passes by and how much blogging actually gets done but here goes….

So Trinity has been throwing down some pretty interesting challenges and experiences over the last 12 months and especially, it feel over the last couple of months… maybe it’s the financial climate or just coincidence but opportunities just seem more interesting currently!

So what’s been happening, well lots of engagements around Public Sector and a bit in Legal mostly, and with me having some very interesting “early-sniffs” in telecomms as well.. one of the most interesting things I’ve done for a while was collaborate with my colleague Matt Groves on a pretty awesome (well he says, and I think so it must be!) presentation on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the legal sector delivered at Legal Insight to an audience of mainly Midlands-based top legal IT directors and IT professionals.

It was a great event, and the first one that Trinity have presented at despite organizing and hosting them regularly… it was also my first “public outing” of my Presentation Zen stylee of presenting rather than death by bullet-points!..here’s a random sample of what you missed:

The presentation was well received by the majority of the audience and our “Pro Bono” of a bottle of wine to those that engaged in the conversation went down well (four times)! It certainly stimulated a some really interesting discussions on a breadth of web2.0 related topics such as adoption, Social Objects, Second Life, governance and management etc and having the pleasure of engaging in conversation with such a great set of like-minded people including the renowned blogger Peter Birley made the whole event come alive.

So what’s next, well more of the same really, strategising, demoing technology, articulating business benefits and presentations… including a local Warwickshire Local Government presentation next month…see you there!

Technorati Tags: Presentation,Trinity,Legal,Web2.0

Perfect Social Storm...

2008-02-26T23:52:00.001Z

I heard on one of the "Gang" podcasts this week, Steve Gillmor pontificating about "cloud services" and how there would be, looming over the horizon in the not too distant future two major clouds that everyone would be using, they, of course Google and Microsoft, and although he is probably right, that these two clouds will dominate and that this two cloud domination and a move to openness will evoke a new breed of evolving services, I think that there are other factors that need to be taken into consideration.

1. Openness is nothing without transparency - Open Social Networks + User Control + Trust

2. Two Clouds do not create a "Perfect Storm", you need three - Google and Microsoft, despite their innovation and re-invention have been around for too long and have way too much baggage, a third newly formed cloud provider is required in our new sky, could be already here (Facebook, Ask, Twitter even?), whatever or whoever, there needs to be a third factor to generate the game/life-changing services we are all envisioning...

3. Read the history books - How many new start-up's and services are delivering new services that fail because of the same old crap? We need to learn from what went before, in nature (these service have a social bent so nature has an impact) and in recent services, Googles reverse-entry social-graph :-( Twitter as a platform with innovation expanding :-) Learn my "friends"....

I think it is all these factors that will combine to create the Perfect "Social" Storm and the natural elements that will combine together to support our social-centric vision of the future, both consumer and enterprise driven....

After all people is just people and we're all nature-born...

...Discuss...Twitter...Blog...

Technorati Tags: "Cloud Services",Transparency,Attention,Trust,Google,Microsoft,"Ant Clay",Soulsailor

NewsGang Live Cameo!

2008-02-19T11:02:00.001Z

I got a cameo last night on the NewsGang Live PodCast..

Cool, sorta!

The "appearance is about 48 mins into the podcast..

It was cool because, I (as Soulsailor) got mentioned a couple of times, it was cool because my questions, submitted through Twitter (actually using Twirl which is a cool Adobe AIR interface) to Steve Gillmor, were mentioned as the only tech stuff in a US politics focused session,,,

The questions were:

Part 1- Shouldn't Social Graphs ALL be based upon an agreed minimum "Social-Graph-Base-Data-Set"?

Part 2 - Shouldn't providers (Plaxo,Facebook,Google,LinkedIn etc) add their layer of value on top of the "Basic -Social-Graph"?

Part3 - Then we can have balanced-Portability of Name,Contact Details-the basic Social-Graph & walled-garden for value add stuff?

..the problem being in my attempt to squash the questions into the 140 character Twitter limit, I kinda screwed up the semantics...hence, my inaugural appearance on the NewsGang was less than eloquent!

But I was there, I was mentioned and I stimulated conversation :-)

Good Times..

Technorati Tags: Soulsailor,"Ant Clay",Twitter,NewsGang

...I need to talk more here but I'm talking lots there:

2008-02-16T23:59:00.001Z

Follow me on Twitter!

"...Connect Local as well as Global..." I like that, think that might be my philosophical statement of the day :-)

Question: Could the Twitter Platform replace email? I mean if you need to say so much then surely you should collaborate or talk?

According to Biz Stone Im in the Twitter-minority http://snurl.com/1z7nn apparently following & followed by over about 70 people=top 10% !?

stop all this Social-Media confusion and crap...Shouldn't Social Graphs ALL be based upon an agreed minimum "Social-Graph-Base-Data-Set"? Shouldn't the "providers" (Plaxo, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn etc) add their layer of value on top of the "Social-Graph-Base-Data-Set"?? Then we can have balance-Portability of Name,Contact Details etc ("Social-Graph-Base-Data-Set") & a walled-garden for the added value stuff?

Is "Twitter Village" too big a scope? Would "Twitter Pub" be more appropriate pistachioconsulting.com/blog/?p=172#comment-645

Twitter is my pub... best place for creative thinking, socialising & there arelots of people there who know something U need..

Wondering whether to manual transfer my social graph from Facebook to my Google, Plaxo "networks".. What does anyone think...am I mad???

Technorati Tags: Twitter,Soulsailor,Conversations

I'm Thinking...

2007-11-07T18:26:00.001Z

...It's been a while since I said anything... normal fluffy cloud thinking "service" will resume very shortly...

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy...

2007-08-28T10:06:00.000+01:00

Saw three magpies this morning, is that an omen?

Dunno, but we did announce to the world yesterday that we are embarking on a new leg of our life-journey...

Yep, we are expanding the family to the size of a small Web2.0 start-up, we are expecting our 3rd little-geek, February 2008...

:-)

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Blue Monster Coffee Morning (1)

2007-08-20T13:27:00.001+01:00

L1010017
Originally uploaded by stevecla

So, this is a little on the late side, but who cares.. a couple of weeks ago I got on the 6:20am train to Euston and joined about 10 other people at Cafe Nero for the innaugral Blue Monster coffee morning, Steve Clayton organised it, there was a few Microsofties, Hugh Macleod and a gaggle of other random, but very interesting folks...

The coffee was good, Hugh was in fine "style" and it was good to witness..live, the actual pen-movements that created this gapingvoid cartoon... what was even better was the explanation from Hugh of the stream of consciousness that tipped him from re-hydrating to scribbling... Basically he see's the quadrants as connectivity/presence for applications that, through the day move from requiring services, access mto the "cloud", software in the browser or software on the desktop... he doesn't (i don't) and most other people didn't feel that one of the quadrants was the answer... software needs to be agile, take into consideration the where we are and what we are doing and offer the appropriate medium for us to connect or to be productive...

The morning lasted about 3 hours, the coffee was good, the conversations interesting (social media, networking, Microsoft, applications, brand, Twitter, Facebook etc) and the contacts profitable... a good morning...

See you at the next one...

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation Blue Monster

I'm virtually working...

2007-07-12T22:58:00.000+01:00

So, I posted about this ages ago, but time, technology, services and thinking have moved on...

So now I have a job again, and a vaguely normal life (lacking in time and boat but thats another story for another blog!) I thought it would be good to reflect on my virtual office set-up now it's matured and services have come, gone or settled in my browser...

Email
I use Gmail @ home, I've got my "broadband attached email account" picked up in there and the email from my domains and my gmail account all splatted into one simple, but functional light email client in Gmail....

Calendar
So, I use Google Calendar... it's simple, effective and accessible.. I get daily agenda emails telling my what I'm meant to do etc.

I use Plaxo to synchronise my Google Calendar to my Outlook 2007 Calendar at work so I know what the hell I'm meant to be doing work and socially...

Tasks
At work I use Outlook, at Home I use Remember The Milk, Google Calendar puts the time based tasks into it and therefore Plaxo replicates them to the on-line Plaxo Task list and Synchs them into my Google Calendar.

Contacts
From Outlook 2007 to Plaxo, autosynched oh yeh and I use LinkedIn and that gets synched into Outlook (and hence to my work Blackberry) etc so thats covered

Docs / Spreadsheets
Work it's Office 2007 - favourite functionality so far is Smart Art (or Smart Arse Art as I call it) and saving as a PDF... at home I use Google Docs/Spread, again functional and the integration is good...

Messaging
Eek, this is where it gets messy:

@Work - MS Office Communicator + GTalk (embedded in my iGoogle page) + Skype
@Home - GTalk + Skype + Live Messenger (a lot less now)

@Everywhere - Jaiku + Twitter + Facebook for random adhoc messaging, presence and personal insights

Music
iTunes to manage the music on my ipod video 30gb
Last.FM for my music exploration and

News / RSS

Google reader is packed with 162 subscriptions, iGoogle for summary stuff and I use FaceBook for those personal "news"

And well a lot of this is crosspopulated so Jaiku aggregates blog posts, flickr uploads, twitter and music from last.fm and then this gets pushed to Facebook which also has some google reader shared items (also on my blog), I can twitter a task to Remmeber The Milk and it appears there and then gets synched into Plaxo..

Wow, it seems messy but the number of "things" is reducing and I'm settling into a rhythm and a subset of tools that give me what I want twith the flexibility to add more..

let me know what you do...?

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Green Consulting

2007-07-02T11:25:00.000+01:00

I noticed over the weekend that my laptop case isn't really that full of paper... I have two folders one for each of the clients I'm currently focussed on and my notepad for general stuff.

The two folders mainly have documents that we don't have the electronic versions of or that have been "hand-annotated" with useful stuff...

Basically, at my last place I was printing a lot, white-papers, customer docs, project plans, presentation slides etc... and now a couple of months later I'm killing a whole lot less trees...

So what's really apparent is that I'm on the road a lot more, working at customer sites a lot more (which is great for the customer intimacy thing that I used to say was soo important but nnever really got a chance to exercise) and basically I don't have acces to printers while I'm out...

Also, being part of a team of Strategic Consultants that are spread across the four winds, reviewing docs, commenting and collaborating always happens electronically (as it should) as i don't get to see the people to pass hand-written comments too. So, what I say is chuck most of the printers in your organisation a way, we don't need them:

Don't print emails... they're on your laptop and/or mobile device anyway
Most customer docs get emailed, the really important ones "packaged" by Marketing so let them have one printer
Electronic collboration is far more prevalent than locking-people-in-a-meeting room now
Customer info should be available electronically, if its "too sensitive" to give you an electronic copy then why give us a paper one, we could scan a paper doc if we so desired and distribute it to our collegaues anyway..

Now these are just a few points around printers and paper etc.. but seriously we all need to think more about the environment, we dont need to print most things (we have multiple copies on our, we need to travel appropriately (mileage vs home vs office), car-share (discuss the meeting, get ideas, innovate) and of course collaborate electronically. Now, what I don't mean is that we shouldn't interact with each other, face-to-face meetings, discussions, white-board sessions etc are all very valuable, but get those notes up onto the collaboration platform quickly and appropriately...

Right, I'm gonna get on with what I'm doing and find the "don't print me" email footer strap-line..

BTW - Don't ever print my blog(s) 'cus they really ain't worth killing trees over :-)

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation Green Consulting
Green Consulting

What happens when clouds and sail clash?

2007-06-25T23:23:00.001+01:00

Ok, this isn't a beautiful picture or an interesting meteorological piece I'm afraid...

MY brain's busy with keeping money flowing into the house, serious lack of time for bloggin currently, but, I do get time occasionaly and then I have to decide which "thought" is stroingest or most appropriate... a post to Soulsailor about sailing or a post to Fluffy Clouds of Innovation about some geeky or strategy based random thought...

What would happen to my readership if I merged Soulsailor and FluffyCloudsofInnovation into one blog?

For a start it would give me a reason to move off Blogger and onto WordPress, start kinda afresh (but migrate all the content from both too)...

Would the yachty sea-dogs get fed up with geek posts and would the geeks get fed up with sailing posts?

I'd still keep the two seperate domain names cus i really like them... but would a mixed content blog do the trick for you??

For once I really do need your advice etc... will you still love me will you still read me when I'm a split-topic blog?
software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Powerpoint Presentations are Dead...

2007-06-05T22:21:00.000+01:00

I justed posted a comment to my "conversation inducing post" on Martyn Proctor's blog... it basically goes like this:

This is a good conversation, I'm going to attempt to start moving my current company away from powerpoints with bullets to graphics that evoke emotions.. what you need when presenting to a client is to get the message across, invoke good emotions, convey knowledge and expertise and very importantly give the customer a reason to trust you...

Here's a new definition for you all, just thought it up and as I trust you all you can have it for free..

This is what PowerPoint should stand for:

.PPT = Passion, People & Technology

A presentation should demonstrate and invoke Passion, tell a storyt about how it benefits People and simplify Technology concepts..

The whole conversation is very interesting... The kiss of life maybe here @ SlideShare

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Oh Crap I'm Offline

2007-06-04T11:14:00.000+01:00

Oh no I'm not.... the disruptive technology has hit, it's not earth shattering but its here and its going to be a wake-up call for MS... Google Gears off-line fiunctionality has now been rolled-out for Google Reader enabling off-line reading. I love technology...

Information Week discuss it here..

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Collaboration

2007-05-30T23:25:00.000+01:00

My view is that collaboration is the killer application currently... I hear you cry that theres a stack of collab apps out there, both in the web 2.0++ space and the enterprise and traditional...but, the killer application will be the one thats implemented with the special-sauce...

What the hell am I talking about? Well as I said when I spoke recently to some central gov agencies at the IoD, data is crap, limited, knowledge is power and to eek every last millimetre of knowledge from your data you have to fundamentaly change...

Knowledge = Data + Smart People + Insight + Collaboration + Culture Change

Culture change is the tricky one, I see collaboration being embraced everywhere...in departmental silo's, and to truly gain the advantage and benefits of collaboration you need to engage the whole organisation..and your customers...and your partners... BIG thinking and BIG change management needed their...

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

Kool Surface!

2007-05-30T21:47:00.000+01:00

Microsoft's Surface is innovation... it took a few years in the MS Research Labs to appear, but I'm bloody glad its arrived!

It appeared on the news tonight, very freaky, I happened to be on the website watching one of the video's when the same video was played on the news, 10 secs behind....!

So why is this good, well ignoring the fact that I want it in my house.. from a business perspective it will be great for a number of key areas:

Collaboration - you have a meeting room table where you can "drop" ideas, share them, pass them around, annotate them (adding your value to the thought)
Reception Areas - I can't wait to walk into a reception area where I can "thumb" through a telephone directory and interactively call up the person I'm meeting or IM them that I'm here, maybe sign-in electronically, maybe thumb through case studies, customer lists etc
Teaching - limitless opportunities...

The collaboration piece for me is the most exciting, let me know if anyone out there is putting this into practice yet?

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation

LA Blogging

2007-05-18T12:15:00.000+01:00

Not Los Angeles, but Local Authority...

I was speaking at the Greater Manchester IT Managers Group forum yesterday (About MOSS and local gov experiences), what struck me as being very significant, was that two out of three of the sessions delivered by authorities gave examples of senior members of their authority using MOSS for blogging.

Now the fact they are using MOSS isn't really the issue at all, whats key is that these leading figures of their locale are putting themselves into the light and engaging with open conversations with the council, ok its internal, but I think its a great step...

What are they talking about, well there's a pattern, they had both committed and signed "internal agreements" to blog once a week minimum and they posted about:

What meetings they had attended and why
What they were going to do next week, meetings, out-and-about, focus
Some occasional personal-time comments
Council Issues and their views
Improvement ideas

Both were allowing and encouraging comments and both seemed to be receiving great feedback from their avid readers...

So why is this important...? Its all about Visibility, Corporate Traction, Perception of Worth, Presence and Insight.

Story-Time: I had a boss, in a very senior position, I didn't see him much (as expected in this role), every monthly meeting we would tell him what we were doing, meetings, relationships, projects etc... every month for my first quarter reporting to him I asked him to shed some light on what he was doing...every month he stumbled over this, I gave up on him completely...

I've left now, I had no Visibility, Corporate Traction, Perception of Worth, Presence or Insight to what the division was doing, where it was going, how my boss was driving things forwards, the shape and purpose of the division was lost....
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I wasn't bought in to what we were doing because it wasn't visible to me... At these two councils the employees get an insight into the direction of the council, what matters to it and to their leader, they can easily buy into that direction and ethos... and importantly they can comment, add value, support, shape, disagree and gain a perception of worth, they matter, the council matters, their leader has a vision and purpose... Insight is a beautiful thing!

What is the Brand Power of the head of a council?

software strategy strategy applications strategy innovation software innovation