Introspection leads to growth.  Scientifically validated behavioral assessments are key to effective introspection.  I recently completed the Predictive Index^® [PI] survey, an assessment tool that provides insight into the natural workplace behaviors.  I have to agree with the statement, “it appears to be a simple adjective checklist, however the results are uncannily accurate.”

Let the introspection begin with Harvard Business Review’s June 2009 article, Ten Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders:

After scrutinizing 360-degree feedback data on over 11,000 leaders and evaluating the 10% considered the least effective, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman found the 10 most common leadership shortcomings. These are ranked according to the size of the difference between successful and unsuccessful leaders’ scores; successful and failed leaders differed most significantly in their energy and enthusiasm.

1. Lack energy and enthusiasm. They see new initiatives as a burden, rarely volunteer, and fear being overwhelmed. One such leader was described as having the ability to “suck all the energy out of any room.”
2. Accept their own mediocre performance. They overstate the difficulty of reaching targets so that they look good when they achieve them. They live by the mantra “Underpromise and overdeliver.”
3. Lack clear vision and direction. They believe their only job is to execute. Like a hiker who sticks close to the trail, they’re fine until they come to a fork.
4. Have poor judgment. They make decisions that colleagues and subordinates consider to be not in the organization’s best interests.
5. Don’t collaborate. They avoid peers, act independently, and view other leaders as competitors. As a result, they are set adrift by the very people whose insights and support they need.
6. Don’t walk the talk. They set standards of behavior or expectations of performance and then violate them. They’re perceived as lacking integrity.
7. Resist new ideas. They reject suggestions from subordinates and peers. Good ideas aren’t implemented, and the organization gets stuck.
8. Don’t learn from mistakes. They may make no more mistakes than their peers, but they fail to use setbacks as opportunities for improvement, hiding their errors and brooding about them instead.
9. Lack interpersonal skills. They make sins of both commission (they’re abrasive and bullying) and omission (they’re aloof, unavailable, and reluctant to praise).
10. Fail to develop others. They focus on themselves to the exclusion of developing subordinates, causing individuals and teams to disengage.

These sound like obvious flaws that any leader would try to fix. But the ineffective leaders we studied were often unaware that they exhibited these behaviors. In fact, those who were rated most negatively rated themselves substantially more positively. Leaders should take a very hard look at themselves and ask for candid feedback on performance in these specific areas. Their jobs may depend on it.

Source: Harvard Business Review, June 2009

Reading the above list, I feel great about my PI results.

Have you taken the Predictive Index survey, the Strengths Finder 2.0, or another behavioral assessment?  How did you feel about the results?

Do you agree with HBR’s list?

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On April 30th, a cool, rainy spring afternoon, I had the opportunity to visit the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus [BNMC]. The tour, arranged by Buffalo Niagara 360, was intended to expose business executives and professionals to the medical innovation taking place in the Buffalo/Niagara region.

The event participants gathered in Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s [RPCI] Zebro Conference Center. Ann Mestrovich, the tour organizer welcomed the group. There were a total of three “tour guides”, including Pat Whalen, the COO of the BNMC, Karen Utz of the NYS Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, and Lisa Damiani, the Executive Director of Government Affairs at RPCI.

Check out the video where Pat Whalen and Michael Ball talk about the BNMC:

Buffalo Niagara 360: Featured Members – BNMC, Buffalo BioSciences, Kinex Pharmaceuticals

The RPCI Tour

We broke off into three groups. I joined Lisa Damiani’s group to tour RPCI. As we made our way through various corridors, Lisa provided an overview of RPCI. The group shuffled into the Photodynamic Therapy [PDT] Lab. Here, Dr. Sandra Gollnick explained the origins and applications of this innovative therapy, including effectively treating lung, skin, and breast cancer, to name a few.

We returned to RPCI’s Center for Genetics and Pharmacology, the distinctive five-floor building with the textured and sculptural exterior. As we walked, Lisa explained the architecture incorporated bends in corridors and open spaces to emphasize the nature of science and discovery. We learned the building uses 30% less energy by separating the large, noisy, heat-producing equipment from the “wet” labs, the modular benches where the scientists conduct experiments. I really felt the design of the building encouraged an open, collaborative environment—a place where you know great things are happening.

To see for yourself how much fun we had, check out the tour recap video by Full Circle Studios:

Buffalo Niagara 360: BNMC Tour Recap

The Takeaway

Here are a few interesting facts I picked up:

• As a whole, BNMC institutions employ more than 25,000 people in WNY
• There are 9 major institutions and more than 20 life sciences companies on the BNMC
• Pioneered by RPCI, Photodynamic Therapy is now used world-wide
• UPDATE: Over the last 20 years, PDT has generated $20M in patent royalties for RPCI
• Patients travel from all over the world to be treated by PDT
• Dr. Ravindra K. Pandey is developing the next generation of PDT which will have fewer side effects

Wow. I am truly excited about the healthcare innovations taking place here in the Buffalo/Niagara region.

What do you think?

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On Monday, May 4, the Buffalo Technology Community held the third BarCamp unconference. This BarCampBuffalo had a theme: Social Media (aka Social Computing, Social Networking). This was a great opportunity to discuss the topic which has been on my mind: Social Computing in the Enterprise.

Though we wouldn’t think twice about it, social computing has been around since the beginning of enterprise computing. Some examples of social software include: email, blogs, wikis, instant messaging & presence awareness, media sharing, social bookmarking & search, social networking, and web conferencing. The latest wave of social computing applications and standards are often dubbed Web 2.0 or Collaborative Software.

My objectives for this open discussion were to:

• Define Social Computing and contrast it with Social Networking
• Highlight prevalent Web 2.0 themes
• Discuss why we’re increasingly seeing “Everything” 2.0
• Share the Business Drivers and Challenges of using Social Software in the Enterprise
• Share an Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Framework
• Cover the Value Proposition of Social Software
• Highlight the intersection of Marketing 2.0 and Social Software

The presentation I delivered:

Social Computing In The Enterprise BarCampBuffalo Open Discussion

View my SlideShare.net presentations.

Business Drivers for Enterprise 2.0

• Cost Reduction
• Employee Engagement
• Encourage Bottom-up Innovation
• Collective Intelligence
• Enhanced Collaboration, Community-building
• Collaborative Decision Making
• Email Reduction
• Knowledge Retention & Management
• Increased Adoption, Greater Value
• Effective, Real-Time Communication
• Connecting with Customers
• Cultivating Prosumers [Producer/Consumer]

Business Challenges Implementing Enterprise 2.0

• Creating Business Case/ROI Justification
• Cultural Dynamics
• Policies for Participation
• Controlling the Message
• Organizational Boundaries Are Blurring; IP Evaporation
• Concerns Sharing “Work-in-Progress” vs. “Publication”
• Who Disseminates the Message?
• Permanence of Message
• “Diamonds Web publications are forever.”
• Record Retention & Regulatory Compliance
• Additional Communications Channels to Cultivate/Maintain
• Require Additional Resources

How do you feel about Social Computing in Enterprise?

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Aneesh Chopra, Federal CTO

After high expectations, much anticipation and speculation, on April 18, 2009, President Obama named Aneesh Paul Chopra the first-ever Federal Chief Technology Officer.

I’m sure many of us are thinking, “Déjà vu? Didn’t President Obama already appoint an IT chief in March?” Yes, Vivek Kundra is the nation’s CIO whereas Aneesh Chorpa will serve as the nation’s CTO. Here’s what the White House said:

As Chief Technology Officer, Chopra will promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to protecting the homeland. Together with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, they will help give all Americans a government that is effective, efficient, and transparent.

Tim O’Reilly, in his excellent article Why Aneesh Chopra is a Great Choice for Federal CTO, dug a little deeper to learn from the White House that:

The responsibilities of the CIO are to use information technology to transform the ways in which the government does business. The CTO will develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn.

Low Profile, High Impact?

In his previous role as the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, his focus was to “leverage technology in government reform, [promote] Virginia’s innovation agenda, and [foster] technology-related economic development with a special emphasis on entrepreneurship.” Chopra was recently recognized by Government Technology Magazine for “[setting] the standard for using technology to improve government”, and he was awarded Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award.

So what’s his approach?

Sean Garrett did the heavy lifting in his thorough article, Aneesh Chopra: National CTO, sharing what he’s learned about the 36-year-old Chopra:

I highly recommend watching a good portion of the video below. It’s from this year’s Congressional Internet Caucus conference in January.

Some speech highlights:
3:50: Open government
11:10: Discovering/searching for govt data
16:00: Open stem education
19:50: A very cool “open textbook” program
22:30: “The iPhone is my life”
24:00: Health care IT
35.15: Broadband policy
44:00: Open education (Q&A)

Chopra may not be a Valley guy, but Silicon Valley is going to like him a lot. He’s energetic, insightful and can speak the language (again, watch the video). He’s no bureaucrat.

And, just because you didn’t previously work for a chip company or an Internet start-up doesn’t mean that you “are not a tech guy” as I just read on another blog. Chopra spent a bulk of his career seeing technology in action (for better or worse) in his work in the health care industry and knew that it could and should do better to bring change to the massive sector.

So far, Micah Sifry at TechPresident has the best wrap up on Chopra’s relevant experience:

A few quick observations about this choice. First, it looks like very good news for the transparency movement, as well as those of us looking for an open-minded leader willing to experiment with new forms of collaborative governance. For example, back in early 2007, under Chopra’s leadership, Virginia was one of the first states to move, with Google’s help, to make its state websites more searchable and thus more accessible to ordinary citizens. The state has also been in the forefront of efforts to create robust web services tracking the giant government stimulus spending package enacted by Obama, and as fed-watcher Christopher Dorobek points out, Chopra is well aware of and supportive of citizen-led watchdog efforts like Jerry Brito’s StimulusWatch.org.

Under Chopra (and it must be mentioned, his boss Governor Tim Kaine), the state also launched a highly interactive website that collected more than 9000 suggestions from residents on how the stimulus monies might be spent. “Relative to calls and letters, it’s fairly safe to say this is probably a tenfold increase in civic participation by allowing people to click on a button, submit their ideas and engage with their governor,” Chopra told a local paper back in March.

Finally, like his soon-to-again-be-colleague Vivek Kundra, Obama’s Chief Information Officer, who also came out of Virginia before serving as DC’s CTO, Chopra is willing to try new ways to innovate government processes, inspired by the open and lateral networking development culture of the internet. Governing Magazine calls him a “Venture Governmentalist,” specifically citing “a small but intriguing experiment in Virginia that aims to bring the high-risk, high-reward ethic of venture investing to state government.” Last year, Chopra invested $2 million in about a dozen small internal agency tech projects with potential to pay big returns in terms of productivity. “More important, and more unusual for the bureaucrats,” says Governing, “he gives them permission to fail. You can’t innovate, Chopra tells them, without taking a gamble every now and then.” He adds, “We need to fundamentally change the culture of government in which change is measured in budget cycles to one in which change is measured in weeks or months.” Who can argue with that?

Technology Industry Reaction

According to the Wall Street Journal’s article, Tech Industry Cheers as Obama Taps Aneesh Chopra for CTO:

Silicon Valley execs and tech bloggers sounded genuinely excited about Obama’s choice Saturday morning and tech industry lobbying groups TechNet and the Business Software Alliance quickly released statements of support, as did several tech heavyweights.

“Aneesh’s experience as Virginia’s secretary of technology and that state’s CTO has provided highly relevant preparation for this new role, and I am confident he will be a major asset to the Administration,” said Mitch Kapor, the Lotus Development Corp. founder who said he got to know Chopra during the campaign.

“If you want innovation, change and high performance — in any organization — the CTO role is crucial. Aneesh is an inspired appointment. His smarts and experience in technology, health care and investing will serve us well,” said John Doerr, of VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in a statement.

“Aneesh built one of the best technology platforms in government in the state of Virginia,” said Google’s Mr. Schmidt, in a statement. (It’s worth noting that the State of Virginia contracts with Google and uses its services extensively on the state’s Web sites).

I am very encouraged by Aneesh Chopra’s appointment as the nation’s first CTO. His ideas for Healthcare IT innovation, expanding educational opportunities, and “Venture Governmentalist” approach make him a game-changer well worth the wait.

Do you agree? Is America moving in the right direction with government reform, innovation and transparency?

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Having architected, deployed, and managed enterprise Microsoft Exchange environments, I know Microsoft Exchange Server is a solid, scalable, and feature-rich product which leverages Microsoft’s LDAP directory services, Active Directory. However, the caveats to implementing this system include a commitment to the Microsoft platform and in-house expertise to manage the infrastructure. What if your business needs to reduce costs yesterday, or is seeking alternatives to Microsoft?

Google has a brilliant, Cloud-based answer to Microsoft: Google Apps. The solution includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs (documents, spreadsheets and presentations), Google Sites, Google Talk–all using your own domain name–for FREE. Yes, for businesses or groups of up to 50 users, the advertising-supported Google Apps Standard Edition is free. Here’s what Google got right:

• Significantly reduced the cost of messaging/collaboration for small businesses
• Designed an easy-to-manage, functional, intuitive interface
• Generously allocated storage–7GB/user!
• Provided secure, encrypted access using SSL
• Tightly integrated the Apps Suite, including Mail, Calendar, Docs, Sites, and browser-based Chat

‘Google Messaging’ is simply Gmail branded @your-company.com. It is robust, feature-rich, and fast, including great features such as “plus addressing”.

The Achilles’ heel: email aliases

Email aliases, or ‘Nicknames’ as Google refers to them, are a key component for most business email systems. For instance, email aliases such as customer.service@your-company.com or support@your-company.com, typically forward to email distribution groups or individual mailboxes. The benefits of email aliases/forwarders include:

• providing a standardized, professional method for customer communications,
• addresses which are independent of employees,
• protecting the domain username from disclosure, and
• protecting individual email accounts from spam.

Google allows you to add nicknames relatively easily. See the video overview:

The problem arises when using a desktop email client (read: Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, et cetera) configured to send from your email alias. The result is the disclosure of your primary email address, your account username, and the presentation of the email message in a less-than-professional manner to the recipient.

So what?

Let’s look at a potential scenario:

• Full Name: John Doe
• Logon Username: JDoe
• Primary Email Address: John.Doe@your-company.com
• Email Alias: sales@your-company.com

Suppose a customer sends a message to sales@your-company.com. This message is delivered to John Doe’s mailbox. John responds to the message, mindfully choosing to respond from sales@your-company.com email address. When the customer receives the reply, depending on their email client, the 'From:' field will display "Your Company Sales <sales@your-company.com> on behalf of John Doe <John.Doe@your-company.com>".

Why does this happen?

In the message header, Google includes the sender’s Google username and primary email address in the form of 'Return-path'‘ and 'Sender' fields. Google justifies the inclusion of the ‘Sender’ field because it helps prevent your message from being marked as spam. If you use Google’s intended browser-based interface, the problem isn’t as visible yet the ‘Return-path’ field is still included in the header, disclosing your primary email address and effectively undermining the purpose of the alias.

What can Google do to make Google Apps more business-friendly?

Few would argue that Google’s search and email capabilities are robust and well managed. Most small business would be justified in concluding Google has a superior ability to manage the messaging and collaboration infrastructure. Organizations, large and small, have some legitimate concerns which must be addressed sufficiently for Google to win their business.

Fix the ‘on behalf of’ Mess

First and foremost, professional messaging is a core component of business. Unfortunately, even if you upgrade to Google Apps Premier Edition, this undesired behavior will persist if you choose to use email aliases/forwarders/nicknames. Google must listen to the overwhelming feedback from it’s users and eliminate the ‘Return-path’ and ‘Sender’ fields.

Assuage Information Assurance Concerns

Larger, regulated organizations that deal with sensitive information, including intellectual property and customer non-public information [NPI] or personally identifiable information [PII], want adequate protections in place to manage the information security risk. In November 2008, Google obtained a SAS70 Type II certification for Google Apps. Google is continually making inroads by addressing information security concerns. See the video overview of Google’s take on Information Assurance in the Cloud:

For a large, distributed organization like Google, I like their practical, nimble approach to information assurance. Ideally, they’ll embrace and certify against internationally recognized standards such as ISO 27001.

Provide Transparent, Feature-Rich Offline Access

What happens when you don’t have an Internet connection and you need to access your Internet-based Google Apps? Google’s answer to this conundrum: bring the Cloud with you.

Cloud computing is great, but you need the cloud to make it work. On an airplane, on the shuttle commuting to work, or at home when my cable modem goes down, I want to work on my documents. And, until now, that usually meant saving a copy and editing on the desktop.

Now there’s a better solution. With Google Docs offline (powered by Google Gears), I can take my little piece of the cloud with me wherever I go. Once enabled, I have a local version of my document list and editors, along with my documents.

This offline access is a good start, but it’s not as polished as it should be. Google is helping develop the next HTML standard, HTML 5, which will enable a better offline experience.

So what do you think?

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On March 31, I attended the second BarCampBuffalo. Like the first-ever event, this event was a success with a very good turnout. This time around, I chose to lead a discussion on Leadership & Management.

In one way or another, the topic of workplace leadership/management affects us all, yet we rarely discuss it in an open forum. My objectives for this open discussion were to:

• differentiate leadership from management,
• highlight characteristics shared by great leaders,
• highlight responsibilities of great managers,
• allow for an honest organizational- and self-assessment of workplace engagement.

The presentation I delivered:

Leadership & The Workplace BarCampBuffalo Open Discussion

View my SlideShare.net presentations.

What are your thoughts?

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Gartner, an IT research and advisory firm, released new research predicting that “by 2011, enterprise microblogging will be a standard feature of 80 percent of social software platforms”.

Twitter is primarily aimed at individuals, so it is not imperative for every corporation to be actively participating at an official level. However, the popular impact of microblogging is leading many companies to explore how they could use it. In addition to the individual use of Twitter, Gartner has identified four different ways in which companies are making use of the Twitter application: direct, indirect, internal, and signaling.
Direct — The company uses Twitter as a marketing or public relations channel
Many companies have established Twitter identities as part of their corporate communications strategies, much like corporate blogs. They Tweet about corporate accomplishments, distributing links to press releases or promotional Web sites, and respond to other Twitterers’ comments about the brand. Gartner maintains that this approach should be used with caution because uninteresting or self-serving Tweets could hinder the brand image as much as it could help. Responding to comments can be particularly risky, as the anonymous nature of Twitter can easily descend into a negative spiral. Gartner recommends that at a minimum, companies should register Twitter IDs for their major brand names to prevent others claiming them and using them inappropriately.

Indirect — The company’s employees use Twitter to enhance and extend their personal reputations, thereby enhancing the company’s reputation
Good Twitterers enhance their personal reputation by saying clever, interesting things, attracting many followers who go on to read their blogs. As people enhance their personal brands, some of this inevitably rubs off on their employers. Twitter provides a way of raising the profile of both individuals and the organizations they work for, which elevates these companies that want to be seen to employ influential leaders.

Internal — Employees use the platform to communicate about what they are doing, projects they are working on and ideas that occur to them
In most cases, Gartner does not recommend using Twitter or any other consumer microblogging service in this way, because there is no guarantee of security. It is crucial that employees understand the limitations of the platform and never discuss confidential matters, because as a seemingly innocuous Tweet about going to see a particular client can tip off a competitor. Other providers, such as Yammer and Present.ly, provide Twitter-like functions targeted at enterprise microblogging with more security and corporate control.

Inbound Signaling
Twitter streams provide a rich source of information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about a company. Search tools like search.twitter.com or the twhirl application can scan for references to particular company or product names. Savvy companies use these signals to get early warnings of problems and collect feedback about product issues and new product ideas.

Read the full press release: Gartner Highlights Four Ways in Which Enterprises Are Using Twitter

What do you think?

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Vivek Kundra, Federal CIO

On March 5th, 2009, President Obama named Vivek Kundra the first-ever Federal Chief Information Officer.  Vivek has built a reputation for challenging the status quo, championing transparency and accountability in government, making government accessible to the masses via social networking, and leveraging cloud computing to lower the cost of government.  Vivek Kundra is an innovator and game changer.  Here’s what the ExecutiveBiz blog had to say:

He’s set to embark on a “technology revolution,” with the federal government in the lead. As America’s first-ever federal CIO, Vivek Kundra is charged with overseeing a $71 billion information technology budget and ensuring IT interoperability between government departments. Kundra comes to his role with a range of government service under his belt: His first government job was as director of infrastructure in Arlington County, VA. He was interviewed for the position Sept. 11, 2001, and hired that day. Kundra also worked as assistant secretary of both commerce and technology for the state of Virginia. Most recently Kundra was chief technology officer of the District of Columbia, where he was credited with finding innovative ways to engage DC residents in a “digital public square.” Kundra is looking to bring that same spirit of transparency and engagement to his role as CIO. In one of his first major speeches since his appointment, Kundra offered a glimpse of the course he’ll set. “Everywhere I look, people talk about how the private sector is ahead of the federal government and that the federal government can’t lead — I reject that idea,” said Kundra at FOSE 2009. Kundra’s current initiatives include a Data.gov platform — a means of “democratizing” information so it’s available to “the people” without compromising security or privacy, he says. Kundra is looking at cloud computing and exploring how to leverage innovations of its kind. Such innovation, adds Kundra, will come through partnership with the commercial sector. Kundra issued the following call to action to them at FOSE:  “Make sure that you help us move forward on the right path and you call out those initiatives that are not working.”

Source: ExecutiveBiz

What’s your take on what Vivek Kundra brings to the federal government?

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On March 3, 2009, Buffalo held its first-ever BarCamp–appropriately called BarCampBuffalo.   I saw this as a great opportunity to have the Buffalo Technology Community come together and learn from one another. Mike Brennan, Steve Poland, Chris Smith, and Chris Van Patten deserve a lot of credit for organizing this successful event. We had a great turnout–100+ Buffalo IT folks, business leaders, and other professionals.

According to the rules, all attendees are encouraged to present or facilitate a session. I chose to lead a discussion on ‘Interaction Assurance’. As we increase our online presence, we want to interact knowing our communications are secure, unaltered, and trustworthy. As I don’t have a great answer for this pain point, I wanted to learn how others have tackled this problem.

The presentation I delivered:

‘Interaction Assurance’: Options for Strong Authentication in World 2.0? BarCampBuffalo Open Discussion

View my SlideShare.net presentations.

So what do you think?  Are there any great, easy-to-use options for strong authentication?

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