Just Enough Governance for Notes Blog Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:58:53 +0500 http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/rss.gif http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf 1183694http://www.feedburner.com http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/339084597/TBAN-7GNKXN-changing-network-passwords Scott Johnsen http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7GNKXN-changing-network-passwords http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7GNKXN-changing-network-passwords article this week regarding the City of San Francisco network administrator who changed the password to the network LAN and now won’t share it with anyone else? Although the city claims no data has been comprised, they do admit that no one can access the network. Terry Childs is being held on $5 million bail. (A murder rap comes in around $2 million, doesn’t it?)

As silly as this thing is, and as idiotic as the bosses look, there really is an important IT Governance issue here. Not only has productivity been negatively impacted (okay, no jokes about government work!), but among the systems Mr. Childs has access to are payroll records, emails and law enforcement records.

Who knows what kind of damage he can do if he chooses to. Then again, how bad can this guy be? After all, his lawyer did point out that Mr. Childs “loves kittens”!
]]> Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:17:47 +0500 1 Changing network passwords http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7GNKXN-changing-network-passwordshttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7GNKXN-changing-network-passwords http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/336205311/TBAN-7GKLNS-IT-All-stars Scott Johnsen http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7GKLNS-IT-All-stars http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7GKLNS-IT-All-stars Major League Baseball's All-Star game approaches this evening, I was thinking about the selection criteria used and its fairness or lack thereof. Being from Boston myself, I’m a Red Sox fan, however the number of Red Sox players (7) with planned all-star appearances does seem a bit high. There are many aspects to consider including individual performance versus team, clutch hitting/pitching and reputation. This got me thinking of the criteria used within companies to determine the all-stars.

Major League Baseball has more to consider than simply recognizing top performers. They are concerned with getting fans involved, television ratings, television network success, advertising, etc. In the case of IT, it just sort of happens. Or does it?

What makes one individual an IT all-star versus anybody else? Maybe it’s that developer who engineered a new process management system that increased efficiency by 50%. Or maybe it’s the IT manager who implemented a sound disaster recovery system and saved the day when a false fire scare destroyed every piece of hardware in the server room. There are indicators of potential all-stars, but it’s hard to say exactly what the clincher is. In some cases, there is no doubt about who the all-stars are. In other cases, it might be an issue worth debate over an ice cold beer at the end of the work day. And in a few cases, it’s just wrong.

A case where it was just flat-out wrong occurred when I worked at Monster.com.

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Background
A proposed regulation (OFCCP) was in the U.S. Congress for more than 2 years that would require companies to maintain records of searches done on the Monster Resume Database. This regulation required companies to document the search criteria used to ensure they weren’t discriminating. Search criteria that omitted colleges with a historically minority student body such as Grambling State University or Brigham Young University are discriminatory.

Because delays in enacting this regulation occurred over and over again, it was a big surprise to just about everyone when it went into effect with a lead time of 3 months.

Actions Required
Although this regulation did not require Monster to do anything in particular, it did require our customers to maintain records of all search criteria used. As such, several groups within the company provided proposals for ways we could make this easier for our customers. However the response from the Vice President in charge of products was to do nothing and let this be the problem of our customers.

In the next two months, we heard from a large number of our largest customers telling us that they would no longer be able to use Monster if we didn’t help them comply with this regulation. Finally, the problem was given to the senior management team where a decision was made to address the issue for our customers. The Vice President of Products was put in charge of this initiative.

Over the next 30 days, all development projects were put on hold so that we could deliver this new requirement to our customers. Late nights were spent by a lot of people defining and developing the new functionality, talking to customers ensuring we would have a solution for them, testing and documenting the new functionality and training sales, technical support and customers on the new functionality. In the end, we were successful in delivering the functionality needed by our customers.

Result
Because the project was so successful, the Vice President of Products was given special praise, singled out for a tremendous contribution and ultimately rewarded with a promotion. The crisis (created by this very same Vice President) was averted! So an IT All-Star was created. But I don’t think that’s the kind of all-star I really want to have on my team. That’s like Barry Bonds getting the game-winning hit after making an error with 2 outs and the bases loaded. Unfortunately, most people would remember the hit. ]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:54:46 +0500 0 IT All-Stars http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7GKLNS-IT-All-starshttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7GKLNS-IT-All-stars http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/319126433/TBAN-7FWRAJ_Notes_Threat Scott Johnsen http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FWRAJ_Notes_Threat http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FWRAJ_Notes_Threat (article). I’m a marketing person, and even I don’t believe that one. I’ve worked with a lot of “conversion tools” over the years. They work fine for the easy stuff … the stuff you can do easily without conversion tools. But the hard stuff is still … hard.

They are also partnering with Google so that these converted customers can use Gmail, Calendar and Google Docs along with Salesforce.com. According to Salesforce.com chairman Marc Benioff, CIOs are turning to the combo of Google on email and collaboration, and Salesforce.com for applications. Really? Gmail as a corporate email standard? I’m still a marketing person, and I don’t believe this one either.

So CIOs are opting to toss Notes and their MS Office applications to go with Salesforce.com and Google email and applications. Still a marketing person, and I still don’t believe it.
]]> Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:51:10 +0500 8 Notes Threat http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FWRAJ_Notes_Threathttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FWRAJ_Notes_Threat http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/318921403/TBAN-7FWJQV-Compliance-Reputation Scott Johnsen http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FWJQV-Compliance-Reputation http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FWJQV-Compliance-Reputation Harris Interactive Reputation QuotientTM (RQ) survey for 2007. Interestingly, technology companies had a very strong showing second only to consumer package goods companies. This was based on six areas that influence consumer behavior.

• Social Responsibility
• Emotional Appeal
• Financial Performance
• Products and Services
• Vision and Leadership
• Workplace Environment

It is interesting to me that compliance doesn’t seem to have a much of an influence on consumer behavior. At least not directly related to any of the six areas listed above. I supposed part of that is because compliance, or lack thereof, is mostly hidden from view by the outside world. At least until an Enron accounting fraud, Exxon overreporting of oil reserves or Fannie Mae underreporting of profits becomes public knowledge.

Either way, it is nice to see that IBM managed a respectable tie for 22nd! View Selected Results
]]> Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:15:43 +0500 0 Compliance Reputation http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FWJQV-Compliance-Reputationhttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FWJQV-Compliance-Reputation http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/318190692/TBAN-7FVLAB-Browser-Wars Grant Norman http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FVLAB-Browser-Wars http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FVLAB-Browser-Wars Firefox Download Day, though the time of release and being in the UK meant I downloaded it the day after (Washington Post article). Never mind, I've now had a quick look around and it looks nice enough, but one thing both bothers me and makes me chuckle about the Firefox steam train. Is it really the greatest thing since sliced bread?

As an Opera user I get frustrated about the trumpeting of Firefox as Opera deserves to have as big a noise made about it and a larger market share as a result, but any gain in Opera share is likely to be at the expense of Firefox rather than the devil that is IE, so the winner is M$. On the other hand, I like the nice smug feeling when I use mouse gestures, speed dial and so on, without having to hunt for plug-ins and subsequent slow down in my browsing experience. Feel free to find comparisons with the Win/Mac/Linux and also Lotus/M$ collaboration battles.

I've had Firefox installed since 0.9, but it’s never been my browser of choice. I'm certainly not an IE fan, though I do confess to having had IE4 as my main browser for a time 10 years ago, but that was because Netscape 4 was slower than a sloth addicted to opiates. My main browser has been Opera since v5 and I am currently on v9.5. With v5 I had all sorts of compatibility problems and had to resort to IE for secure sites, but now I come across very few sites that I prefer to browse in Firefox or IE and speed has always been Opera's strong point. (There is a newer test here with some interesting additional points in the comments)

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Back to the real point though, and that is that the advance and choice of browsers seems to have bypassed Notes. Lotus has gone to huge effort to create a superior Open Source alternative to M$ Office, but forgotten to spend a day or two utilising the latest browsers within Notes. As far as I can tell in ND8, Notes ironically still uses IE for displaying web pages and the Preview in Browser toolbar icons include 1 for IE, 1 for each of Netscape 4, 5 & 6 and 1 marked Other (which did very little, despite my tinkering). Netscape? Come on, Netscape 6 is 7 years old and was not even relevant when it was released (Netscape blog article).

So much has, and is, being done to improve the Notes client in ND8, yet the little corner of Notes called web access is antiquated and, well, embarrassing. IE is quite widely recognised in the industry as being the weakest browser for general surfing and for security, yet it is the one Notes is tied to. In today's world of governance, the controlled, corporate desktop is more likely to restrict users to a specific browser and if that browser isn't IE, then browsing through Notes becomes disabled and another bit of “Yeah, It Can Do That Too” disappears (nsftools blog article). ]]> Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:34:48 +0500 0 Browser Wars http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FVLAB-Browser-Warshttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FVLAB-Browser-Wars http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/314896501/TBAN-7FQSEU-ILUG Simon Peek http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FQSEU-ILUG http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FQSEU-ILUG Paul Mooney, Rob Novak, Warren Elsmore, Bill Buchan…

This year I was invited to deliver a session (twice, in fact) entitled “Build or Bust: Controlling your Designs from Development to Production”. (You can download presentation slides here)

The first session was particularly well attended with over 100 people. And I thought I had prepared carefully….
(1) I had saved a copy of my presentation slides to a memory stick (just in case the laptop blew up);
(2) I had printed copies of the slides for delegates (but I had only printed 30 sets);
(3) I had practiced the session (of course!); and
(4) I arrived in the room in plenty of time for setup.

Unfortunately the projector switched itself off every 5 minutes for 2 or 3 minutes and the microphone switched itself off every 10 minutes for a couple of minutes.

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As one delegate said, at least the session was going to be remembered by everyone for a long time! Another delegate jokingly suggested that I carry a spare projector with me on my travels.

In fact, these problems (nothing to do with the organizers and everything to do with the owners of the venue) didn't really cause a big problem. It helped that there were printed copies of the slides for some of the delegates, and it was also quite funny, in a somewhat twisted way. At one point I even had Rocky Oliver trying to fix the AV equipment!

It just goes to show that no matter what preparations we make, there will always be times when things beyond our control go wrong. (In fact this is one of the answers I could give to the question posed in the article posted below, "What Keeps You Up at Night?").

The next day I was due to repeat the session. As I was walking towards the room where the session was taking place I passed past one of our customers and had a blinding flash of inspiration; why not drag him on stage and see if he wants to present the session with me? All I can say is that Neil Gower did a superb job. Thanks Neil – I’m not sure what I would have done were the positions to be reversed. Hopefully I’ll never find out!

And maybe I can find a presentation on “Present or Bust: Controlling your Presentation from Start to Finish” before next year’s ILUG. ]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:49:16 +0500 0 ILUG http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FQSEU-ILUGhttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FQSEU-ILUG http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/314684539/TBAN-7FQJYP-supporting-notes-8.5-beta Grant Norman http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FQJYP-supporting-notes-8.5-beta http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FQJYP-supporting-notes-8.5-beta
1 - Notes & Domino is our business.
2 - We have been doing this for 12+ years and have no plans on retiring.
3 - We have always been in the position to provide 'added value'.

Work it out from that :¬)

Specifically on whether our tools work in the 8.5 beta or not - our tools are never supported until the gold release versions of Notes/Domino. Run them at your own risk in 8.5
]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:28:13 +0500 1 supporting Notes 8.5 beta http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FQJYP-supporting-notes-8.5-betahttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FQJYP-supporting-notes-8.5-beta http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/309790091/TBAN-7FHNYQ-Customer-Fears Scott Johnsen http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FHNYQ-Customer-Fears http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FHNYQ-Customer-Fears
This got me thinking about what keeps our customers up at night? I can imagine many of the Notes developers and admins we work with can count on the old standby “too much to do with too few resources”. But at least the deadlines are unrealistic! I would also imagine that some suffer from the challenge of having responsibility without the authority. At least from our experience, that seems to be very popular, especially among larger customers.

I can also imagine that Notes developers worry about getting that testy little bit of critical LotusScript to work properly. Similarly, Notes administrators probably have concerns about known security holes in applications that cannot get plugged by any apparent means.

What about you? What keeps you up at night? Fear of failing an audit? Fear of never getting caught up? Fear of getting caught up? There must be something. I’d love to hear from you.
]]> Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:53:04 +0500 1 Customer Fears http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FHNYQ-Customer-Fearshttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FHNYQ-Customer-Fears http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/306288069/TBAN-7FCPZ2-DNUG_2008 Matthew Fyleman http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FCPZ2-DNUG_2008 http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FCPZ2-DNUG_2008
What seemed to get everyone thinking though was that the capabilities of an eclipse based Notes client, hinted at in the 8.0x client, are now becoming readily apparent in the 8.5 world. However, this also highlights the increased complexity of application development in that environment, and this in turn means that the more easy-going Notes development practices of the past will no longer cut it in the future. Creating scalable, maintainable and robust applications in the future is going to require much more developer discipline. It seems Notes is finally entering the real-world as far as controlled application development goes!

Exciting times.
]]> Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:44:46 +0500 0 DNUG 2008 http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FCPZ2-DNUG_2008http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FCPZ2-DNUG_2008 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/justenoughgovernance/~3/306219020/TBAN-7FCMMN Scott Johnsen http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FCMMN http://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FCMMN
Caller: I’d like to order a cake for a going-away party.

Bing’s Bakery: What would you like on the cake?

Caller: “Best Wishes Suzanne.” Underneath that, “We will miss you!”



I guess it never hurts to double check those requirements.
]]> Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:44:14 +0500 0 Requirements http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetItemData?uri=justenoughgovernance&itemurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.governancefornotes.com%2Fblog%2Fgovernanceblog.nsf%2Fd6plinks%2FTBAN-7FCMMNhttp://www.governancefornotes.com/blog/governanceblog.nsf/d6plinks/TBAN-7FCMMN http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=justenoughgovernance