Tag Archives: Random

03.22.18
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Branding and Re-Branding

On user community day here at IBM Think I was asked to fill in for a presentation that was originally going to be presented by a social marketeer who would talk about how to brand yourself.  Unfortunately I’m not a social marketeer or any kind of marketeer however I have recently been putting a lot of work into changing both Turtle’s brand image and my own personal brand.  With that in mind I thought it would be useful to talk through how I ended up with a brand at all and my thought processes that took me through the recent changes.

I hope you find it interesting.  A big “thank you” to Chris Miller of “idonotes” fame who read through and sanity checked this with me with only 1 days’ notice.  He’s far more of a marketeer and I am and can speak to how to use those social tools to promote yourself, which I really can’t and so didn’t try 🙂

05.31.17
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The Word For The Decade Is “Disruption”

“Disrupt” “Disruption” we hear those words in conference sessions offered with no context as if the very act of disrupting is by definition a good thing.  We see articles about start ups who promote their ability to disrupt the market as their primary differentiator and it has made its way into common usage which is why it’s stuck in my head and I have developed a twitch everytime I hear someone say it like it’s a magic answer to any and all questions.  However I’ve also been doing a lot of work this year in the IoT space and found myself talking about how IoT devices will completely change how businesses and processes work, in much the same way the arrival of the internet itself did.

So if I find the idea of IoT innovations changing customer relationship models, supply and production and delivery models, if I find all of that interesting, exciting and presenting huge opportunities, what’s my problem with “disruption”.

From the Oxford English Dictionary

Disturbance or problems which interrupt an event, activity, or process.

So yes.  The idea of disrupting established industries, rethinking the very core of how they work sounds on the surface to be just an extension of innovation.  Instead of innovating within industries, you disrupt their existing models to innovate outside of the parameters they are forced to work within.  Some of the most famous disrupters include obviously Uber and AirBnb but you could include media content sites such as Buzzfeed or even vaping products.  All of those things have brought huge benefits to their customers delivering services that are a closer precise fit to their needs.  However all of this was done by benefitting from the other aspect of disruption which is talked about a lot less

Disruptor companies often get to ignore existing regulations that exist for the industries they are disrupting.

That’s why Uber gets to be successful, because they avoided having to abide by the same rules as taxi companies, AirBnb avoided rules around hospitality and Vaping companies avoided rules around health regulations. They all take advantage of gaps in the law.  You may say “good for them. I love what they do” and it’s true many industries have not evolved cleanly, they have more and more outdated regulations and they no longer meet the needs of their customers.  However, by dancing through the gaps in the law the customers and employees remain exposed by the lack of protection those laws were put in place to enforce.

I may choose to book an Uber or an AirBnB , assuring myself I know of the risks I take in doing so and you may do the same but regulations are there to protect everyone, even people who don’t understand what they are giving up in using an unregulated service.

I realise this isn’t news to anyone. You all know this and have your own opinions but for me I had to think it through.  I believe in innovation, I believe in the importance of disrupting existing established and outdated working practices,  but I don’t support slicing through protections that are there for customers and employees in order to achieve a goal.  If regulations need changing, if services need to be different then disruption needs to happen by innovating within those existing parameters or campaigning to change them.

Our company has always worked to deliver innovative systems and rebuild / rethink existing processes and we continue to do that.  So where does this take me? I have more thoughts on that but maybe for another day.

09.10.13
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Let’s try that again

Hello there … Well apparently I haven’t blogged in some time, at least not publicly.  I’ve written countless ones in my head but somehow (let’s call it time passing too quickly when you’re busy) they never made it from my head onto the page.  That’s a shame, if only for me, because the past year has been full of learning and doing and (oh my!) PMRs and Sametime and Connections and Tivoli and SSO and Cognos and DB2 and Filenet and DON’T FALL ASLEEP AT THE BACK.

So, things discovered and lessons learned that I’d like to write up so I don’t have to learn them twice.  Plus random stuff that needs to leave my brain and be free.    Expect to see both Mike and Tim posting updates here too, but first I need to write about Sametime 9 because I’ve been biting my tongue for months and there’s much goodness coming your way that I can now talk about. Enough in fact that I needed to start a new blog just to share.

More very soon…