23 Monday Nov 2015
Having got your attention I would like to introduce you to a pragmatic, real-world and business centric approach to Big Data and Big Data Analytics. When I say that this is the best approach to Big Data you are ever likely to find in the whole universe and in your entire life, I am still significantly understating the magnificent utility, timeliness and the here-and-now facets of the approach. Continue reading
22 Sunday Nov 2015
Posted in Banking, Uncategorized
Welcome to the new kid on the block, same as the old kid but sharper, tougher and even more relevant to business than before. Who can it be, what do we call her and where does she live?
Well here’s a surprise. The newcomer is none other than the 4th generation of Enterprise Data Warehousing. Ready and prepared to elevate Big Data, Analytics and an accompanying wealth of must-have data accessories to the dizzying heights of value-adding, business-changing and stakeholder-pleasing usefulness, utility and usability.
Read the full article on the IT Circus blog hosted by IT World: http://www.itworld.com/article/3006473/big-data/what-can-data-warehousing-do-for-us-now.html
17 Tuesday Nov 2015
Many people come up to me in the street and beg me to write about the truths, myths and unwise things said about Big Data. I am offered gifts of goats, partners and riches beyond the dreams of avarice just to pronounce on such things. I am not in the habit of bowing to such street-pressure, but I have finally come round to doing something, if only to placate the river of rose-petal bearing infants’ tears flowing past my abode.
17 Tuesday Nov 2015
Posted in Martyn Jones, Professional Networking, Social Media, Uncategorized
I know. I know! Who the hell poses a question like that? Is LinkedIn Worse Than Facebook? Who can say? Or, as my great auntie, Werner von Braun might have said, “If you are dumb enough to ask such a question, then you will surely be too stupid to understand a credible answer”.
I have seen it a lot over the years, perfectly irrational people posing perfectly cogent and simple questions, and then not being able to answer those questions themselves. It is good to see logic and good sense prevail, even if the observables are marginally more surreal than mundane.
Now me. I quite despise the whole Facebook shtick, but because so many of family, friends an acquaintances use it, I feel almost compelled to be there, even if in spirit only. It doesn`t help either that some of the founders of the social media biz had and have such goddam awful personalities, scummy little twerps for which adjectives such as nasty, mean-spirited and ruthlessly exploitative don’t even begin to give one a good picture.
But, do I think that LinkedIn is worse than Facebook?
A bit like your favourite grandma telling a very rude joke, the number one reason is quite simple. Just as no one expected The Inquisition, so no one expects LinkedIn to be worse than Facebook, and when the realization hits the fan, it’s even more alarming, because in no small part, it’s so unexpected. Whereas when it comes to Facebook, no one expects any better, so it doesn’t disappoint, at least, not to anything like the same degree.
Students of Seneca will realise straight away that this is the case, and even understand why it’s such a more disappointing experience to be mugged by social media that seems to be used by professional and ethical people like us, which creates a false sense of security and an expectation that quite often results in serial disappointment and disenchantment.
But, clearly this is not going well.
I can tell I´m not getting far with the angle I adopted for this piece. I know that because I tried this approach at a consulting gig quite recently at a theatre in Barcelona, and although a small part of the crowd quickly got what I was trying to convey, albeit they were an intelligent and radical underground, the majority just looked at me, like a happy-pack of expectant puppies waiting for the magic word. Therefore, I expect you are doing the very same thing right now.
Am I right, or am I right?
I probably have a flawed, jaded and perhaps overly-severe notion of concepts such as professionalism, ethics and quality of life, an outlook that also finds resonance in my views on professional social media and online networking, and those who plumb these depths.
Everyone can lie, cheat, misrepresent, trick, fool and befuddle, but I prefer to think that as professionals we could also do the same, in our own interests, but that we consciously chose not to.
Which is why I am appalled by those self-styled professionals who go out of their way to give misleading, erroneous and harmful advice on a wide range of subjects. When this happens down the pub it’s to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. When people use what is ostensibly taken as a serious professional networking site and experts’ platform to deceive, beguile and scam those who know no better.
What about the motivational advice that will drag peoples’ moral down to the level of their shoe laces?
What about the leadership advice that will get people into hot water and possibly get them fired?
What about bamboozling bullshit babblers who use their faux-expertise to railroad the susceptible, gullible and impressionable into committing, time money and effort to embrace crack-pot ideas and embrace untenable projects?
What about the detritus that glibly sells delusional bullshit and harmless fantasy as liberation, career-advancing and life-changing?
Why is it that economic power, military power, matchless arrogance, wilful ignorance and cultural imperialism go hand in hand?
Take another look yourself if you don’t believe me. Look at the leadership pieces, the motivational pieces, the life-style pieces, the sports pieces, the cracker-barrel racist, sexist and classist shit flogged as legitimate political opinion. Dig deep. Embrace thought and reason. Learn or hone critical thinking. Then you too will be able to ask the searching questions, if you aren’t doing so already. Get in there and ask! What is this bullshit? How the hell am I going to speak with my boss, me partner, my children, etc. like that without really losing out? Why is Big Data for everyone? Why should I care about IoT? What in the name of Sam Adams is my personal data doing on the Cloud? What the fuck do those who live cocooned in their self-imposed ‘Culture of Contentment’ know about my problems, my difficulties, my family, my family and friends, my community and my world?
However, not all is lost, and you can continue in the world of social media without exposing yourself to any nasty surprises. The solution is easy. Either do not partake or set your expectations very low, especially in the case of the hype and bullshit infested networks.
Still don’t see it?
In that case, just ask yourself this question: what was better, the Black Death or the bubonic plague?
All it now needs are for the music to come in and the credits to roll, European art-house cine style, as I leave with a “there you have it”.
There you have it. A blog piece that not only reflects on the levels of triteness, opportunism and boring nature of a pseudo-professional and achingly postmodern web site, but a representative piece that also tries to embody all of that banality, manipulation and awkwardness in less than one thousand words. I hope that this piece provided some food for thought, if nothing much else.
Many thanks for reading.
13 Friday Nov 2015
11 Wednesday Nov 2015
Posted in Big Data, Data Lake, data science, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones
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Normally I would send such people to see a specialist – no, not a guru, but a sort of health specialist, but because this has happened to me so many times now, I eventually decided to put pen to paper, push the envelope, open up the kimono, and to record my advice for posterity and the great grandchildren.
So, here are my top seven tips for cashing in quick on the new big thing on the block.
1 – A business opportunity for faith
Like every new religion, trend or fad, Big Data has its own founding myths, theology and liturgy, and there is money to be made in it; loadsa lovely jubbly money. By predicating and evangelising Big Data you will be welcomed with open arms into the Big Data faith, and will receive all the attendant benefits that will miraculously and mysteriously fall upon you and your devout friends. Go on, I dare you. Be a Big Data guru, a shepherd to a flock of sheep, and enjoy the wealth, health and happiness that most surely will come your way. You too can look cool in red Prada slippers, a flattering and flowing gown and matching accessories.
2 – Acquire it, multiply it, weigh it, mark it up and sell it on
Simply stated, this is about acquiring other people’s data, by sacred means or profane, marking it up and then selling it on. The value you add is that you act as a trusted conduit, a conduit for good. You may care to enrich the data, swop the order of data, replicate and embellish data, make stuff up, etc. which all serves to ‘add value’ to the data. You may even consider adding nuggets of value to the data, just for kicks and giggles. My best friend’s favourite is injecting the good old ‘diaper and beer’ and ‘friends and family’ clichés into every Big Data collection, as it never fails to thrill, please and delight.
3 – Anything can be anything
The good thing about making money from Big Data is that it doesn’t need to be anything to do with Big Data. Make a 20GB Enterprise Data Warehouse? Call it a Big Data success. Sell 20 boxes of dodgy doughnuts down the alternative market? Proclaim a Big Data triumph. Sell your digital porn stash to your best mate? Point to the incredible invisible hand of the Big Data market at work. See what I’m doing there. Anything can be anything, and you too can cash in on that opportunity, big time.
4 – Big Data Patronage
Tense, nervous headaches? Do you like making up stories about Big Data, or for that matter anything else? Are you a natural born fibber but are strapped for cash? Then worry no longer. If you get a Big Data patron you will be sorted for ‘life’; get two and you’ll be sorted for the afterlife as well. With a Big Data patron you can get the most tenuous, crappiest and superficial of pieces published, promoted and vaunted – globally. Can’t make it up yourself, then outsource and offshore it, after all, just get the keywords right for SEO ranking and the gullible will flock to you in droves. The down side of this profession is that you will be targeted for writing half-truths, quarter-truths and downright lies, and you will be pilloried as a purveyor of rank hyperbole. But don’t worry, take heart and never lose the faith, you will be in good company. As one Big Data guru was want to say ” If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” Amen! brother.
5 – Big Data Certification
By 2016 there will be global demand for 30 billion Big Data professionals. Are you prepared to cash in on that inevitability? No? Then consider this.
One of my best friends makes his living as a completely phony Big Data Scientist. For two hundred bucks he can make you a Data Scientist or a Big Data guru. Some guys give you an education but this guy gives you immediate access to high paying jobs, sex and a life in the city. Moreover, for an extra 250 bucks you can also become a certified Big Data Trainer, which will allow you to do unto others what has been done unto you.
6 – Creative Technology Reuse
Big Data has heralded in the biggest innovations known in the history of computing, and arguably in the entire history of humankind. One of those new inventions has been the now widely acclaimed and revolutionary ‘flat file data base’ (FFDB), and this has been accompanied with developments in low level operating system primitives that allow for the processing of these collections and hierarchies of FFDBs. So, if one has a mind to do so, one can get some real business leverage off of these new tendencies by borrowing 21st century technology found in old operating system hacks from the sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties and… Well, the point is that in order to get serious funding it is no longer good enough to have a half page business plan, it is also necessary to eke out ‘stuff’ that works within the new paradigms of Big Data and Big Data Analytics. For my next venture I will be looking for serious funding for my ‘Arbitrary Dawdle Down Data Street’ (AD3S) Big Data Analytics platform, a platform designed to support virtual 1k bit processing and the massively parallel provision of global regular expression search and match (S&M), concatenation and listing, and cooperative data-driven and streamed data extraction and reporting. I’m hoping to attract the attention of governments, the EU, the Manic Street Preachers, the UN, China, Vladimir Putin, the DOD, HP, Oracle, Gartner, Lana Del Rey, Deloitte and IBM. So, this is going to be absolutely massive. Word!
7 – Big Data Brokerage
According to leading management consultants and industry watchers Gartner, McKinsey and Deloitte, data needs to be managed and accounted like any other asset, such as money. To get into a similar view-point requires a massive leap of faith, but it is a conversion that might drive dividends. One avenue to be explored in eking out value from the apparently massively valuable Big Data lakes, silos and pools is through the operation of a Big Data Brokerage. A Big Data Brokerage is a business whose main responsibility is to be an intermediary that puts Big Data buyers and Big Data sellers together in order to facilitate a transaction. Big Data Brokerage companies are compensated via commission after the Big Data transaction has been successfully completed. They may also charge introductory fees. Just imagine the wealth of business opportunities in that. You could become the Goldman Sachs of data.
I hope you enjoyed this piece and would be pleased to hear your views on this and other subjects.
Whilst I understand the attraction and even the need of creating a new and significant growth industry, I would also advise a degree of restraint, and whilst I see that “Big Data” (the consideration of the potential value of All Data) has its allure, I also think that some good sense and informed caution should also prevail.
Thank you so much for reading.
Martyn Richard Jones
Spain, 2015
11 Wednesday Nov 2015
Posted in goodstrat, influencers, leadership, Martyn Jones
Tags
I do not like being spoon-fed; it’s just not my thing. This is good for me, but not so clever for the professional thought leaders who want me to feel the love and accept their guidance and power.
Take the whole LinkedIn Influencer shtick as an example. Those who frequently use LinkedIn are encouraged to follow people cutely labeled as ‘Influencers’, which is all fine and dandy, and many people will happily accept to follow such influencers. Being a contrarian, I dislike the in-your-face promotion of people I don’t really know from Adam and Eve, especially those with whose views I don’t particularly care about or need, or simply find obnoxiously contrary to my own values – which is like contrary, which is okay, but obnoxiously so, which is not okay.
That is why my LinkedIn influencer connection is currently at three: Ban Ki-moon, Dan Ariely and Michael Schrage. They are all interesting people, that I respect, and I like to keep track of what they have to say and how they go about doing what they are good at doing.
That said, there are more people from whom I do take ideas, ethical values and inspiration. Some of these names might be familiar; some are less known on the international stage.
If there was ever anyone in football that represented understated leadership, humility, dignity, fair play and gravitas then that person is the Spanish football coach Vicente del Bosque. A great all-around manager, he combines very talented players and strategies into happy teams and winning formulas.
Another big influence on my professional work is Bill Inmon, the father of Data Warehousing, who offers anyone who is willing to pay attention a veritable compendium of practical, compelling and timeless verities about data warehousing, data architecture and data management. If you are interested in the world of data I would suggest checking out some of Bill’s insightful, useful and popular publications, of which there are many. In July 2007 Bill was named by Computerworld as one of the ten people that most influenced the first 40 years of the computer industry.
Maybe this will surprise some people, but the Spanish politician Julio Anguita is quite possibly the most decent, clear-minded and coherent person I have had the pleasure of meeting. Now retired from the front-line of politics, he was Mayor of Cordoba, and then General Coordinator of what was at the time the 3rd largest political formation in Spain. A great and compelling orator with the verve, openness and talent of everyone’s favourite schoolteacher, he not only seeks to convince but also to educate, to inform and to get people to think for themselves. He is a man who very much lives and breathes the spirit of Gandhi’s “Live simply so that others may simply live.”
One of the books that brought the most clarity to my understanding of power has been Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. Professor Kennedy has a great knack of explaining power, structure, processes, events, organisation and logistics in a clear, cohesive and coherent fashion, and without any frivolous nonsense or jarring political bias. I had the pleasure of listening to one of Professor Kennedy’s lectures a few years ago, and it was a masterclass in conveying complex ideas, simply, rationally and succinctly.
Dan Ariely is an Israeli American professor of psychology and behavioural economics, and he’s really brilliant at it. Not only that he has a great ability to convey his research, ideas and interpretations in interesting, engaging and fun ways, whether it takes the form of a lecture, a book, a podcast or a video. He is the bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, which is, without doubt, the best ever book I have read on contemporary human irrationality. Dan teaches at Duke University and is the founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight: One of my favourite Dan Ariely quotes is “The more cashless our society becomes, the more our moral compass slips.” which is taken from his book The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone–Especially Ourselves.
At heart, I am a strategist, and if ever there was a strategist’s strategist then that person is Richard Rumelt. An innate, intelligent and no-nonsense strategist and author of the bestselling Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, Richard pulls no punches when it comes to straight talk on strategy. One of my favourite Rumelt quotes is “The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action.” One that should be framed and on the wall of every strategist. When it comes to strategy Richard Rumelt forces people to get past the relative comfort zones of endless hypothesizing and conceptualization and move quickly on to the difficult terrain of significant challenges, strategy development and execution, with the emphasis very much on the latter.
As John Kay put it in his blog piece on Richard’s Good Strategy Bad Strategy “The starting point of bad strategy is often a goal – a 20 percent share of the European widget market, with a 15 percent return on equity. The bad strategist confuses policy – to become Europe’s leading widget maker through complementary acquisitions – with strategy. Bad strategy is often fluff – to become the widget provider of choice by exceeding customer expectations.” Or as Richard himself succinctly put it “Diagnosis is analysis, not a description of symptoms. You don’t go to your doctor to be told you have a sore throat.”
Dave Trott is a true ad-land legend. So why am I influenced by one of the greats of advertising? Simples! As Dave himself likes to emphasize, in order to survive and thrive we don’t just take inspiration, intimations and ideas from things that are closest to home, from our comfort zone or simply from our own profession. We must learn to take clues and creative hints from as many places that we have around us, and we use all of our senses to capture useful and interesting concepts, thoughts and items that are hard to categorize, and which we generally label as ‘things’. Dave Trott is also responsible for some of the most memorable adverts of my childhood and youth, but his biggest influence on me came from reading his masterly book entitled ‘Predatory Thinking: A Masterclass in Out-Thinking the Competition’ This is a bit from the book:
Two explorers are walking through the jungle.
Suddenly they hear a tiger roar.
One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his backpack.
‘You’re crazy, you’ll never out-run a tiger,’ says the other explorer.
‘I don’t have to out-run the tiger,’ he replies.
‘I just have to out-run you.’
Here’s another Dave Trott quote that I absolutely adore, and I also apply to my own line of work: “Why doesn’t most advertising work? Because it’s ‘right’. It’s been debated, discussed, argued, briefed, researched, debriefed, rebriefed, until it’s ‘right’.”
Bob Hoffman is the Ad Contrarian, yes, another influencer of mine from the world of advertising. Bob is brilliant, witty and fun, and he can be quite rude, in a rather pointed and apposite way. Indeed, one of the motivations for setting up The Big Data Contrarians group on LinkedIn was Bob himself. I’ll let you guess why he’s one of my influencers, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this quote:
“We thought that interactivity would make advertising more engaging. We thought that traditional advertising was on the way out. We thought that the DVR was going to devastate TV. We thought the PC and the television were going to converge. None of this has happened.”
Oh go on, it’s Tuesday, so how about another Bob Hoffman quote?
“Anthropologists speculate that previously there was another species of human-like primates that did not have the brand gene. These proto-humans walked upright and developed primitive tools, but couldn’t tell Jif from Skippy, and believed Evian and Crystal Geyser were pretty much the same stuff. Scientists marvel at their survival.”
Well, that about wraps it up. There are quite a few more names, but for the second part of this piece, I will be looking at the women who have influenced my professional and political life, people such as Ann Livermore, Dolores Ibárruri, Grace Hopper, Martina Navratilova and Christiana Figueres.
Until then, have a great time.
Many thanks for reading.
If you want to connect then please send a request. If you have any questions or comments then fire them off below. Cheers 🙂
Oh… and one last thing before I go… If you are interested in data or even Big Data then DON’T FORGET TO JOIN THE BIG DATA CONTRARIANS: http://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976
11 Wednesday Nov 2015
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Here are the second seven talking points in this series that deal with aspects of leadership, coaching and management. Enjoy!
Some of the most exciting moments of my childhood were when the family would gather around the television to watch the Welsh rugby wizards weave their magic spells.
This was the team of the mighty Pontypool front row, the brilliant Gareth Edwards and the legendary Barry John, once the greatest rugby player on the planet.
In his autobiography, Edwards captured the rugby essence of John “He had this marvellous easiness in the mind, reducing problems to their simplest form, backing his own talent all the time. One success on the field bred another and soon he gave off a cool superiority which spread to others in the side.”
Which brings me to Tesco. Tesco PLC is a multinational grocery and merchandising retailer headquartered in England. Since it was founded in Hackney in 1919 it has grown to become the third placed retailer in terms of profits and second for gross revenue – globally. Part of Tesco’s success is intrinsically linked to simplicity.
Tesco has three conditions that must be met before enterprise wide innovations are put into use. Innovations must be better for customers; they must ultimately make things cheaper for Tesco, and thirdly – and this is the difficult part – the innovation must make things simpler for Tesco’s staff. Better, cheaper, simpler.
Michael Schrage once described Tesco’s success in these terms “Tesco’s secret sauce for innovation simplification was, appropriately, astonishingly simple: the company made people — and held people — accountable for simplicity.”
Why are Tesco now being given such a hard time by the major discounters?
Both Lidl and Aldi understand the power of simplicity, they always have. But some of Tesco’s big decisions bypassed the simplicity ‘gatekeeper’. When push came to shove they failed to keep things simple and they suffered from not diligently following the most important of their own enterprise innovation considerations.
As leaders we must know how to simplify and to reduce or eliminate complexity, for everyone. But we must also remember that we must simplify and still retain the levels of effectiveness that are desired. So, simplify as much as you can, but do not oversimplify.
I would like to end this talking point with a quote from the late and great Steve Jobs, “That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
Excellent preparation kills… the competition.
In the eighties I worked at Sperry Univac (now Unisys), and in 1983 I was promoted to the role of Business Consultant, a role which involved identifying and understanding significant challenges faced by clients and prospects and then coming up with valuable, effective and simplified ways to address those challenges.
The head of the organisation I was working for was a brilliant communicator, the sort of speaker who could charm the dogs out of the trees. He was a natural, like a Bill Clinton of IT.
I used to speak at our European User conferences, and one particular year, my boss – at very short notice – was asked to give a keynote speech and to some of the biggest captains of government, industry and finance throughout Europe. He was up until four in the morning standing in front of a mirror and rehearsing his talk. His partner being his only audience.Needless to say, the next day the pitch was a resounding success. That evening the delegates frequenting the bars and restaurants of Nice talked of little else. That was a great lesson in the importance of preparation, no matter how good you think you are.
I have a friend who is also a chef who doubled as an IT expert. We were working together on a very large and high-profile Business IT project in Cork. I once mentioned that I played the classical guitar, so I was asked if I would go and play in his restaurant one Saturday night, which I quite happily agreed to do. I arrived in Bantry in the afternoon just after lunch, and sat in the kitchen of the restaurant whilst my friend busily prepped the food for that evening. It was the first time I had seen this up close, and he was brilliant at it. Everything that was done, the order in which it was done, how things were combined, cooked, cut and presented, made absolute sense. Nothing was unnecessary; everything had a coherence, cohesiveness and precision about it.
All of the diners that night were absolutely thrilled and delighted by the food set before them.
I casually remarked that if he applied this type of skill and preparation to data, then he would quite possibly revolutionise data integration, architecture and a management; which coincidentally he went on to do, and with no small success.
As Abe Lincoln once remarked, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Although content and context are important communications aspects, one cannot aspire to be a great leader if one does not aspire to be a great communicator. This is a lesson that I have learned from observing great leaders and great orators up close, and also from observing great leadership and admirable leadership traits found in all walks of life.
The eighteenth century English theologian, dissenter, philosopher and scientist Joseph Priestly wrote that “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate” With such influences in mind I try to encourage my team members and other collaborators to use appropriate channels of communication, and one of the ways I use to this message across is with a list of options. I find that doing this early on can help to really simplify things and bring a greater degree of clarity to the table. But as with many other aspects of management with this approach one too has to be flexible and realistic, and allow for the election of the most appropriate option according to the circumstances. My preference list is:
I will not touch on all of these options at this time, but I will highlight three: Face-to-face; telephone; and, email.
For me, face to face communication is by far the best option for many business situations. There are lots of touchy-feely types of empathic benefits to be gained from face-to-face, but there are also pragmatic reasons for choosing this option. Communication becomes more dynamic, clearer and interactive; there is less possibility of noise being introduced and of issues and questions being left unaddressed; and, it is far easier to create a positive rapport and a sounder business relationship.
I use the telephone when face-to-face is not an option and the use of video conferencing is inappropriate or unavailable – although with PC based video conferencing it is becoming more widely available. It has some of the advantages of face-to-face, especially if you can put a face to the name, that you have met the people you are communicating with.
Face-to-face communication with colleagues and suppliers (in the sense of project suppliers) is the preferred option, each and every time. If that face-to-face option is unavailable then the next choice should be either to set up a video conference (where available) or to call the person on the telephone. If that also is not a possibility, then email would be the fourth option.
If all else fails, bar that of using smoke signals, I resort to email. In my opinion, a manager (and certainly a leader) should never use email as the first or second option, especially with their direct reports, but as a means to reinforce a message already communicated, to confirm an event or action, and to distribute digital content. Email should be a reasonable communications option, but only when better options are not available or not appropriate.
What are the reasons for this protocol? It’s actually quite straightforward. It creates and cultivates group cohesion, cohesiveness and empathy; in short, it creates a real team from a disparate collection of talented individuals.
I know things are going well when my team members become enthusiastic and animated talkers, questioners and listeners. For me, a team that doesn’t talk is a symptom of something negative.
In this respect the greatest satisfaction I get is when a peer (another leader or manager) tells me that my teams are the most talkative, inquisitive and noisiest they have ever come across. This is good, very good. Because at the same time I know that they that the team and the individuals in it are more effective in doing what is needed, in delivering what is required, and of rapidly addressing challenges and overcoming problems. They talk, question and listen, over and over again, they are comfortable doing so, and the results are frequently brilliant.
I know there are various reasons why people don’t follow these guidelines. Some people are shy or reticent to communicate face-to-face, others may think that they communicate better in writing, and a very small minority may simply not like communicating at all and may not even see the need for it –more on that in a future edition of Leadership 7s – But nonetheless I insist on trying to encourage this and other aspects of a simpler and more effective communications protocol.
If people feel that their communications or social skills are holding them back from attaining what they want to achieve, then there are remedies, and those remedies may consist of mentoring, coaching, classes or hiring a psychologist who specialises in improving people’s social skills.
No, this is not about a new sect, a trending self-help book or a box-office smash from the wonderfully creative people at Disney. ‘Why’ is a word that comes from Middle English, a word whose origins can be found in Old Norse.
The architect and graphic designer Richard Saul Wurman wrote that “In school, we’re rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question.” In my childhood I had an aversion to asking questions until I got an answer that I actually understood, mainly so as not to offend the adults, who would frequently take offence by someone’s persistence, especially if that someone was a child.
Fortunately, my active involvement in politics and with many of the personalities in it, together with a concurrent study of philosophy, politics and economics, knocked that nonsense out of me.
This was when ideas such as the ‘art of the possible’ started to make sense to me, and I began to question more and more, but not once or twice or even three times, but until I had a satisfactory answer – and even if that ‘satisfactory’ answer was superficially ‘I am not going to answer that question’.
I learned how to ask questions from observing many forums for discussion, including parliamentary debates, and I would frequently walk down to the House of Commons in Westminster to catch a debate in the late afternoon or early evening. Later I picked up fantastic tips and tricks from many other places, from Ad-land to Zoology, and from Architecture to Zen.
Amongst the approaches to asking ‘why’ there is a very useful technique called ‘5 Whys’ developed by Sakichi Toyoda and used by the Toyota Motor Corporation during the development of manufacturing methodologies. It’s a powerful question-answer technique, and well worth serious consideration, at least as a stepping stone or as a reference point.
The power of ‘why’ is in its straightforwardness, it’s a hard question to obfuscate, and it’s a simple and powerful question. Many years ago I had a large poster in my office with a quote from Michael Schrage, it was a terse and to the point, “You can’t bullshit simplicity” it said. Michael could also have been talking about the power and simplicity of asking why.
Although, this is not a technique you should really nurture with loved ones, family and friends, in business it is absolutely essential. So, keep on asking ‘why’ until you get an adequate answer that is worthy of the term. You may ask ‘why do write that Mart?’ to which I might reply “that is a very good start”.
Larry King once aptly coincidentally described my feelings about asking ‘why’, when he stated “I love doing what I do. I love asking questions. I love being in the mix.” I couldn’t have put it better.
A lot of nonsense has been written about motivation. That’s normal, there’s a massive market created by people who would really like to know how to motivate others or themselves, and it’s to be expected that people will consequently try and turn a buck by feeding that market, whether they know their subject, or not.
A lot of what people call motivators are actually not motivators at all, or they even feature much further down the list of prime motivators than some people pretend, cocooned as they are from the real world of work. The biggest motivation for obtaining and maintaining work is compensation – not about being noticed, being appreciated or getting satisfying work related outcomes – but money and what that money can buy.
There are many approaches to motivating people, some make sense, others don’t, some make sense in some situations, and others don’t make sense in any situation at all.
The biggest mistake I see managers make with regards to motivation is to believe that they can motivate individuals by simply trying to motivate the whole team. I call this the ‘lazy arse approach to motivation’. It never really works, and usually comes with unintended consequences.
One other big mistake made by some managers can be found in their touching belief that they have a right and duty to try and mould people, team members, and that they possess both the authority and the knowledge to change what is quite often the innate character of people. That’s a very dangerous combination in a manager.
Josep Guardiola – former Spanish international football player, FC Barcelona defensive midfielder and critically acclaimed football manager – said of his approach to the motivation of his players that “One should not try and change the players. Each one is how he is. You have to look for that switch that turns them on, and you must know that this switch is different in every one of them”. As a footballer, Pep knew how to get the best out of his own skills, physique and talent, and he played to the individual talent and skills of his fellow team members, and he carried that wisdom forward into the realm of leadership. He knows that we are all unique individuals, each with our own needs, wants and motivational switches.
Ross Perot encouraged people to “Lead and inspire people” adding “Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.”
The keys here are inspiration, leadership and people. Not armies, not teams, not departments or work forces, but people, individuals.
Now there’s a darker side to this talking point, and one that some people will recognise because they have either done it, seen it or have been victim of it. As a leader, you motivate people, not teams, but, it’s quite easy to destroy motivation without going to the trouble of painstakingly wrecking the motivation of each and every individual, on a one to one basis.
I joined Sperry Univac in March of 1980. The previous year the Sperry Corporation had embarked on a revolutionary and innovative programme of coordinated advertising, PR and training ever seen in IT.
But the programme didn’t focus on hardware, software or services, but on effective listening. It was translated into five languages, and tailored to meet the needs of managers, supervisors, marketing people, sales people, and the general employee population. The advertising slogan that accompanied the programme was “We understand how important it is to listen”.
The goals of the programme were to:
1 – Create an awareness of the importance of listening.
2 – Learn how to overcome the barriers to listening.
3 – Identify poor listening habits and practice.
4 – Improve responsive listening skills.
During the first twelve months of the worldwide initiative more than 13,000 Sperry Corporation employees, through 600 one-day listening seminars – designed by communications consultant Lyman k. Steil – had benefitted from participating in the programme.
After the first eighteen months the programme was evaluated and the findings reviewed, it indicated that:
1 – A far greater awareness had been created throughout the corporation as to the importance of listening well.
2 – People had become considerably more aware of the barriers to effective listening; they now knew how to identify these barriers and how to overcome them.
3 – Individuals, through the course of the program, were able to identify their own personal, listening habits and practices, and to think of ways to correct those shortfalls and to significantly improve their listening skills.
4 – Overall, responsive listening skills had significantly improved.
In 2003, Technical writer and Editor Polly Traylor remarked that “In the end, 44,000 Sperry workers learned the tenets of listening, which eventually became one of the reasons that they became such a business success.”
Leaders must nurture and hone effective listening skill otherwise they place themselves at a serious disadvantage.
Put it this way, as a leader you might be the most amazing talker this side of the Rockies, but if you can’t listen effectively then it would be like Nadal, Federer or Djokovic, having a great world-class tennis serve, but with a cultivated inability to accurately read the play or to return any difficult shot.
“Aidos, in Greek mythology, was the daimona (goddess) of shyness, shame and humility. She was the quality that restrained human beings from wrong.” – Source: Wikipedia
Great quotes on the subject of ‘humility’ abound. Jane Austen stated that “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast”, words that can be contrasted with those of Adam Clarke, a theologian, who stated that “Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.” That aside, my favourite ‘humility’ quote is from the legendary Yogi Berra, “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility”.
A great leader, manager and coach should be able to project an authentic sense of humility, which is not the same as false modesty. But can people become too humble? I think this is quite possible, and an exaggerated degree of humbleness can be somewhat problematic, rather like a troubling aberration. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir sort of alluded to this when she told people “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great”.
According to a study from the University of Washington Foster School of Business, “humble people are more likely to be high performers in individual and team settings. They also tend to make the most effective leaders.”
Another thing that is challenging in this respect in the globalised world in which we live are the differing perceptions of humility, and the degrees of humility that are required, accepted or disdained.
But what is humility?
For me humility can be described for what it isn’t. I see it as being an absence of arrogance and hubris. But who gets to decide when humility starts and arrogance begins? I have my own criteria, but I am often puzzled when I see happy and boisterous displays of elation over a successful outcome being described as arrogance, and worse. On the other hand, I think we are too fast when it comes to misreading confidence as arrogance.
I have followed the Spanish national football team for the best part of three decades, and I was thrilled and delighted when they won the UEFA European Championship in 2008, the FIFA World Cup in 2010, and the UEFA European Championship again in 2012. I often remarked that I believed that they were the most talented, cohesive and humble team of football players I had ever had the privilege of watching. Which is why I was so surprised by so many Brits and South Americans who assured me that they hoped Spain would be “roundly humiliated and thrashed in Brazil, because they had been”, wait for it, “so big headed after winning so many big football titles in a row, that they should pay for their lack of humility, by being brought down a few pegs”. As you might imagine, I wasn’t expecting that one, at all.
So, perhaps given the huge disparity in how humility in leadership – or anything else for that matter – is viewed around the world, maybe the best that we can hope for in the short term is that managers, leaders and coaches try to be as modest as reasonably possible, and that enough high-visibility leaders will act as role models with an authentic sense of humility and lead by example.
So, that is all from me in the second of what I hope will be many issues in the series Leadership 7s.
I would like to leave you with this fabulous quote from Rosa Parks… just because.
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
Thank you so much for reading.
Many thanks for reading.
If you want to connect then please send a request. I you have any questions or comments then fire them off below. Cheers 🙂
Oh… and one last thing before I go… If you are interested in data or even Big Data then DON’T FORGET TO JOIN THE BIG DATA CONTRARIANS: http://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976
11 Wednesday Nov 2015
Posted in 4th generation Data Warehousing, All Data, Big Data, Cloud, Data Lake, data science, IoT, Martyn Jones
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To the experienced observer, Big Data propaganda may well appear to be a disorganised surfeit of half-truths, sleights of hand and boloney. Indeed, the once famously alliterative characterisation of Big Data as defined by volumes, variety and velocity, seems now more appropriately applied to the quantity, invariability and quality of the incessant self-aggrandising hype, hokum and Hadoop being astro-turfed by every dog and his guru. Indeed, the very fact that such an inevitable mega-trend needs so much hype, disingenuousness and spin to support its passage to universal applicability, is a massive contradiction, a disservice to professionals, and an artless deception worthy of our criticism and condemnation.
In a blog piece penned by Big Data guru Bernard Marr and titled ‘The Curious Truths of Big Data’ (Dec 17, 2014) we find the amazing ways that…
“Researchers have realized that Twitter updates can more quickly and more accurately predict flu outbreaks than traditional CDC tracking methods — in fact, Twitter data can predict an outbreak up to 8 days in advance with more than 90 percent accuracy.”
All fine and dandy, except that it’ lacks a certain degree of veracity.
However, Time, not the fastest cookie off the news block, reported nine months earlier that the whole Google Flue Trends shtick was pseudo-academic hokie. Which leads me to ask, so why was Marr still peddling the same erroneous meme nine months later?
As educator Harvey V. Fineberg said “The flu is very unpredictable when it begins and in how it takes off.” Therefore, ‘Man flu’ may be responsible for many erroneous claims and dodgy blog pieces.
When is a Big Data project not a Big Data project? When it is a Data Warehouse success story that has been dressed up as a Big Data victory and taken out on the town.
What do I mean?
Oh god, I have to mention the same Big Data guru again.
Please forgive me, Bernard, but I really do have to get this off my chest, again.
In a LinkedIn Pulse piece titled ‘Analytics At Dickey’s Barbecue Pit: How Data Drives Restaurant Performance’ Bernard Marr holds up Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is a shining example of a Big Data success story, which is all ship shape and Bristol shape, except that it wasn’t.
If anything, it was a success story about near-real-time Data Warehousing and BI, in a implementation which leverages column-oriented and massive-parallel storage and retrieval.
I posted a question on the comments section of this piece. Of course, it was easier to ignore it than to refute it. This was the question:
“Mr Marr, can you explain why this is about Big Data and not Data Warehousing (including ODS) and BI?”
Well, no surprise there then.
To listen to some Big Data pundits one may be lead to believe that the only Big Data technology game in town is HDFS, Hadoop spin-offs and commodity hardware. Whilst I can see the attraction of focusing on just one collection of approaches to Big Data processing, such as that found in the Hadoop techno-sphere, I don’t think that creating a de-facto ‘go to’ technology of Hadoop will be doing anyone any favours. Hadoop is not the Microsoft Office of Big Data technology, and there are other technologies around equally worthy of consideration, technologies such as Lustre, GPFS-SNC and Isilon, to name just three.
In spite of all the nonsense written and spoken about Big Data, the ability to process mass data traffic is of value. For example, the ability to carry out statistical analysis on increasingly larger datasets could potentially yield benefits in areas such as health and safety, human rights and climate change. Indeed, anything that increases our understanding of ourselves, and the world around, is is to be welcome. That is, if it doesn’t lead us down the avenue to a dystopian data-driven nightmare. However, I believe that is not going to happen, mainly because we will place Human Rights well above anything that people with bad intentions will extrapolate from Big Data. Right?
Well, is that all there is?
Of course, there is much more to the world of data, as those who already know will know, and there are many success stories brought about with data, stretching back into the mists of time. Indeed, we don’t need to be second-sighted to think that there will be more data-based success stories in the future. However, be on guard. In order to avoid ‘tears’ we just need to be aware of the shell games, the false-friends and the bad-advice, and we should actively seek to avoid the snake-oil merchants, the one-trick ponies and the indentured gurus peddling useless self-interested vapour-ware.
Last but not least, watch this space. Big Data alchemy isn’t going away anytime soon, and neither is the desire to turn lead into gold, squeeze water from a stone or win the lottery of lotteries, three times in a row.
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” – George Bush (5th August 2004)
Many thanks for reading.
If you want to connect then please send a request. I you have any questions or comments then fire them off below. Cheers 🙂
Oh… and one last thing before I go… If you are interested in data or even Big Data then DON’T FORGET TO JOIN — THE BIG DATA CONTRARIANS: http://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976
11 Wednesday Nov 2015
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In a city centre office block, somewhere in Scotland, the conversation between the IT Business Manager (Bill) and the Information Management Manager (Richie) is in full swing,, Bob is irate because his successfully delivered data mart has been derided as unusable rubbish by the business people it was meant to serve.
Let’s join the conversation:
Bill: I hate this job. Every time we try and help the business all we get back are complaints. Complaints because it’s not what they want, complaints because it’s in the wrong format, complaints because of the cost, or the performance, or the availability. All we get are complaints, complaints and complaints.
Richie: Well, to be fair, Little Bill, this was one clearly avoidable situation. We didn’t have to build the data mart.
Bill: I know what you’re thinking, but you are wrong. We had to do something. Anything.
Richie: I don’t agree, Little Bill, we always had the option of doing nothing.
Bill: And why would we do nothing?
Richie: Because. as I said at the time, Little Bill, without demand you don’t create supply, and at this level and on this scale, if you want to create supply, you first encourage demand. But it’s still fundamentally about meeting demand.
Bill: But, things don’t work like that in this organisation.
Richie: I think you will find that in fact that approach works remarkably well, Little Bill, and in almost any type of organisation. The problem is one of perception, if it has never been tried before there is no internal reference to whether it works or not, and of course repeating the mistakes of the past with absolute security, if better than doing something correct, but unproven in this setting.
Bill: No, I still think you fail to understand the nuances of this business.
Richie: You may well be right, Little Bill, but clearly if we really understood the even the nuances of the business, then we wouldn’t have wasted time on this effort, an effort that one of the business executive described as the expensive manifestation of an abject failure to understand the fundamentals of the business.
Bill: They said that?
Richie: Yes, they certainly did, Little Bill.
Bill: Well, if that’s the case then they clearly don’t know what they are talking about.
Richie: As may be the case, but that doesn’t help us either.
Bill: So, you with all of your ‘knowledge and experience’, what do you suggest?
Richie: I suggest that we take a proactive approach to encouraging demand.
Bill: Such as?
Richie: Well, I would revisit the recommendations that I made when I first joined this department.
Bill: Okay, just remind me of the key points.
Richie: We need part of IT to understand business process, and our business processes; in effect we need people who know the business of the business. These should be people who talk to the business in language the business understands, has a good grasp of a vast array of issues, and who can be confident in their everyday dealings with business.
Bill: But, the business always thinks it knows best, how will these people succeed where we have almost always failed in the past? They think we overly complicate things; they virtually try and tell us how to do our jobs.
Richie: That’s why we need people who can communicate with authority, persuasively and with ease, not from a basis of mistrust, lack of empathy and even disdain. We need people who can sell ideas, can frame discussions and articulate coherent and realisable proposals for business IT solutions using language the business grasps the first time. We need people who understand what is said, can lead discussion and can capture requirements in a way that IT can also understand.
Bill: But the refuse to talk to us.
Richie: Well, that’s perhaps rather unsurprising from people who seem to think they have articulated the same requirements to us, and repeatedly, over an extended period of time. The problem is that we have very rarely documented those requirements, and when it has happened it has not been in a way that business can understand and verify, they can’t take any of our requirements and actually understand them without resorting to a translator, so they don’t do it.
Bill: Okay, so apart from blaming IT, what do you suggest?
Richie: The first hurdle seems to be simple. We need to convince the business that we actually have something worth listening to, that we aren’t going back to waste their time, yet again.
Bill: And?
Richie: So, what I suggest is this. Part of my team will spend time on investigating existing and new technologies, methods and approaches and how these are applied in similar industries or even dissimilar settings, but with certain synergies. They will have a good grasp of the business but their focus will be on understanding technology and relating it to project opportunities within our business. They will then work with our Business Consultants to actually articulate, explain and sell the benefits of these ideas to the business.
Bill: This, as I have repeatedly told you, is what we do now.
Richie: I don’t think so, Little Bill. There is a marked difference between what we do now, with the “look what a marvellous data mart we have made for you, it has data and lots of menu options, and graphics and stuff” versus the “we would like you to that allows you to be able to identify tangible cross-selling opportunities between various lines of business and with a high degree of certainty, this driving increased revenue, and increased customer intensity, and therefore loyalty… and repeat business”
Bill: So, we go begging the business for projects, with silver-tongued rhetoric.
Richie: No, Little Bill, we give the business what it wants. They are our customers, and as any business person should know, giving the customers what they want is a sure fire route to success.
Bill: Yes, but it would never work here. We are a very conservative company.
Richie: If the rest of the organisation was that conservative, we wouldn’t even be in business.
Bill: So what happens if the business says yes?
Richie: The business consultants and the research consultants work with the architecture consultants in socialising the business requirements and in developing solutions architecture (or a domain architecture), and as part of this they will also interact with the enterprise architecture consultant. So at some point, we will have a Business Requirements document, an IT requirements document, and an IT / Business Process Architecture document, and a Project Proposal document. Then the Business Requirements document – including detailed financials, together with the Business Project Proposal are socialised with the business, and submitted to them for review and approval. We then negotiate.
Bill: You make it sound easy.
Richie: You have to know what you’re doing, and there is logic to it all, but it’s far more rewarding than working on projects that invariably fail to satisfy.
Bill: So, when do we get started on all of this…?
Richie: As soon as you want, Little Bill.
So as we leave Bill and Richie to hammer out the details of the new approach, what can we take-away from this piece of business voyeurism?
I sincerely believe that the hardest job of any data warehousing professional, at least one worthy of the name, is in convincing sometimes even senior IT management of the need for doing the right thing right, of the possibility of doing the right thing right, and of the dangers of confusing ignorance and wishful-thinking with pragmatism.
So, make sure you get an expert, that your expert really is a professional, is absolutely ethical and that they really know their stuff, and when they don’t know, will not try and pretend that they do know, then trust in their professionalism, judgement and expertise, even if you then verify what you are told – and please, don’t verify this knowledge with a charlatan, spend more money and get the verification of a trusted and proven expert. Do this, and in this way and you won’t go far wrong.
Many thanks for reading.
Oh, and one last thng…
According to SAP “Big Data is the ocean of information we swim in every day”. I disagree; Big Data hype is the ocean of crap that we have to navigate through every second of every day.
Moreover, SAP contribute to that shite.
In a big way.
So, not only do we have Software aus Polen, we have Big Data aus Polen. With apologies to the great Polish IT professionals I know and respect.
Champion!
SAP! Mend your ways.
The choice is yours.
Many thanks for reading.
