Last night I left my red knapsack, with my white MacBook inside, in the back of a taxi cab. Needless to say, I’m a little upset. But the thing that is so frustrating about it isn’t the possibility that it might have been stolen (by another passenger, the driver, someone at the taxi cab company), its the possibility that it is, even now, in the hands of some kind soul who wants nothing more than to give it back to me, but has no way of knowing who I am. (I’ve been phoning the cab companies, but I’m not sure what company’s cab I was in.)

Of course, I knew there must be a web 2.0 solution to this problem. So I went surfing around. It turns out that 416-TAXICAB (a company that charges users to connect them to the first available cab company so they don’t have to put up with busy signals) runs the Toronto Taxi Lost-and-Found online notice board. Great idea. But from the looks of it, its only being used by people who have lost things, not those who have found them.

In other areas, however, the internet greatly improving on our traditional methods of lost and found. A few examples:

• IFoundYourCamera.net allows people who have found lost cameras to post the photographs online. It has been remarkably successful at reuniting people with their photographs (sometimes decades after they were taken).
• TheLostPets.com runs databases for lost dogs (FidoFinder.com) and lost cats (TabbyTracker.com). Those who have lost or found missing pets can post information (including a reward), and search through other entries.
• Pet Harbor allows users to search US and Canadian animal shelters for lost dogs and adoptable dogs, as well as post information about found dogs. This service is used by local governments, including the City of Toronto's Animal Services Department and Sutter County, California.

Anyone got their own examples (or any info on my laptop!)?

Today I came across a web forum called "Ask Jon!" by OpenSymmetry. It's a great knowledge exchange platform where anyone can submit questions and answers.

A few weeks, my colleague Ben Letalik wrote about the MLB in his weekly Wikinomics Report Card. This Tuesday, the MLB announced that it began installing IBM software to exploit the next generation of the Internet.

“The IBM WebSphere Portal software architecture allows us to consolidate information from a variety of sources. It enables collaboration within our user community and provides a strong platform for future growth and development,” said Mike Morris, Vice President of Application Development and Program Management for MLB.

The immediate use of the software will help umpires officiate the game better by providing insights on player behaviors, weather conditions, statistics, and other key information.

“Major League Baseball has vaulted into the Web 2.0 era with powerful collaboration technology that puts the power of the World Wide Web and technology specialists into the hands of the baseball experts,” said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software.

I am hoping that, with the introduction of IBM's software, the MLB becomes more transparent on issues concerning the game such as steroids and the idea of having instant replay. I can see how umpires will benefit from having player statistics and behavior tendencies instantly given to them. Maybe later when the software is integrated into the MLB culture, the umpires well have the opportunity to receive instant replay on a screen, so that human error can be reduced. It's good to see that such a large part of American culture is beginning to understand the need to collaborate, especially such a large multi-billion dollar business.

I am interested to see if the NFL, MLS, NBA, or NHL decides to follow baseball's footsteps.

My recent post on Shadow IT: The Good , The Bad and The Ugly solicited an interesting comment about organization design and the placement of application development versus application support. This got me thinking back over years (probably 25!) of helping clients with IT organizational design, and the tools, techniques and principles I’ve used over the years. I thought it might be worth sharing these, and perhaps engaging in some interesting global conversations.

Let me start with a couple of overarching principles I’ve tried to keep in mind when designing IT organizations.

1. Share (and make common) everything that can be shared. Implications include: resource pooling is better than permanently attaching individuals to applications, which tends to foster an endless string of low value enhancements, good for job security but not necessarily for business value or innovations! Enabling capabilities such as Enterprise Architecture, Global Sourcing and Organization management are almost always great candidates for being globally common and shared.
2. Don’t share things that should not be shared! I realize this is a weak principle (according to the principles of principles!) and a corollary to principle 1, but I think it’s important to state. Some things are better not shared - they are unique to a business unit or function, there’s no leverage in sharing them, and sharing them will compromise quality or service (lowest common denominator).

Let me move on to a couple of models or lenses that I work with my clients to look through at IT capabilities. The first is an oldie but goodie - the Value Disciplines from Tracy and Wiersema’s Discipline of Market Leaders. The authors describe three distinct value disciplines - Operational Excellence, Customer Intimacy and Product Leadership. They argue that while any company has to be good at all three, operating models tend to optimize for one of the disciplines. Not everyone buys this argument, and like all generalizations, there are some limitations to the assertion, but by and large, I’ve found the lens to be invaluable over the years. Let’s look at the disciplines:

• Operational excellence means providing customers with reliable products or services at competitive prices and delivered with minimal difficulty or inconvenience
• Customer intimacy means segmenting and targeting markets precisely and then tailoring offerings to match exactly the demands of those niches. Companies that excel in customer intimacy combine detailed customer knowledge with operational flexibility so they can respond quickly to almost any need, from customizing a product to fulfilling special requests
• Product leadership means a focus on product innovation, offering products that push performance boundaries

Translating this into the world of IT, it is clear that IT organizations have to embody all 3 disciplines. It is also interesting to note that climbing the business-IT maturity model tends to focus on the Operation Excellence needs first (IT infrastructure), then on the Customer Intimacy pieces (business processes and applications) and finally on Product Leadership (business innovation through IT).

IT operations (data centers, telecommunications, help-desks, etc.) lend themselves to an operational excellence model. That is why frameworks such as ITIL can be so useful. Discovery of IT-enabled opportunities is inherently a customer intimacy play - which is why this function is often best embedded in the business - logically and physically. I believe that Enterprise Architecture and advanced technology research and development are essential a product leadership play, and these work best with a central focus (perhaps a competency center, community of practice or center of expertise - terms that get used in many different ways) coordinating a distributed network. For example, an Architecture Center of Expertise owns the role of defining standards and enterprise-level models, but works through a network of business and technical architects (roles, not necessarily full time jobs) distributed throughout the enterprise.

This is turning into a longer post than I like, so I will stop there but follow up with a post on another organizational design framework I’ve found very helpful - one that comes from Henry Mintzberg.

Trips to the gas station have turned into quite painful experiences lately. I used to hate riding bikes and walking places but now it is becoming a necessity. The horse and buggy is becoming more appealing every day.

It isn't just your car you have to worry about. Airline ticket prices are on the rise. You almost have to create a budget just so you can have the money to get to work. This presents a problem for a global workplace.

This week's New York Times highlights Accenture's move to into videoconferencing and telepresence. The technology consulting firm estimates that it has avoided over 240 international and 120 local business trips so far. Their goal is to have 35 videoconferencing rooms set up in their firms across the world by the end of this year.

These technology tools are going to change the way corporations think about travel and work in the long run, an analyst at Forrester Research, Claire Schooley, said.

Although videoconferencing cannot replace the important face to face contact that is needed in many circumstances, it can be a great tool to save time and money.

The article also mentions, Darryl Draper, the national manager of customer service training for Subaru of America, who estimated that her reach went from 220 to 2,500 people and her cost dropped from $300 a person to 75 cents a person.

That beats the horse and buggy. As companies like IBM, Mircosoft, HP and Cisco continue to make improvements on the technology we will see more and more company leaders heading to their local boardroom rather than the airport for their next overseas meeting.

Think you are an expert on a subject? Well, Google's got a proposition for you.

Google's Wikipedia competitor, Knol, was opened to the public on Wednesday morning, according to the Official Google Blog.

So-called knols are articles about specific topics written by experts on that subject.

Google is partnering with The New Yorker magazine to allow any author to add a cartoon from the magazine to their knol. Knol authors can run ads with them, as well, and receive a cut of the revenue from Google.

What makes Knol different from Wikipedia is that every knol will have an author, or group of authors, whose name is prominent.

A CNN article yesterday announced that MySpace will now be cooperating with OpenID. OpenID is a service that allows you to sign in to a variety of web accounts with one user name, password, and registration. Wordpress, AOL, Yahoo, and Google are just a few examples of participating websites. I haven't used OpenID yet, but it seems like a great service. I am always forgetting the different user names and passwords I have created for different sites. I try to use the same or similar information at every site, but there are always some sites that have to be difficult by forcing weird syntax for your login credentials. OpenID eliminates all of that confusion. Another great benefit is that you don't need to fill out new registration information when joining participating sites.

This service is a great example of the collaboration which is taking place between rival internet companies. MySpace also collaborates with Ebay and Yahoo by allowing users to have one set of profile information that is shared by all 3 sites. These companies consider each other to be competitors, yet they are working together to create an easier, more efficient customer experience.

This is refreshing to see, and I for one would be happy to never fill out another pesky website registration ever again!

I heard from many of you that you were disappointed I hadn't suggested a name for the new, post-Y generation in last week's post. One of you asked how the whole naming of the generations business happens anyway. Regarding the latter question, frankly that is a bit of a wild card - it's really whatever sticks. Baby Boomers was pretty straightforward (there was a boom in the number of babies), although people tried other names (the Me Generation was one I remember). Gen X came from a novel written by Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture although this generation, as well, has been offered other tags (Slackers being one of the most dreadful).

While I'm an admitted proponent of the power of the Net Generation ( hence my new book), I'm also fascinated by the phenomenon of declining birth rates in much of the Western world and what this will mean for future generations, let alone the future of our workplaces and economies. As part of our Government 2.0 research program, Amy Cortese and Dan Herman recently completed a piece that seeks to address those questions. It has yet to be released, but in the meantime I thought I'd point you towards a recent article by Russell Shorto from the New York Times. The article, entitled No Babies?, discusses declining global birth rates and the various attempts by government to reverse the trend.

Shorto notes,

For the first time on record, birthrates in southern and Eastern Europe had dropped below 1.3 [births per woman.] For the demographers, this number had a special mathematical portent. At that rate, a country's population would be cut in half in 45 years, creating a falling-off-a-cliff effect from which it would be nearly impossible to recover.

Interestingly, a country's birthrate rises almost proportionally to its female participation rate in the workforce. But in Southern and Eastern Europe, societal pressures for women to stay at home after their first child conflicts with inflation that has seen the traditional single earner model become no longer viable. My colleague Dan is a huge fan of the theory of the Demographic Transition. Ask him about it sometime over cocktails and he'll start drawing charts on the nearest wall. To avoid that vandalism, this chart works just as well:

The West is in Stage 4- low birth rates and contractionary pressure on the population. If it wasn't for increased immigration, (which, by the way, explains why the US has been able to keep its birth rate above replacement) even more countries would be headed for the dramatic bifurcation of their populations brought about by an ageing population and below-replacement birth rates.

So what does this mean? While Shorto focuses on the incentives for more babies, whether in the form of cash payment or more flexible environments for both parents, we're also going to have to do a much better job at taking care of our older citizens, notably allowing them the flexibility to stay or re-enter the workforce, let alone the significant reforms of pension and healthcare systems that will be needed to ensure that service provision keeps pace with demand.

There needs to be a fundamental change in perception of what it means to be old. As former British Prime Minister Tony Blair noted:

For government, the challenge is to change attitudes and preconceptions about what an aging society means and to stimulate innovative ideas and technologies to transform older lives.

Governments are already lifting mandatory retirement ages but can do more to encourage employers to provide older workers with flexible options, such as phased retirement, part-time hours, telecommuting and other flexible arrangements, and mentoring opportunities.

It is here that Web 2.0 technologies can play a critical role. For example, The State of California has won accolades for Boomerang, a new online job matching service that links retiring state employees with state offices that need experienced temporary or part-time help. YourEncore.com is another great tool that provides a similar service. Issues such as immigration and incentives play an equally important role but ultimately all of these issues speak to the need for a dramatic shift in how both the public and private sectors tap talent markets and facilitate flexible working roles for diverse populations, be that defined by age, gender, language, etc.

And so what does it mean for the Net Generation? It means this generation will, more than any other, have to step up to the plate to work more productively and efficiently in an increasingly diverse world. Are they up for it? Given the research we're doing on their norms, notably their predisposition to collaboration and teamwork, I definitely think so.

Last weekend's Amazon S3 outage shows that cloud computing isn't all upside. In theory, outsourcing services to companies that focus on them should make things more scalable and reliable. In reality, it doesn't always seem to work that way.

July 02, 2008 CIO A new report by Forrester Research found that most corporate blogs kept by business-to-business (B2B) firms failed to energize their intended audiences and engage them in meaningful conversations about trends and products.

I’ve posted before about Shadow IT, but I want to revisit the subject - I think it’s a big issue that needs some more air. I’ve been reminded of this lately as I work with a client with a neglected IT capability. A new CIO has been brought in (the first sign that a hitherto neglected IT capability is now getting some attention) and he’s asked us to help him review the global IT operating model.

Among the challenges this CIO faces are a number of Shadow IT groups - small groups of people doing IT work around the company, but outside of the IT budget, governance, accountability or responsibilities of the “official, sanctioned” IT organization. BTW, when I come across Shadow IT groups that are known/recognized, I always wonder about other Shadow IT groups that might be lurking so deep in the shadows that they are all but invisible.

Shadow IT groups are often a symptom of unmet (or poorly met) demand. As such, they are prevalent in low business-IT maturity environments (i.e., demand appetite exceeds supply capability, so demand creates its own supply). Paradoxically, they are also prevalent in very high business-IT maturity environments, although we would probably never refer to them as “Shadow IT.” More likely we’d think of them as “power users,” or “embedded IT capability” and we’d encourage and celebrate such indicators of high maturity. So, rule 1 - it’s important to know why you have Shadow IT. If it’s a result of low maturity, I strongly believe Shadow IT needs to be integrated into the formal, sanctioned, budgeted IT operating model. If, on the other hand, Shadow ITis a result of high maturity, then theright infrastructure for them needs to be provided, and they should be prodded and encouraged.

Why do I think Shadow IT in low maturity environments should be eliminated? First and foremost, because they are a symptom of low maturity. If you are going to eliminate them, you have to commit to (and act upon) improving the state of IT capabilities. This is, of course, a good thing. Additionally, Shadow IT groups are often unwitting impediments to improving IT capability. If as CIO I don’t have the entire budget, then IT spend is sub-optimized. If as CIO I don’t have control of IT standards, processes and practices, then it is that much harder for me to improve IT capability. It’s not that some IT capability should not be embedded in the business - it absolutely should. But exactly what to embed, when and how to embed it are important questions that need to be thought through and the IT operating model properly “designed” (at least at lower maturity levels). Designing an IT operating model to be something akin to Swiss Cheese, where you have to design around the holes is not efficient, and is not a good basis upon which to drive an IT transformation.

Finally, there’s a “tough love” aspect to tackling Shadow IT groups. When I was a kid growing up in London, UK, I went to a school where uniforms were de rigeur, complete with school caps! (Long before AC/DC’s Angus Young showed us how cool they can be!) I was caught once too often without my school cap and was sent to the Vice Headmaster’s office for a dressing down. Fortunately for me, he was a wonderful man with a sense of humor, a Royal Airforce mustache and manner, and a vintage Rolls-Royce to boot! He gave me one of life’s great lessons - that it was not about wearing a school cap, per se, it was about setting and living within defined boundaries, so rebellious chaps like me could push against them without doing real harm. It’s like a parent disciplining their children - if the discipline is absent, the child will feel unloved. (Of course, too much discipline is even worse!) Anyway, when the CIO (with appropriate air cover from the CEO and executive team) announces that all IT will be managed under a single IT budget, and all IT-related resources report to the CIO’s organization, this sends a message to the firm - we are raising the bar on IT! People may not like it, but they will like the fact that someone is getting serious about improving the performance of the IT function. I’ve often seen situations where the predictions of “Oh, this will create a real stink and lots of resistance!” was far from what actually happened. Instead, people said, “About time - please take this group back into IT - its where they belong, and where they will have the best growth and career opportunities!”

So, if you have a Shadow IT problem, don’t be a wimp! Tackle it head on as an integral part of your IT transformation plan. Be ready for the noise and resistance, but don’t let it derail you!

I heard from many of you that you were disappointed I hadn't suggested a name for the new, post-Y generation in last week's post. One of you asked how the whole naming of the generations business happens anyway. Regarding the latter question, frankly that is a bit of a wild card - it's really whatever sticks. Baby Boomers was pretty straightforward (there was a boom in the number of babies), although people tried other names (the Me Generation was one I remember). Gen X came from a novel written by Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture although this generation, as well, as been offered other tags (Slackers being one of the most dreadful).

I guess my assessment is that we collectively end up settling on names that don't have a strong negative connotation (like the Me Generation or Slackers would) and we resist names that are too narrow - focusing on only one aspect of the generation. That's why I suspect various other names for Gen Y haven't really stuck. Millennials speaks to their births spanning the turn of the century; NetGen addresses their comfort with technology.

But, let's agree that Generation Z would be just plain awful. We can do better. Please, let's not use that for these poor kids.

Here's my suggestion: The Re-Generation, or Re-Gens for short.

I think the Re-Generation has a number of appropriate associations:

Reality - This generation will come of age in a world that is grappling with some difficult, inconvenient truths. They will form a mental map based on a world with finite limits and no easy answers.

Realists - Theirs will be a generation of pragmatists, raised by their down-to-earth Gen X parents to consider trade-offs and long-term balance.

Restraint and Responsibility - Necessary postures for them to adopt

Renewable energy, Recycling, Reducing carbon emissions, and Resource limitations - Challenges they will face

Self-Reliance - Their X'er parents' dominant trait, along with Resentment that older adults have been poor stewards of our world

Recession - Hopefully not something they'll face throughout their formative years, but demographics alone make it likely that economic conditions over the next decade will be more conservative than the upbeat decades past

Rethink, Renew, and Regenerate - The challenges for this generation

What do you think? Will that name work?

For those of you with children in the under-13 age group, ask them how they'd feel about being part of the Re-Generation.