Hear from the business....Theo talks about Consumerisation

Theo Kitsos is the VP HR Global Organisational Effectiveness. Hear Theos views about consumerisation and the role that he believes that IT will need to play in the coming years...

Which segment are you?

We've started to distill out the key questions we need to ask to identify who can benefit most from Freedom of Choice. Aside from all the technical prerequisites regarding applications, we've identified 3 key dimensions. They are.....

1. IT Skill - how capable is a user to support themselves. Will they be their own worse enemy? or do they have sufficient skills that they can make and perform basic IT decisions themselves.

2. Role Risk - does the users role within the business support freedom of choice. In 'standard' risk speak - how would they be assessed on Confidentiality, Integrity and availability perspective. e.g. Someone handling customer support issues probably represents more risk than a typical knowledge worker - thereby the IT 'freedom' they are granted may need to be a reflection of that risk.

3. Appetite - Will the users be inherently motivated and happy with the idea that they can make more IT decisions themselves.

Our hypothesis, is that if you find the 'right audience' which is sufficiently motivated, represents an acceptable levels of risk to the business and is sufficiently skilled, the experience of Freedom of Choice will be deeply satisfying.

If you want to know if you're such a person we've put together 15 simple questions which you can find here. It takes 5 mins to complete, and we'll email you the results as soon as we've had a chance to perform the analysis.

Sarah Palin & Consumerisation

On 17 September 2008, hackers posted messages on the Web from the Yahoo e-mail account of Governor Sarah Palin. They did it by guessing the answer to the password reset question she'd set - An answer she had conveniently shared with reporters in an interview she'd done earlier in the year.

The incident highlights the need for a proactive approach to managing consumer services, education/awareness and clear understandable policy. In Palin's case, there was a policy, but as this incident demonstrates, users often ignore / are misinformed about the policy.

The case also highlights the need to understand and assess the risk profile of the individual - what's at stake in the worst case scenario. In Governor Palins case, if a risk assessment had been done it would have become rapidly apparent that any services she utilizes, paper based or electronic are / will be at high risk. 

Fortunately, we're not running election campaigns - but we do have to do our utmost to fulfill our 'corporate responsibilities' and protect our corporate brand asset. That's where workforce segmentation plays an essential part (more on this in a later blog).

1TB Online, Free on the cloud.

There are plenty of online storage companies pedaling offering disk space online, but this is the first claiming 1TeraBytes (1000 Gigabytes) for a lifetime of spam? free.

So why is it important? Because Oosah is challenging the conventional economics of storage. It does have its limitations: file sizes are limited to 200MB per video and 9MB per audio file and like everything on the net you don't actually know where your files are so if you do try it, exercise the usual cautions and please feedback.

26.09.08 Update: If you do use the service, be aware the default setting for uploaded content is set to be publicly viewable. So make sure you uncheck the 'public' box to keep it private.

Is Chrome Googles new Gold?

We said in our first consumerisation webcast back at the end of 2007 that the war was in in the browser space. Today that belief was reaffirmed as Google beta launched their first Internet / Application Browser - Google Chrome.

Chrome redesigns the browser from the ground up, and is aimed at creating a user experience which is more conducive to supporting the growing raft of Web Applications.

If you want to understand the technical features in detail you can check out this award winning cartoon. If you're interested in testing out the beta you can download it (at your own risk) here. Posts on your experiences please!

Consumerisation Webinar

Last week the CTO launched the first of a series of internal webinars aimed at breaking the norm of powerpoint monologues. The team brought in 3 experts from around the business - people who are working on the front line of Consumerisation , Dave Burton (IT Lead for the 'One UK business' initiative), Mike Elliot (CTO, Lead IT Architect Client) and Warren Burns (Global Technology Risk Manager) their mission? To answer 3 'simple' questions...

1. What's the real business value of consumerisation?
2. Is this the end of the corporate desktop?
3. Can users really be trusted?

If you're interested in listening to the discussion, the Webinar was recorded and can be accessed for the next 90 days here.

Go Ahead, Use Facebook

Unilever is featured in the latest edition of BusinessWeek. The article features our very own Wendy Wilkes, and Chris Turner. You can find the article here.

Is the PC just another company car....?

Tired of your corporate laptop? What do you like / dislike about the existing managed service within your business? Are you sick of having two devices to keep track of your life - one for home, one for work? Would you sacrifice certain support benefits if it meant you could have more choice? CAN WE TRUST OUR USERS??

These are questions that as a consumerisation team we are very interested in....there are many benefits and risks in focus when you start considering what the world may look like if we let certain users in our business choose their own personal IT provision.

Does your PC really need to be treated that differently to company car? Should we let users have more say about what they want?

WHAT IS YOU VIEW??

Free laptop? (Got your attention didn't I?)

UK Telephone operator Orange has announced plans to bundle free laptops with data packages aimed at businesses and consumers. The move, scheduled for August, is the latest in a spate of 'free' laptop promotions from retailers and ISPs looking to tie customers into long-term subscriptions.

This latest offer requires customers to sign up for a 24-month mobile broadband contract in return for their 'free' notebook. Consumers signing up for the ISP's £25 per month mobile broadband service will receive an Asus Eee PC 900 16GB laptop with USB modem on Orange's Internet Everywhere tariff.

The deal includes a 3GB data allowance and 100 texts which users can send from their notebook. Business customers can choose from three HP laptops, with pricing depending on the monthly cost of the tariff. All three business price plans will be sold via Orange's direct telesales channel and come with unlimited data and 500 Wi-Fi minutes.

The entry level £35 per month tariff offers an HP 6730s Intel Celeron laptop and Orange USB dongle. Customers signing up to a £40 per month tariff will get an HP 6730s Intel Core 2 Duo in addition to the same Orange USB dongle. Business users opting for the top end £45 per month price plan will receive an HP 6730b Intel Core 2 Duo complete with an embedded Sim card.

There's no mention of a support package or warranty - but there's no doubt that this is competitive, and as ISP and mobile operators start to feel the heat consumers (and businesses) will benefit from these offers. If you think about the stack of services which are being offered here it's a very competitive and appealing prospect for many mobile workers.

Is Email the new Snail Mail?

In Korea email use has been on the decline since 2004, in the US email amoung teens and young adults is down 8%. The reason? Children are comparing email to instant messenger and calling it 'snail email'.

Over the past two years, email has been increasingly bypassed in favor of simpler forms of communication. According to Alex Iskold "The increasing speed of our lives and global connectivity reduces the need for lengthy emails. If we're in touch more often, then we reveal less every time we talk". Shorter, more frequent exchanges are replacing the lengthier communication of the past. "The rise of services such as Twitter and in-house company wikis or databases (such as BaseCamp) means that businesses are not only looking for easier, more accessible means of communication, but also are looking to embrace web 2.0 technology as a means to better position themselves to succeed in a rapidly changing business environment". Iskold admits that email isn't going anywhere soon, but insists that its "days of unquestioned dominance are over". I know personally Instant Messenger plays an important role in taming email, but it still feel like if this is going to happen it's going to be years before we see signficant shifts. What are your thoughts?

Security on a Stick

One of the big challenges of connecting non-managed or personal PCs to the corporate network is security - amongst other things the risk of either bringing something nasty into the network or perhaps worse leaving sensitive corporate intellectual property in the public domain.  It's been one of the primary reasons why remote access has been limited to company managed devices.

One of the more novel approaches to solving the problem - is 'security on a stick'. These diminutive USB sticks, look like conventional USB storage devices but they actually contain an entire mini-Linux PC which monitor (antiviral, anti malware etc) and manage the security of whatever they're connected to according (in line with the corporate policy which has been predefined when the stick is set up).

Picture the scenario - you're traveling and don't have your PC at hand - in today's model you'd either need a Corporate blackberry or you'd need to borrow a colleagues PC to log in to your mail remotely. With 'security on a stick' you can confidently plug the USB drive in any PC in the lobby of a hotel, airport lounge or internet cafe - the stick scans the machine for viruses, then if it's clear create a secure VPN tunnel so that you can login safely and securely. Over the next couple of weeks we'll be exploring the security on a stick in more depth - in the meantime if want to know more check out this link.

Alternatives to traditional support....

The war for support is heating up, and surprise, surprise many of the companies who are providing personal IT support are now offering it to businesses. These services are definitely not 'cheap' but they do in many instances provide PAYG (pay as you go services) so if there's nothing to fix there's no fee.

Strangely enough - one of our major retail customers is leading the pack in the UK. Tesco's recent purchase of 'The IT Guys' demonstrates how serious and competitive this market is becoming.

• Geeksquad
  
• The IT Guys
  
• BT Home IT Support
  
• The PC Guys
  
• FixIT
  
• PCProHelp
  
• OrderWork
  

Interested to know what services are out there in Asia and Americas - has any experienced them first hand? If so how do costs and service quality compare?

The illusion of choice

Couple of good articles popped up this week which are worth a read...

The first "Generation V to change corporate culture" relates to the recent Gartner Symposium - reenforcing 'Generation V' and the risk of loss of the baby boomers. Couple of good sound bites but one particular one which struck a chord was ...

"implement applications that enable configurability and flexibility without affecting underlying infrastructure ... to produce the illusion of free choice"

It's easy to be cynical about such a statement - it does sound rather 'controlling' - but if you think about it.  Put differently, I think this is really about 'freedom in a framework' how can we provide individuals with the freedom to be part of the decision making process. This doesn't mean providing a free-for-all, rather it's about being firm on the elements which are important e.g. the encryption rules, costs limits, interoperability standards, if you worry about those the 'rest' (e.g. the styling or interface) can be left to the end user.

The second "Why consumer blackberries are good for business" relates the value of propagating consumer technology to serve both personal and professional goals. This resonates with the Employee Purchase programmes (ePP) we previously blogged about. In a way Google is permeating the enterprise in a similar manner through consumer adoption. How conscious this is as a business strategy to drive penetration is really a matter or opinion.

Loss of the baby boomers

In conversations this week, I discovered that by 2014, more than 50% of a certain oil companies most prized oil and gas discovery workers will have retired. For an industry whose share price is measured on the number of oil and gas fields discovered each year this is a disturbing trend.

One of the possible solution - social networks. 'Alumni' knowledge networkers are emerging in high knowledge industries (such as biotech and consulting) to retain access to the people most valued. As well having access to the alumni, there's growing evidence that social networking tools signficantly help those at risk of isolation such as homeworkers, those on maternity/paternity leave, in turn aiding our diversity and vitality agenda.

We know our workforce are already self-organizing and connecting on social networking tools such as Linkedin and Facebook - so should we be starting new networks or harnessing the ones already out there? and How can we leverage an increasingly popular consumer trend to our benefit?

Rumble in the Jungle

Turning unutilized assets into a profit stream is pretty smart - and that's exactly what Amazon is doing with their book selling infrastructure to create Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). S3 is an online storage web service offering unlimited storage through a simple web services interface. Amazon charges fees for data stored and for bandwidth used in sending and receiving data.

So why might S3 be of interest? From a corporate perspective, a number of big companies are using S3 as a rapid development environment, to support cost effective experimentation and sand-boxing. As the model is a pure pay-per-use environment you only pay for what you use. There are no timely provision or sizing exercises to go through, so developers can do what they do best - develop.

S3 doesn't 'do' everything and should be approached cautiously as a serious alternative to professional data centers as it's not suited for most corporate apps. There are all the usual concerns around downtime, privacy etc. which is mostly out of your control - but many are willing to accept those risks in favour of the low costs.

Over 330,000 developers have registered to use Amazon Web Services, up more than 30,000 from last quarter, according to Amazon’s recent quarterly earnings announcement.

If you want to get a hands on experience of Amazon's S3 service, I would recommend trying out http://www.jungledisk.com/ which is a cloud based storage company which uses the S3 service as a backend. It gives users unlimited amount of data storage for only USD 0.15 per gigabyte. If you want to read more on S3 - there's a good blog entry here.

Darwin & Self-Service

On a recent vist to one of our national businesses, I was pleasantly surprised to see 'Xobni' (pronounced Zob-Nee) http://www.xobni.com/ featuring on many non-IT desktops.

Xobni is a small plugin which runs alongside Outlook providing a people-centric view of your mail, and attachments. Xobni has some neat features, such as analysis of 'most frequently emailed', a league table of 'average email response time'. It's not perfect but it's an improvment over standard outlook. Xobni is proof that

• Users are getting smarter and are self-serving


• News travels fast unaided and only partially influenced by IT


• Even heavyweights like Outlook can benefit from consumer enhancement

In a similar vain - I received an email directly from a business users saying 'Can we do this already, everyone here is already using it' he was referring to http://www.doodle.ch/ a stark reminder that technology doesn't need to be sophisticated or expensive to be of value.

So, should we be listening more to what people are 'discovering' for themselves? If so how can we capture and share the knowledge? How should we deal with apps like 'Xobni' which touch core apps like Outlook? What role will IT play in the future - should we be saying 'no' to users or findings ways to share good news?

ps. Unsurprising ... Bill's got his eye on Xobni ....

Join the evolution

How do we get the rest of the IT community engaged and enthused about consumerisation? Anthony "Hiro"Cockburn (my trusted side kick) and I have been discussing the challenges we have been facing to get across the need for more "action not debate" concerning consumerisation. We have been involved in anumber of internal IT battles over the last few weeks since we joined the team - mainly due to concern about what this agenda is really all about and how it may effect an IT community who have traditioanlly been about increasing control.

How do we get people to start thinking differently about IT and embracing consumerisation? Does anyone have any ideas for how we get the message out to the masses in the right way?

Does one size fit all? Would you give Superman the same technology as Batman?

Does one size fit all?
Are we all similar people with similar technology needs?
Would you give superman the same technology as batman, or wonderwoman for that matter? Go with me on this one....surely superman would need some sort of high tech mobile device with news streaming capability from across the world to keep good visibility of the turmoil Lex Luthor is trying to cause, whilst batman might needs a good sat nav in his bat mobile to make sure he doesn't take an embarrassing wrong turn. Superman can fly, batman...well he likes bats. Would they really need the same tools to do their jobs?

These are questions I often ponder as I'm drifting off to sleep, whilst the world of consumerisation is still whizzing around in my head. The idea of segmenting people into categories depending on the role they perform and the way they like to work is becoming a key step in defining those who may be suitable for a more "consumerised" approach. How do you like the sound of a world where you are able to identify the way you need and like to work...and then have a bunch of tried and tested tools available for you to chose from to support you? Further more, how do you like the sound of being able to comment on your experiences and share the learning's with those around you to either a) scream and tell the world how amazing something is...or b) warn people to steer clear...?

Understanding these initial "work styles" is a hot topic for me and a lot of other people at the moment. The UK "Leatherhead" team (UK Business is moving from 3 sites down to 1 in Leatherhead) has already defined a set of work styles to help understand how people will work in the new building - where there is intense pressure on desk space and parking spaces. These work styles will now be mapped to an IT service catalogue to provide users with choice concerning the technology that supports their personal style. In addition to this initiative, the new ways of working team have done some excellent research in this space and are now working with the consumerisation team to set up some practical definitions that we could test out in the field...

Is anyone else aware of current internal activity going on in this space?

It's a bit late now, but tomorrow I'll share some more about some work Dell have been doing in this space....good night for now

Penny for your Eyeballs?

Adobe wants your eyeballs. They're chasing the lucrative consumer dominated business model pioneered by Google.

The beta service creates the capability for authors to monetize newsletters, whitepapers, reprints - anything exported to PDF. The idea is that you upload your PDF file, Adobe analyzes the content and connects it to ads (as per Googles AdSense). When the viewing public opens the document in Adobe reader,annoying relevant ads pop up alongside. When the unsuspecting victim viewer clicks through - the author collect a referal fee. It's Googles primary source of cash so why shouldn't Adobe get a piece of the action?

For content producers / creators, even employers with a large workforce is this a future way to subsidize production costs, offset licence fees or even creating new profit sources? If you want to know more sign up for the Beta and start earning today.

Google Analytics is watching you ...

Thought you might be interested to know that you're not alone. I've now embedded a small amount of code into this page which means you're being watched....

Analystics is really designed to makes it easy to improve your results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.

If you want a demo click here

Large File Sending ...

As business globalises and externalises and as media formats grow in richness, depth and fidelity .... files are getting larger and needing to travel further. Enter the 'Large File Transfer Service'.

These services offer tremedious value (many if not most are free), and they solve an age old problem of how to send artwork in development through to an agency and get a decent turnaronnd time.

Secuirty should be addressed in the short term by educating the workforce to think about the content before sending it through the net, password protecting content, validating and advising on which services are legitimate and meet corporate standards (blacklisting those that don't). In the mid to long term enterprises should be focusing on Rights Management - that way concerns of the quality of the messenger or legitimacy of the recipient can be removed.

If you're interested to find out more Lifehacker, have just reviewed a number of consumer file sharing model...

1. Microsofts SkyDrive - 5GB limit, SkyDrive works on a folder-based system, emphasizing the ability to organize your files in personal, shared, and public folders. SkyDrive requires a Windows Live account to get started, individual uploads are limited to 50MB.

2. Box.net - Popular for its simple interface and large feature set, file-sharing site Box.net provides 1GB of free space. Users love it for its collaboration tools and open format, which enables fun features like mounting you web space on your desktop and web service support, and RSS feeds. Like many others in this Hive Five, Box.net provides direct links to files so users aren't held up at a landing page to get their download. Box.net's biggest drawback is its free account's filesize limit, which sits at a rather paltry 10MB.

3. DropIO - Renown by users for its simplicity and impressive interface, Drop.io (original post) doesn't require registration for use and specializes in document sharing, offering built-in previews of everything from images to PDFs. The innovative service has recently added a couple of new features, like free sending and receiving of faxes and voice recording. The free account has a 100MB storage limit, so unless you're ready to spend some cash, Drop.io is best-suited for smaller files.

4. Yousendit - Free transfers up to 100MBs, plug-ins for Outlook, Photoshop, and Macs Aperture - which offer a seemless and transparent experience for users. Impressive 2GB transfer file size limits.

Social Technographics Explained

An interesting apporach which Forrester is launching to segment user populations. Would be interesting to understand how these profiles vary industry by industry and function by function. Short slide show paints enough of a picture to be able to grasp the key concept. Tip - if like me you're struggling to read the words (and don't have your glasses / microscope) click on the little icon in the bottom right of the slide show and then click the option - full screen.

View Upload your own

Going Public is the only way to get RSS Feeds ....

Techie interlude ...

Becomes apparent that you can't have a closed group blog and have RSS or Atom news feeds enabled. :(

The reason - RSS doesn't support authentication ..... yet. The full story below ....
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2008/03/private-blogs-do-not-have-newsfeeds.html

ePP

Word of the day is 'ePP' - Employee purchase programme.

There are a couple of flavours of ePP - in all cases, ePP offer some form of employee benefit typically discounted software or hardware. Some companies (such as BA) bundle their enterprise software deals with their hardware deals. e.g. Vista Ultimate + Office 2007 + Dell D630 + HP Printer. Discount rates are typically between 10% and 20% but can be as much as 35% off the retail price.


ePP isn't just a giveaway ... it also benefits the enterprise

Many companies (e.g. major airlines, and banks) are using ePP to drive home adoption. Why? - Think about it...

• Every copy of Office 2007, or Vista at home is building user experience - and reducing the adoption leadtimes when the products become released in the corporation. This in turn reducing training requirements ... and improves overall enterprise productivity


• Using ePP to re-enforce 'good behaviours' - e.g. a number of companies are providing 'free' antiviral products to help staff familize themselves with concepts such as viral updates and personal firewalls. Every home device which is secured and employee mind which more familiar with secuirty concepts benefits the enterpise.
  
• ePP is also a great peace offering, how often does IT offering something of real personal value. It's a fringe benefit offering real monetary savings for employees.
  
• Every Network ready home PC = One less the enterprise needs to provide, it also represents a chance to connect more of the workforce outside of the office without need to incurr provisioning costs

So why no ePP?

The real sticking point in the past has been around recovering licence keys and tax implications for software or assest when employees leave the company.

The good news is the new schemes in place today don't infringe on the enterprise - and therefore have no tax, or asset recovering implications - in the same that rental car and hotel chains offer employee weekend rate discounts to employees of large corporate accounts. What is important however is to ensure that employees are aware - that these purchase are independent - i.e. they are outside of the standard corporate support frameowork.

So ePP + Remote Access = Good news for consumerisation.

When one phone is never enough

An interesting article from Gizmodo regarding dual SIM phones. Not such a crazy idea, given the number of people who are currently carrying around two phones to support to work / home personas. Not convinced the execution is right - why not just have one phone with two SIM slots and a UI?

Eating our own dogfood

Welcome to the worlds first consumerisation blog (or at least the first that I know about).

Why should we use blogger...? A couple of thoughts...

• It's a consumer tool (owned by Google)
• It's hosted externally (so fit with our eat-our-own dogfood approach)
• There is some degree of control over permissions - yes don't worry if I've set this up properly those folk from P&G shouldn't be reading this
• Consumerisation is a big subject, so sharing some of the thinking as it develops will be important.
• You're also in control you can subscribe or unsubscribe at will -
• Finally this is not costing us anything (other than energy) and took about 30mins to setup.

Some obvious concerns, would be around Public vs. Private. The blog is closed (at the moment) but we should agree - what can / should and can't / shouldn't be included. Some common sense should apply here. The first rule might be, not to use any company names or brands?

So thoughts? Ideas? Should we be doing this differently?