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