Article today in the Washington Post, Google Searches for Governmnet Work. Quotes Steve Arnold:“Most federal agencies have trouble with information technology. They don’t really talk about it very openly,” said Stephen E. Arnold, a technology analyst and the author of “The Google Legacy.” “Google is in a unique position to do these large-scale, back-office functions. . . . That’s really what they’re up to.”

Talking about Building Smarter Organizations, these speakers should not be missed!Hubert Saint Onge, Principal, SaintOnge Alliance IncEuan Semple, Social Computing for the Business World & former KM Director, BBCPeter Andrews, Innovation StrategistExecutive Business InstituteNick Bontis, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University; Director, Institute of Intellectual Capital ResearchDave Pollard, How to Save the World blog & former CKO, Ernst & Young CanadaJon Husband, SVP, Strategy & Corporate Development, QumanaTed Graham, KM Services, Hill & Knowltonand lots, lots more! Come to the webcom Toronto conference and engage them in conversation.Technorati Profile

I met a wonderful woman last week at the SirsiDynix Executive Conference – Beth Unger, Vice Provost for Academic Services and Technology and Dean of Continuing Education, Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Kansas State University . Rich Wiggins pointed me in her direction as a technology pioneer who influenced computing at Michigan State University and spoke at their 50th anniversary of computing. In fact, Beth is a mathematician and a computer scientist and as a young woman from 1959-1961 she worked with IBM on such projects as the first automation of the assembly line of Oldsmobile, resulting in a custom-built car every 13 seconds. She has been honoured for leadership in distance learning and instructional technology. One awesome lady! At the SirsiDynix Executive Conference, Beth talked about building learning communities on academic campuses and her slides are available.

Jerome Nadel, Executive Managing Director of Human Factors International, was the opening speaker at the SirsiDynix Institute Executive Conference at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. He talked about usability and user centric design as often thought to make things easier to do on the web. However, he focused on strategic usability, which reflects how you influence your customers to do what you want them to do and improves their ability to find what they are looking for. He talked about the third wave of the information ago and it’s shift to self serve making usability a requirement. With user centric design, Nadel emphasized that it had to be informed & validated: 1. understand your stakeholder (orgnization success criteria) and user needs which leads to intelligent design 2. design & validated design — requires usability testing 3. finalize & document — design the templates and standards Nadel talked about how usability had to go beyond the tactical — a short term, quick, fix (reactive) — beyond institutionalized — more long term and structured processes and methodologies and infrastructure — to the strategic. Strategic usability goes to the core value proposition of an organization and focuses more on innovation, branding, opportunities and feeds the business markets and revenues. It can be achieved through the use of personas, scenarios, task design and information architecture. More on Nadel’s talk from Liz Lawley’s post.

For more years than I want to remember, Jane & I have been facilitating organization’s strategic direction & business planning using an approach referred to as “standing in the future.” People involved in the planning (preferably everyone who will be implementing the plan, & not just senior management), “position” themselves or “stand” in their desired future. The more details they can articulate about that future, the better, describing how they are interacting with clients, what they are doing, the logistics, facilities, even the smells & sounds. The excitement of bringing that future alive, in their minds & discussions, propels the planning exercise. Rather than defining steps to be taken to get TO the future, usually 3 years out, this process determines the steps needed to get “back from the future” to the present (with apologies to Michael J. Fox’s “back to the future”).

One of the advantages of having 2 delayed flights in yesterday’s storm was that I finally finished Rotman’s Magazine, which, along with Harvard Business Review, is a “must” read. Russell Ackoff’s “Point of View” in this issue focuses on “Idealized Design” which is really another name “standing in the future.” As Ackoff says, “Visionary planners” – hey Jane! we’re visionary! – “plan backward from where they want to be to where they are now; and they plan not for the future, but for what they want their organizaions to be at the present time.” Yep, he’s absolutely right – and well worth reading. You can read the

Continue reading Designing Your Organization’s Future: Ackoff in Rotman