PlateSpin Reunion

Posted on September 6, 2011 by admin

We’re finally having a PS reunion — same venue as some of our original events, my backyard with BBQ going. It’s been a challenge to spread the word — no single email list available, just word of mouth, Facebook, LinkedIn and carrier pigeons.

I was recently reading an announcement from Attachmate — the new owner of PlateSpin. I was warmed by the continued emphasis on the future of the PS products. I was particularly amused to see announced support for Novell platforms, something we tried to make happen prior to acquisition (twice), during acquisition, but customers had to wait for re-acquisition for it to actually happen. Not sure where the needs communication broke down, but it was not viewed as exciting to support legacy platforms i suppose. Nonetheless, good to see the vision continuing and the quality of products (and Brand) strong enough to sustain two acquisitions.

I’m hoping for a big group although not sure how much food to buy. Sometimes these types of events are a bust, other times a great affair. Fulcrum has had some great reunions over the years, this would be our first one. I’m hoping some current Attachmate employees show up, not just those who left PlateSpin or Novell along the way — again, how to get the word out, not an easy task. Facebook was useful to gather about 50 names in one place, Linkedin had some, but that’s it. Of course if 200 people show up, my yard will be full and the burgers will be done long before Mike shows up. Unfortunately no Martini babe.

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Getting Hacked

Posted on August 8, 2011 by admin

I took a day off from my holiday this week to do some work and discovered that insidespin.com had been politely hacked. By polite I mean a one-line message replaced the Blog site (blog.insidespin.com — a WordPress site) saying it had been proudly hacked. I don’t know how long the site was like that, but hopefully no readers noticed (but this would mean no one read anything over the last few weeks).

I also found about 50 new accounts were created on the forum site (forum.insidespin.com) which included a large set of spam posts. It took me some valuable vacation minutes to clean that up.

The joy of open source I suppose — all the idiots from far away places who get jollies from wasting everyone’s time. If they could focus their on-line energies on doing something good for the world instead of interfering with sites like insidespin.com, we might have less hot spots in the world. What will the world be like for the next generation where cyber crime is as common as petty theft — oh yes, I should mention my son had his wallet stolen at Canada’s Wonderland (he thought it might be secret enough if he stored it in his shoe while attending a ride at the water park) – not!

Back to vacation for now– hopefully this does not happen again.

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Making Mistakes — The Power that Drives Us

Posted on June 23, 2011 by admin

As the adage goes, we learn from our mistakes. Does this really make us stronger?

I’ve been involved as an Advisor or Board member in a handful of companies since leaving PlateSpin and am regularly faced with the challenge of deciding whether or not to let someone make a mistake. I could chose to have someone learn a lesson the hard way or take on the struggle of trying to reason someone towards a better path (the right path in my esteemed view). As I find myself faced with this dilemma regularly in my current business, I am finding myself reviewing just how much finger burning someone should be allowed to go through before it becomes limb threatening for the business. What’s even harder to stand by and watch, is someone who should know better through their own past experiences that they are making a mistake — they are over their head, they have too much ego, are too stubborn, conceited, ignorant, etc to stop themselves regularly and explore the possible walls they are running into.

The interesting twist internally is that I have learned, through all of my mistakes, that few mistakes are truly business crippling. Although I have recently witnessed a 1000 paper cuts bleed a victim to submission resulting in a business garage sale, I have always found my way out of mistakes towards a path that recovers nicely. It does help to have a team supportive of direction changes, that trusted me as their leader, that was creative enough to help explore alternatives to solve today’s problems. I think where I am heading is that internalizing what you learn from mistakes is itself a rare skill — a lot of people think they learn from past actions but few seem to actually demonstrate it. I documented at http://www.insidespin.com/whatilearned.php most all of what I learned through my career (you’ll need an InsideSpin login to view the link) — it’s a great deal of varied experiences all of which helped direct the next things I undertook. It seems that until you have a sufficient critical mass of mistakes (and are still surviving!) the perspective needed on what was learned does not necessarily appear in the typical business person. It’s not clear how much time is needed (or how many mistakes to make) to reach a suitable critical mass to have some insight, but it may be helpful to at least encourage some introspection from time to time to figure that out.

One of my current businesses is mired under a leader who does not grasp the importance of communication. Another business is struggling under drip funding despite being at the right place at the right time with their market opportunity. A 3rd business is making a major pivot, dragging some of the key people along — hindering their progress. These are all typical issues that have accounted for far more business failures than ones that resulted in success. Why are these mistakes still happening in our business world — in Canada — what is the weak link that fails to pass on the knowledge correctly so the next wave of entrepreneurs can truly avoid the pitfalls us older ones came across?

Canada’s very own RIM may be at the head of the class for not learning from well understood mistakes.  Leading edge at the start, rapid growth, emerging markets, unique solution — at risk of throwing it all away through their inability to read the tea leaves that everyone else seems to have at the bottom of their cups. They need a new face on the business (CEO’s move aside), they need to explore adding some software solution value to their devices, to listen to customers and the market more, to communicate a vision — to change their basic business model from a hardware vendor to a solution vendor — LIKE EVERYONE ELSE learns when their market reaches the stage it did. Did they really think no one could compete with them — Apple knows someone will compete with them — is competing with them, constant innovation is very important. I’m sad for RIM — especially if we find ourselves putting them in the same bucket with NT down the road.

Anyway, making mistakes is a valuable learning tool — it would be nice to see some people highlight making truly new mistakes that all of us can learn from.

What are your thoughts? Please post a comment on this important topic.

 

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Keep Publishing

Posted on June 10, 2011 by admin

It’s hard to be a regular publisher/blogger — i’ve never been a fan of idle chat so have a hard time blogging just to be seen as a regular blogger — i like to see the hits i get, good for my ego, but I loath ever becoming the person who just writes something so that there is something written. Wait, is this what I am doing now? I’m so confused!

I found myself visiting a VC earlier this month as part of my efforts to help start an e-learning initiative — something I am becoming more passionate about. I was quickly reminded of how challenging it is to find a VC that does not come from the old school — one who sees past the financials who can add value to a new business. They are very hard to come by — perhaps so much so, it really begs for a general shutdown of the current investment industry in favor of new models that now how to build businesses. The situation in Canada seems to be almost desperate — entrepreneurs with great business ideas (not all of them) but few places to turn to realize their potential. For my e-learning initiative, i still want someone who can contribute to the growth of the business, not just provide money — even though i have lots of experience I still need to count on people with knowledge around me in order to make things happen.

Keep publishing, hopefully the audience will grow and the messages will get out.

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Citrix Buys Kaviza — an Advisor Story Gone Right

Posted on May 24, 2011 by admin

Kaviza was one of the first companies I started working with as an Advisor. I was referred to them by a business colleague who thought my experience with PlateSpin and the virtualization market would be ideal for their business plan. 18 months later, they announced selling the company to Citrix, a strategic partner.

The advisory role can often leave you with an unfulfilled feeling.  You are not on the payroll of the company, have no specific responsibilities or deliverables and are often only engaged when the CEO or management team member wants to engage you. You offer input, suggestions, ideas but there is often no compelling reason to take them up — especially if the CEO has limited overall experience. You are often just a name on a web page or a picture on an investor presentation. You are an outsider with a funny title that most people can’t relate to — what does an Advisor do for us? Is it a sign of weakness that we need some? What do we get out of keeping this person in the loop?

Kaviza was distinctly different. Here are the main reasons why this was the most fulfilling advisory experience for me to date and perhaps, in a small way, why they were successful in building a business that was worth selling to Citrix in such a short period of time:

  1. My contact with the CEO was frequent and regular throughout the whole 18 months.
    • We spoke at least once a week for an hour, a time period we both respected.
    • The conversations were often of a strategic nature and very much covered the issues of the day for how the business was progressing.
    • There was little preparation for each call required, so there was no overhead on either of us beyond the 1 hour time frame.
  2. The CEO was open minded.
    • There was a genuine feeling of interest as we explored key issues of the day.
    • There was always a desire to see an issue from another angle.
    • There was a recognition that I might have some experiences that could sway the way key decisions were made.
  3. There was a recognition that time was important.
    • The subjects discussed were focused and to the point.
    • There was no issue too confidential to discuss.
    • Follow up did happen when needed, confirming the value of the discussions.
  4. The business was making progress.
    • The issues evolved from week to week, month to month.
    • There was always a need to talk about what might be next so that context for current decisions was valued.
    • There was awareness that making stupid mistakes was avoidable through this process.

As it turned out, I only met the Kaviza team once during the entire Advisory period, even then only because I was conveniently in town (San Francisco).  We developed our relationship entirely over the phone, which did not get in the way of how well we worked together.

Kumar and his team should be congratulated for the success they achieved and I thank them for allowing me to participate in the way I did. It showed me how my type of experience can be shared in a productive and fruitful way. It made me believe that new business leaders (at least some) are open minded and savvy enough to realize they should draw on every and all experiences they can to help make their business the success it can be. Not all CEO’s think that way, unfortunately.

Cheers to Kumar and Kaviza.

 

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On-line Banking Services — A Meeting with a CIO

Posted on May 2, 2011 by admin

I had the opportunity today to sit face to face 1 on 1 for an hour with the CIO from one of Canada’s largest banks — my main purpose was to provide consumer-oriented input into the on-line banking services provided, mostly focused on some short falls I see as a regular (Internet savvy i suppose) user. I was surprised how receptive the CIO was to my feedback as I’m sure the CIO does not spend much time in direct contact with the everyday user. It was clear that no one person speaks for all the banking services and that the ability to implement holistic infrastructure is somewhat out of reach.

Like all big IT organizations, changes move on geological time scales, not ideal to remain competitive, but understandable given the process complexity they likely go through. Like a lot of the mid-size and larger banks, they also have grown through a variety of acquisitions which makes it even more difficult to implement comprehensive life cycle services — at least ones that operate seamlessly.

Some points of interest:

  • a lot of today’s banking systems were designed around the needs of Internet users from more than several years ago. A time when security and usability meant something different than it does today. This is especially true with security — a much tougher topic to nail if starting fresh today.
  • the changing demographics are also relevant to consider — the level of Internet sophistication is much higher today than even a few years ago. The percentage of banking users who have grown up in the ‘Internet Age’ is growing rapidly, so the fit with systems designed for the older population does not work any more. Covering the gamut of user types is challenging for businesses that cross all the generations, but if handled well, can make them more competitive.
  • green (paperless) initiatives are being held back by suppliers that make money on the number of units mailed. If long term supplier agreements were not in place, more banking institutions would have consolidated mailings, integrated statement programs — e.g. fewer junk mail for us all. I recounted how sometimes I get between 5 and 10 of the same advertisement each month with our various account statements — including those received for our kids youth accounts. If only everyone involved understood that the volume itself creates a reason to throw it all away — who has or wants to take the time to read so much stuff.

The CIO left me with the impression my input would be properly reviewed, organized and distributed within the bank and that I would receive some feedback in a few weeks as to how my feedback might factor into future product enhancement plans. I’ll have to update this post when I do here — on the off chance my feedback directly leads to a product change (maybe their hire $$ me to review their requirements)?

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Special purpose devices — is there a future for them?

Posted on April 10, 2011 by admin

My wife and I recently won a Kobo reader at a fund raiser bowling event (yes, bowling — a real sport in some parts of the world). My wife is a regular user of a reader having had the Sony reader for some time, but lost it recently on a family trip we took (one of our kids lost his passport as well, it went to Albuquerque somehow, we got it back thanks to  a dedicated airline employee). They are both great devices for what they do, but surely having such a single purpose device can’t be the way of the future?

We also have an iPad, which has great reading software, but so far not the best coverage of e-books. My wife has an iPhone as well which serves multiple purposes, but she does have a Nano as well for running. How many devices can we all manage at one time? I’m convinced that we’ll continue to see convergence and that the upcoming generation will have only the one device, likely with the root functionality being phone (from an ergonomics perspective). The one device will replace most of what is typically in a wallet (can’t replace what’s in a purse though), it should easily be able to be a video and camera, internet access — no problem, reader — why not, perhaps bigger screen is an issue for some, but it won’t be long before they can dock easily into any stationary screen nearby (like back of airplane seat), maybe even project if we can figure out more efficient illumination technology (and battery).

One device would certainly be nice, it’s so hard to track where they all are when you go somewhere as a group. It’s hard to remember to battery charge everything (and take all the different chargers), keeping them all sync’d — one device please. Convergence must happen to keep us all sane. The trip through the tech museum 25 years from now will be a wonder of devices, all for specific purposes, all from businesses that probably won’t exist anymore.

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Strategic versus Working Boards

Posted on March 23, 2011 by admin

I recently attended a Board meeting for a new company where a key issue at hand was the determination of what type of Board we were designed to be — a Strategic Board or a Working Board? At first, i was not sure if a clear distinction was possible, but it became quickly apparent that it was an important distinction to make in order for the Board’s effectiveness to be measured.

A strategic Board is one that would primarily work on the long term direction of the Company. It would be essentially hands-off on operational issues leaving it to the CEO and the leadership team to run the business. The assumption here is that the CEO is experienced and the team is capable of dealing with the tactical operational issues without concern of the Board. A strategic Board still has its formal governance and fiduciary responsibilities, but could spend most of its time debating and adding value to the long term direction of the business. A strategic Board is not for everyone, especially inexperienced first-time CEO’s, who often need regular guidance from the Board (or a Board member) on navigating short term issues. A strategic Board is often devoid of working committees beyond compensation and finance.

A working Board is one that is more involved in the running of the business. The Board would concern itself with short term objectives, setting metrics, tracking progress of each operational unit of the business, reviewing short term results, etc. A working Board tends to be made up of Directors with more time on their hands as the shorter term issues require more attention than setting long term strategy would. The working Board can be hard to migrate to a strategic Board as the Directors become used to being intimately involved with the business.

A strategic Board would meet less frequently than a working Board given that strategy does not often need to be revisited every month.

It seems relevant to decide what type of Board you are putting together (or already have), in order to determine how to interact with the Board, what types of materials to present and what you should expect as the outcome of Board meetings. From what i see, few tech startups go through an exercise to decide what type of Board they have (or want) so start from a confusing and perhaps conflicted position. One thing the CEO can keep in mind is the role of an Advisor can be to offset any weaknesses in the Board — if it is a working Board, attract Advisors who can assist with strategy, if its a strategic Board, connect with Advisors that can regularly be involved in the day to day decision making to help keep things on track.

It’s one of the many issues to consider when building a Company and one of the important items that helps align the contribution of the Board with the success of the business.

——————–

Two articles from InsideSpin that relate to this post:

http://www.insidespin.com/governance-board-lt.php

http://www.insidespin.com/governance-evolution-board.php

 

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The Waterfall

Posted on March 11, 2011 by admin

It’s not that often that you come across something simple that can dramatically change the way in which people communicate. I’m not talking about some new gizmo or social network platform, but rather a layout of information that can better communicate, in a snapshot fashion, the state of a young business. I’ve been involved as an Advisor and Board member in a handful of companies over the last few years and one of the things i find common to most all of them, is there is no set and effective way to communicate how the business is operating against plan. It’s all invented fresh each time, despite many attempts to establish a standard that everyone can live with.

What I typically see (and also used when at PlateSpin) is a variety of slides containing tables of data with actual and plan numbers in some sort of visual structure. Sometimes I used actual cuts from an Excel spreadsheet, other times I used typical PPT template outlines to illustrate my point, other times charts from systems such as salesforce.com.  We always had trouble getting through a numbers discussion without debating what we are actually seeing in terms of trends, how far we are off plan (or over plan in our case :)) and what was worse, looking for other types of data analysis for the next meeting. It was always a moving target.

The punch line seems to be the Waterfall (see picture below). I actually have no idea if this is commonly known and I am the only one who had not come across it until recently. It’s a presentation format one of the companies I am working with uses and is easily the most effective way to track progress against an operating plan. Everyone should use it, i wish I had it at PlateSpin.

Basically, you lay out the plan across the first row (green). For each month, you update that month in its respective row with the actual achievement and replicate that number down the column through to Dec. You then go across the row for that month and re-forecast the remaining numbers for the year as appropriate (maybe not needed if you think you will stay on plan). The diagonal area in yellow shows the progression of the actual numbers throughout the year. The last column shows the latest forecast overall for the year — either higher or lower than the plan number from the first row. You NEVER change the first row. It’s easy to visualize how things are going and all the relevant data is in the one chart.

The next step is to extract the relevant section into a presentation for use. The above example has 4 waterfall charts, one for revenue and three for operating metrics along with some of the modelling assumptions. The above chart shows the current state of the business through the first three months of the year. Simple, clean and accurate. You can add as many waterfalls as needed to fully illustrate all the things the Board or the team want to track. Easy peasy.

Anyway, something that I find useful — hopefully the word can spread.

—————–

Boy, i must have been asleep. I just queried for ‘Waterfall Forecast’ and came up with many hits where this is explained. I even found that there is a Waterfall template inside MS-Office! Why is it not more commonly used?

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Facebook — the New Smokers Corner

Posted on February 28, 2011 by admin

I may sound like I am bashing Facebook — i might be a bit, but I came across a funny vision centered on Facebook a few days ago. It all started when I heard about some interesting startups that are improving the targeting and effectiveness of ads by mining Facebook, Twitter, etc. I was intrigued by their business models and thought highly of their potential, at least for fast growth and a quick exit. A lot of the intriguing discussion centers on just what these systems know about you — especially the younger you, who is constantly ‘checking’ in with Facebook. Warnings about how that lets bad guys know where you are is going unheeded, perhaps more publicity around how robbers are using technology to find out when a house is empty would help.

Anyway, the more Facebook and these other systems know about you, the more the information can be used in interesting ways — advertising is but one. And this is where my vision hit, once I heard Facebook are themselves, no surprise, going to use what they know about you to send out targeted ads. On the surface, it all sounds good — more ads for me, more appropriate ads, things I might actually click on and use. What comes from normal email SPAM is a waste of internet traffic just like what comes in my mail box is a waste of the mail delivery person’s efforts. I might as well tell Facebook as much about myself as I can, including where I am each hour, so if they want to send me a coupon for the store I am in, i would use it.

What I think I would need, me and all the other people so inclined, is a waiting area in the shopping malls or stores. After all, it may take some time for Facebook to process my check-in, see who is sponsoring ads for my profile and actually send me one that I can use. I would need a place to wait — perhaps a corner somewhere, where we can all congregate. Once the email comes in — we would all dash to the store to pick up the now cheaper item. Over time, the crowds waiting in the new smokers corner would easily dwarf the actual smokers, who were hopefully getting ads for products to help quit smoking.

The real system users would try to trick Facebook by checking in to a store they have not yet gone to — after all, why wait in the new smokers corner if you can sit on your couch at home for the ad to come in. I’m planning to go to Foot locker to shop, but only if Facebook sends me a 10% discount coupon. The robber would be confused thinking I am shopping but I am now waiting in my house, car keys in hand, for the coupon to arrive. Hmmm, may be I need a crow bar to defend myself.

Facebook and targeted ads, will it lead to the new smokers corner — will stores have to allocate space near the entrance for people to congregate waiting for their discounts to arrive? May be we will all have to agree to turn on GPS tracking so Facebook would know we are actually at the store and not abusing the check-in. Maybe the store should just give us a coupon for being a Facebook user — all seems more efficient that way.

Do you think Saturday Night Live could do a sketch on this?

(C) InsideSpin

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