Consumers are Spoiled Rotten

What I want, When I want it, How I want it

That’s how to grow your business these days. Give people what they want when they want it and how they want it. This really isn’t a new thing in business, after all isn’t that the basis of fast food? The difference is this trend is moving to almost every element of life. The culture in business is changing from a world where we all attend meeting at the same place and time to one where decisions are made with people in different locations and contributions coming at different times of the day. Phone calls have been replaced by emails and text messages. This is all old news.

Business need to continue adapting to these changes. The success of iTunes music store is a prime example. Rather than purchasing an album full of music I don’t want just to get a single song I do, I can buy just the one song. Newspapers are feeling the strain as well. The challenge newspapers face is not the transfer to a digital medium, rather its the fact that people only want to see what they’re interested in. Why flip through 3/4 of the newspaper searching for the 1/4 of content I want to read. Look now to the video industry. Yes Tivo ushered in the ability to watch what I want when I want, oh and by the way skipping all those money making ads. Look further though and we see that stores like Blockbuster are suffering because it’s easier to go to my mailbox than a store. Its easier to stream Netflix movies than go to my mailbox. Look at Hulu, where its easier to watch an missed TV episode than try to record a rerun.

How will companies take advantage of selective satisfaction in the future? The magazine industry, led by Time, is looking to roll out a Hulu like online magazine distribution system. Cable companies are offering Video On Demand. Yet how do we deal with the money aspects of all this.

There are a couple of industries that still need to pick up on these new trends. The radio and advertising industries haven’t picked up on all this yet. Why isn’t there a RaDo for an audio version of TiVo. Advertising, too many times I’ve heard or seen and ad that actually peaked my interest but I had to act now to review more details. Why not allow me to have an option to review later. Let me click a button on a web page that adds the info to a folder I can review later, or hit a button on the radio to tag the ad as interesting so I can check it out when I have time. 

 

The world is spoiled. Rather than force customers to work your way, how are you transforming your business to provide what they want, when they want and how they want.

What is Architecture

The word architect, and architecture are thrown around a lot and are frequently misused. There a frameworks, methodologies, classifications that get into extreme detail on what architecture is.  Understanding what architecture means is valuable to excel in a current architect role or for use in career planning and development. The following distills a variety of sources such as Zachman and TOGAF into a more pragmatic summary of architecture.

Architecture (noun)

Units of technology have defined sets of architectural elements. These elements can be applied at any level from a macro / enterprise perspective, down to the view of a simple utility. All technology units contain the following architectural elements.

• Scope Vision Mission Purpose
• Business Process and Models
• Information Architecture (Applications)
• Technologies
• Operation

Architecture (verb)

The practice of architecture is applied with multiple perspectives. Each perspective takes into account the elements from the others, yet has a unique focus and function.

• Enterprise Architecture
  • Strategy & Direction
    • Mission / Vision
  • Guidance & Governance
    • Architectural Principles
    • Architectural Processes
• Domain Architecture
  • Knowledge Management
  • Run Time / Operation
• Solution Architecture
  • Tactical
  • Project

Fix for Google Calendar Sync Issue

I’ve had a problem with Google Calendar Sync for awhile. While trying to sync my work outlook account to my google calendar account the process seemed to only sync the appointments and not the meetings. I’ve tried multiple things over time to no avail. Today however I found a fix.

Apparently Google Sync needs to resolve the names it finds on your meetings. To do this it tries to access the address list, but does not look in all your sources. So when JohnDoe@mycomany.com sends me an invite Google Sync tries to find Joe in my address book. The problem is Joe is in the company book not my local copy. Since my address book is first in the list, Google doesn’t find Joe there and errors out, thus leaving the invite unsynced.

 

To resolve this you need to set your global address book as the first source for address resolution. In Outlook 2007 go to Tools > Address Book > Tools > Options. Update your outlook settings so the Global list is first. Restart outlook, and perform a Sync. Voila! All your meetings and invites are now loading into Google Calendar

For more details on this fix please check out: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=3f87a989c560e850&hl=en

 

Best of luck, let me know if it worked for you.

Social Media and the Search Engine

Find this on our new site at http://www.ChristopherGrant.info

The internet is full of conversations and discussions. More good information passes my screen in a minute than I can work through in the day. In this world of disconnected conversations it’s important to understand that it’s the people on the other end that matter. I watch people out for the popularity contest rather than actually contributing real value to the environment. How many users can you have, how many hits can you get.

Jim Connolly posted a great blog entry about maanging the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) side of things with the human side. In his posting Focus on people – Not ‘hits’! he notes how true growth comes from the people. Engage your users and they will return. SEO is important but it should not be the sole purpose of your site. Don’t forget the power of your users.