Thursday February 03, 2005

Dorothy McEwen Links

The article about Dorothy McEwen in today Monterey Herald, and her obituary.
The Digital Research Site

In an email to me today Patie McCracken says it all about Dorothy. " She worked hard, lived her dreams and gave back to the world."

Wednesday February 02, 2005

Dorothy McEwen RIP

I just heard that Dorothy McEwen died Monday night at her home in Carmel Valley. Dorothy with her then husband Gary Kildall founded Digital Research. DRI was a pioneer in the computer industry. They created and sold CP/M, the first microcomputer operating system. Dorothy hired me at DRI in 1982 as the technical support manager. From my perspective she ran the business side of the company and Gary ran the technical side. It was a real honor to be a part of what they created and what we even then knew was the birth of the the personal computer. Dorothy was a great lady and I have the utmost respect for her and for what she achieved.

The email I received said that she died of brain cancer which she had been fighting for the last two years. She was an amazing woman and between Gary and her; they left their mark on this earth for the better.

Tuesday February 01, 2005

Sun Open Work Consulting Practice Announced!

It is a very exciting day for the iWork Solutions team. Today we announced Sun's Open Work Consulting Practice. It is a consulting practice that allows us to help our customers as they study and implement distributed work programs. What we have to offer is the expertise we have gained in the past ten years as we have developed and deployed the internal work infrastructure program we call iWork.

The consulting practice is an integrated business solution with HR, IT & WR that allows account executives to speak to new decisions makers in the accounts they are calling on. This solution is part of the SNAP (Secure Network Access Platform) to deliver Mobility w/Security solution to enterpirse customers mobile and distriuted workforces.

The individauls I work with in the iWork Solutions Group are exceptional. Some of them have been in the group since before we opened our first flexible office ten years ago. They have unique knowledge about how to develop and evolve a distributed work program. We have developed tools, processes and programs that work. In our ten year journey we have had both successes and opportunities to learn. This consulting service allows us to leverage our experience and share what we have learned.

We have piloted this consulting offering with customers and have developed success stories aobut our experiences with Bank of America and within Sun. We are all really looking forward to expanding and developing this practice in the year ahead. I plan to talk about it more in this blog in the future.

Monday January 31, 2005

Change Acceptance Questions

The past couple of weeks have been especially full of meetings. Today I was in an all day meeting talking about change acceptance. Obviously we already do a lot of change acceptance but we always want to get better. I wonder about several things.

What do companies want as far as help with change acceptance?
What companies do change management well?
Would anyone care to share their experiences good and/or bad with a change acceptance consulting vendor?
What do others do to be successful in maximizing change acceptance?
If you decided to replace your current office package with StarOffice what help, if any, would you need with change acceptance? Is that kind of help valuable to you?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond!

Friday January 28, 2005

Studying Distributed Work

Our group, the iWork Solutions Group had a two day off site this week. We are using ourselves as a laboratory to figure out how to make distributed groups more effective. We are also working with Julie Rennecker a Professor from the Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management who is studying virtual and distributed teams and how to make them more effective. (That is my interpretation of what I am sure is a much more complex study.)

In our meetings this week we focused on the concepts of connectedness and awareness as defined in the book Distributed Work edited by Pamela J. Hinds and Sara Kiesler. We were particularly focusing on chapter 13. The premise that we looked at is that awareness of others and the work they are doing improves team performance. If we assume that this premise is true then developing processes, methods, and tools to increase connectedness and team awareness will be a good thing for Sun and our distributed work programs.

We spent time briefly educating each other about several of our projects. We then looked at how different people are connected to different projects. For three of the projects we then consciously shared different categories of information that we thought might increase our overall awareness. The kinds of information we shared included everything from team members personal work style and work hours to project work assignments and priorities. From a qualitative point of view I think we all felt that we came away from the two days with some great information that will make us more effective. I think we also will be able to convert our process for more general applicability.

On a higher level I know Julie will continue to study how we are connected and how it impacts our work. To me it is all very interesting.

Wednesday January 26, 2005

Remote Management web course

Our group, the iWork Solutions Group is having all day meetings this week. It is always fun to see everyone and to catch up on all the great work that everyone is doing. One of the things that I knew about but just got to look at for the first time today is a new remote management Web course. It is free to anyone within Sun who wants to use it. It has multiple modules addressing things like working across cultures, managing group collaboration, managing performance and when remote employees join. You can dip into parts of it whenever it is relevant to you. For Sun employees it is available from the iWork web site under Best Practices - Training.

I think I have mentioned before that our internal work infrastructure program has three components. The components are the technology necesasry to support distributed and mobile work, the real estate and physical infrastructure and the human resources processes and enablers. This remote management Web course is one of several human resources enablers.

Our meeting starts in a couple of minutes. I'm in the iWork cafe now so i better get going!

Tuesday January 25, 2005

SunRays

I love the iWork with kids story that ThinGuy told on his blog . I am adding his blog to my blogroll. All the machines on ThinGuys blog are SunRays. SunRay is such a great technology. Our CIO, Bill Vass, talked to our whole group this evening. Bill talked about what the SunRay can do for the world in the future. For a lot of people it is already great now. I have one at home and wherever I go at work. I love it. As Bill says you don't carry a TV wherever you go or get viruses on your TV so why should you have to worry about any of that on your computing device. The toughest part is the road from where we are today to ubiquitous SunRays. I want it all now!!

Sunday January 23, 2005

JDS Change Acceptance Ideas

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker in another division on Friday. He is not running JDS (he is still running CDE). He is aware of the need to eventually switch but he is in no hurry. He says he wants a few free hours to make the switch and become familiar with the new user interface. I suspect he is typical of a significant portion of our user base.

I like trying new things but a lot of people don't like change and would prefer to stay with what is comfortable. Our conversation made me realize again how much continuous effort you have to put into making what in this case is a fairly simple change happen.

In our change acceptance meeting on Friday we brainstormed what we could do to get more people to make the switch. Here are some of the ideas we came up with.

We need to convert more of our system administrators into advocates for JDS. They are highly influential and if we talk to them individually and address any concerns they might have it might help. We can also enlist their managers to urge them to become active supporters.

Making JDS the default will help considerably. We will be doing this in a couple of weeks

We could create barometers that we hang in visible places or on the internal home page. Or we could widely distribute a weekly status report which shows how much each group or site has converted. Competition could help.

We could make CDE less stable or slower or make it inconvenient to use CDE. This might work but I think there is a good chance it would back fire.

We could promote cool features of JDS that would make people want to switch.

We could target managers / key influencers and ask them to urge their people to make the change.

We could do a once a week email to all CDE users asking them to switch.

A lot of these seem like good ideas that I can start to make happen.

Wednesday January 12, 2005

iWork Trouble Reports

As you know iWork is what Sun calls its work from anywhere program. I was talking to my boss today about the perception within Sun that iWork technology is difficult. This is especially the perception among non technical people like Human Resources. A few years ago iWork technology was difficult. Today we have a good technology solution with very few holes. There are still a few things being worked out like how non technical people can get set up running Linux JDS on their lap tops but we are almost there.

What we need now is a system to capture iWork trouble reports. So if someone finds something like what Rich found about token card renewals they could just file an iWork trouble report. We might not be able to fix every process problem right away but it would point us in the right direction. I'd want to somehow differentiate between issues that the normal process should fix and bugs in the process. For example users would go to our resolution center for technical support but if the technical support process didn't work correctly they would file an iWork trouble report. We could then work to address process problems both real and perceived. We would consider each report a defect and work to reduce the number of defects. It would also allow us to show that we are improving our processes. We are getting better and we would have data to prove it. I'm not quite sure how we will do this but I think it is something we need to make happen.

Monday January 10, 2005

Java Desktop System – Change Acceptance

In a posting before Christmas I mentioned that one of the lessons I have learned leading the JDS change acceptance (CAP) team is that change is a long term process, and we have only just begun. Back in November we updated all the Gnome desktops at Sun to a new look and feel that we called JDS preview because it looks like JDS. This was first step toward deploying JDS as a part of Solaris 10 later this year. There was a ton of work done to build acceptance for JDS preview. Our Change acceptance work included a flood of communications, personal contact with more than 1500 individual users, identifying issues and addressing them, and developing and sharing the vision and business case for JDS. At least partly because of the change acceptance work done by the JDS CAP team the new desktop was well received.

It would be very easy to declare victory but the fact of the matter is that even though we increased the number of people at Sun who are running Gnome on their SunRays by 25% we still have less than 60% of SunRay users running Gnome (JDS Preview). Later this month we will be making JDS Preview the default desktop which will certainly up the percentage but I'd really like to see more users convert voluntarily before we make the default switch. Even after the default switch users will still be able to choose to run CDE when they log in. Therefore we can't stop working on getting JDS accepted in our user base.

One approach that we have decided to take is to pick 3 major sites that have a low percentage of users running JDS and do a deep dive into what the root causes for low take up percentages are at those locations. Then we will be able to address the issues we identify and hopefully continue to raise the acceptance percentage. We are also continuing to work on increasing the number of laptop users running JDS. There is still a lot to do and it really does prove that real change takes time and we've only been working on this for 4 months.

Sunday January 09, 2005

The floor

We are replacing the old linoleum on the kitchen floor with ceramic tile. This weekend we added the grout to the new tile. All we have left to do now is seal it and replace the baseboard. It looks really great if I do say so myself. Projects like this are fun and very gratifying.

Friday January 07, 2005

The power of Distributed - journalism, work, power, organizations

Reading Dan Gillmor's very interesting blog about what he means by Distributed Journalism got me thinking. The idea that the whole is more than the sun of the parts is one of my core beliefs. It is a secret weapon that most people would agree with but few take advantage of. Distributed work is about trusting ht individual to make a difference. Distributed work is powerful for organizations, for computer systems and for nations.

The power of distributed work is in many ways similar to the power of teams. When I lead a team I see again and again that if you have a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve and if you give team members the ability to use their minds and their experience, i.e. Don't micro manage them. you will always achieve more than you originally thought was possible. It is one of the most exciting things about leading a team. One of the biggest mistakes a manger can make is thinking that she is in control, that she has all the answers and has to tell everyone what to do. One of the keys to success is autonomy. It is allowing the individual to make a difference and contribute to the whole. It's all about the distribution of power.

Several years ago I read an article in the Harvard Business Review called Democracy is Inevitable by Philip Slater and Warren G. Bennis. The article really resonated with me and has stayed with me. It was published in September-October 1990 but it was a reprint of an article originally published in the HBR in March-April 1964. It is an amazingly prescient article and very worth reading even today. It was republished because back in 1964 it predicted the failure of communism as a form of government. I found it even more interesting because it predicted the rise of what I would call more distributed organizations. I would even go so far as to say the article is a precursor to the Cluetrain Manifesto. Some of the ideas in the article are certainly dated but its basic precepts are that “Democracy ...... is the only system that can successfully cope with the changing demands of contemporary civilization” and that “Adaptability to change [is] the most important determinant of survival” Slater and Bennis say that what they mean by democracy is a System of Values which include:
1.Full and free communication
2.A reliance on consensus
3.The idea that influence is based on technical competence and knowledge
4.An atmosphere that permits and even encourages emotional expression
5.A basically human bias

Personally I think these ideas are exactly what blogging enables and what distributed organizations allow.

Distributed computing is one of the big reasons Sun became a successful company. Examples include products like NFS which distributes the file system onto the network or even SunRays which could be said to distribute the CPU across the network.>/p>

But even more powerful is that I believe distributed work is one of the reason Sun will continue to innovate and succeed. Sun's iWork programs allows Sun to attract and retain talent regardless of where they work. But most important is our culture and the power of the individual at Sun to make a difference. Blogging at Sun is just one manifestation of this belief in the power of the individual. Of course a key to success as an organization is a common direction and set of beliefs but this doesn't mean that centralized control and power works.

Its about democracy and trusting individuals. We will achieve much more together without centralized control than we can individually or in one big centrally controlled organization

Tuesday January 04, 2005

Sun pricing Why people make decisions A very interesting piece on Sun pricing and how people make decisions on James Governor's MonkChips blog. I do think that one thing that is alluded to a lot but not talked about too much is how most people don't have the time to thoroughly research every decision they make. There are an awful lot of things in life (children, relationships, work) that make reading blogs or doing research something that an awful lot of people just don't or can't make the time to do. I guess I'm a bit off track from the point James made about Sun pricing but I think in a lot of cases we tend to assume that people read every thing we write when in reality most stuff doesn't get read. This includes everything from an email announcing a change to an arcticle on a web site to a blog. (2005-01-04 21:51:44.0) Permalink

Monday January 03, 2005

My January Goals

As I've mentioned before, my job at Sun is to represent Sun's end users to IT so that Sun's mobile work force has technology that enables each individual to be highly productive.

I do this by helping to shape, communicate, and implement the IT vision and strategy.

I do this by listening to end users and facilitating the conversation with them so that I really understand and help address issues and concerns and as a result improve the tools we provide.

My ultimate goal is to do this so well that I help improve and shape the products we sell to our customers and the way we deliver those products.

It is my first day of work after a two week break. In think I'll share my specific tactical January goals with you. It will help me focus and I'm sure that some of you will be able to help me be successful.

January Goals

1. Support the team that will make JDS Preview the default SunRay desktop later this month. We have a management review scheduled on the 12th. We still need to get a lot more people running JDS Preview now so that the default change will have little or no impact.

2. Send targeted emails to specific user groups asking them to change to JDS preview and seeking input on any issues. For example, the people who use our Customer Relationship Management system on SunRay used to have a bug that stopped them from running under Gnome but that has been fixed. My goal is for all of them to start running JDS preview.

3. Some groups are still concerned about Gnome bandwidth usage. We have been doing some more testing. We need to address these concerns and get our Global Resolution center running JDS Preview.

4. We need to get a support survey in place so we can measure the quality of the internal support we are providing for Java Desktop System Laptop users. Laptop support was a problem for us when people had to use Windows on their laptops. Now that we are running our own product the support ought to be top notch.

5. I'm participating in a review of our internal calendaring strategy. I need to really get the issues and current user concerns understood and well communicated.

6. We need to execute on a change acceptance plan we are putting together for a change in our Mac support level.

7. Rework the internal Java Desktop System vision and business case to make it even more compelling so that it is ultimately shared by everyone at Sun.

Monday December 06, 2004

Decisions

Two and a half years ago Sun was in the middle of lay offs. It was a really crumby environment to be in. Although I was pretty sure I wouldn't get laid off I wanted to be prepared in case the worst happened. Ever since I graduated from college I have never had difficulty finding a new job when I wanted one. But the more I thought about what I would do if all of a sudden I didn't have a job the more I realized that if push came to shove I wanted to do something different. And in any case I like to feel in control of my own destiny and being at the mercy of someone else as far as my job situation is concerned is something I hate.

So I decided to create some options for myself. I started taking classes at UC Santa Cruz extension to become a Personal Financial Planner. Over the past 2 years I have taken one class a semester. I just finished the last class in the certificate series.

But now I have to decide whether to take the certification exam. It seems like the natural thing to do after all the work over the last two years. But the exam is a grueling 2 day test on everything from taxes to estate planning to insurance. And there is only about a 60% pass rate. So I couldn't decide what to do. Even after passing the exam I would still need to get two years of practical experience before I could become a Certified Financial Planner (CFP).

Things are very different at Sun now than they were when I started these classes. The atmosphere is very optimistic and there is an energy that I don't remember feeling in a long time. I really like my job and I have no desire to quit and become a financial planner.

To make a long story short I decided to finish what I started and take the exam. I am planning to take it in March. But what that means is that I have to do a lot of studying between now and then. (2004-12-06 18:18:20.0) Permalink