Vote for me

An interesting email arrived here at the fortress of solitude. It would seem that by some unforeseen circumstance I have been:

“recently nominated for the SMB Power 150 by one or more of your peers.”

So to the one person out there who did nominate me (thanks Mum), I guess that I should try to a least double my votes to two by throwing up the URL where you can vote. So if you are into the SMB Power 150 then feel free to vote for me (or anyone else) here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SHP9NTH

So what does the top 150 get? According to the email, fame and fortune:

“The 150 nominees receiving the most votes will be recognized at the SMB Nation Fall Conference and in SMB PC Magazine and be profiled on a new SMB150 website.”

Well maybe a little fame I suppose.

I’ve always worked so hard to be a glorious nobody, getting onto this list would sure destroy all that hard work now wouldn’t it!

What use is technology?

One of the big things that businesses carry on about today is how quickly they can deliver. One of of the big things that courier companies carry on about is the fact that you can use a web site to track deliveries. Let me demonstrate how all of that is absolute bollocks when it comes to improving customer service.

I ordered something from a web site on the weekend and received an email on Sunday night saying that it would be shipped by courier. Now one would expect that something sent my overnight courier would in fact be overnight eh? Making a big issue of online tracking of deliveries here’s the sequence of events according to the web site:

Ok, so Monday night the package is in Melbourne. No problems, I’d therefore expect to see it Tuesday right?

So this look promising doesn’t it? But hang on what’s this Undelivered (Nil attempt) stuff? I haven’t seen any delivery today, there’s no card to say someone called. What the hell?

Here we are on Wednesday morning. It now appears that the delivery is actually going to happen doesn’t it given the stats reads On for Delivery (in Full)?

Wednesday night rolls around and still no sign of the package. The web site again shows Undelivered (Nil Attempt – whatever that means) and the package is back in the depot!

Now we’re at Thursday morning and joy of joy it has been sorted for delivery! Wasn’t that supposed to be done back on Tuesday night?

Bottom line, I’m still sitting here with no package, chewing up my valuable time because I have to sign for the stupid thing. In the meantime the packages that were sent to me via normal snail mail arrives Tuesday morning.

My point here is not to sound off (but I can do that also) but how did the track and track stuff on the web site help me to understand at all what the hell was happening with my package? In reality it caused me more frustration because it seemed to indicate that it was going to be delivered. In the end, if technology doesn’t help why use it?

Australian SharePoint Conference – Day 2

The day started with a session on using Visio 2010 to create SharePoint workflows. Very interesting I must say and something that I’m going to have to spend some time investigating more. However, the highlight of the day was probably the next presentation from Neil Hadlee of Dark Blue Duck on the integration of scanning technologies and SharePoint. As Neil says, paper is still here to say but you can certainly make it easier to manage with some of the technology he demonstrated.

Finally it was time for my presentation and it was disappointing to see a low turn out. Admittedly, I didn’t really expect many people to attend given the session was based around small business and SharePoint Foundation server (not the full SharePoint Server). However, I certainly hope that those who attended got value from the session. I’ve posted the slides of the presentation up at:

http://www.slideshare.net/directorcia/running-sharepoint-on-small-business-server-pros-and-cons-100-level

where you can view and download them.

All in all I enjoyed the conference. I would have liked to have seen some stuff for SMB but I certainly understand why I didn’t. Hopefully as SharePoint and Office 2010 penetration increases and features like Office Web Apps and Office co-authoring increase there will be a bigger uptake at that end of the market. Hopefully there might be enough demand next year for me to offer a similar session. Fingers crossed.

Australian SharePoint Conference – Day 1

Well, I got myself along to the Hilton Hotel in the heart of Sydney to partake in the Australian SharePoint Conference. After the keynote the conference was divided into four tracks – Business, Tech 1, Tech 2 and Voice of the Customer. I attended at least one session from each but would have to highlight “Why you need to be more social” by Daniel McPherson.

It reinforced once again the importance of social networking and how many of these ideas have found their way into SharePoint 2010 Server (not SharePoint Foundation 2010 Server unfortunately). Daniel demonstrated a number of ways that you could modify SharePoint 2010 to include popular features from high profile networks such as www.foursquare.com. I am really disappointed that many of the inbuilt social features of SharePoint didn’t make it into SharePoint Foundation 2010 but I’m sure with a little thought something can be integrated.

So tomorrow I’m back again for the final Day on which I’m giving my Windows SharePoint and SBS presentation (just after lunch in Ballroom B if you are interested). I haven’t seen many SMB guys around but that is kinda of expected so I wonder how few people will turn up to a session on SMB? I will be very interested too see. I believe that much of the information I have to share has relevance across all SharePoint platforms, alas others may not see it that way.

I’ll post up the slide deck on http://www.slideshare.net/directorcia some time after the event so anyone can get access to it if they want. Stay tuned for another update tomorrow.

Growth vs efficiency

It seems to me that one of the biggest fallacies of modern business is the idea that you ‘have to grow’. Especially in the small business end of the spectrum, why is it that I always hear how critical (and yet difficult) it is to grow? Apparently growth magically solves everything! The bigger your business the more money you’ll make, the less time individually you’ll have to work and everything will just coast along once you get to a critical mass.

So the question then becomes what is that critical mass? At what point will you know that you’ve reached ‘easy street’? I’m sorry to say that in my experience not only is this a moving target but the chances of success actually decrease the bigger that your business becomes. Why? Because unless you have refined your systems beforehand you are simply building any growth on the weak structure you’ve had as a small operator. This is a recipe for disaster.

It would seem to me that a far more intelligent pursuit would be striving to become more efficient. In essence producing at least the same amount of output with less amount of input. When you are not able to become more efficient then, and only then, should you consider growth as an option. The problem is how many businesses do you know that are constantly looking at ways to improve their efficiency? Not many I’ll bet.

The smaller you are the leaner you need to be simply because you don’t have the resources. You should spend your time firstly determining what you do well. Then you should determine what you don’t do well and either outsource it or stop doing it. Sometimes it is hard to stop doing something you shouldn’t because you truly enjoy it, however if you are running a business and not a hobby then the choice is straight forward.

Formula 1 cars don’t achieve the speed and performance they do by adding more, they become more and more efficient. The teams invest vast amounts of time and energy looking to squeeze the tiniest improvement in performance but it is exactly this that makes the difference between outright first and the first of the losers (i.e. second). Formula 1 is a business and those who don’t perform end up on the scrap heap.

Ask yourself whether you are a Formula 1 car or simply a lorry trundling along with stuff overflowing the sides. Efficiency is all about doing more with less which is difficult in a consumer world where the emphasis is always to ‘buy more stuff’. That however is the reason why not everyone goes Formula 1 racing, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.

So set aside some time to do some planning on how to become more efficient. Work out where you are spending your time. Look at ways to automate and outsource. Efficiency requires constant work and fine tuning but in the end is far cheaper, faster and easier to implement than any growth strategy. Just because people ‘say’ you need to grow doesn’t necessarily make it the correct strategy. Being efficient will always yield results where growth may not. To a business person the choice between the two seems obvious to me.

New portals from CIAOPS

Now that the June update for my Windows SharePoint Operations Guide has been released (including the first instalment of how to get SharePoint Foundation 2010 running on SBS 2008) I can now turn my attention to getting two new portals ready for release on July 1.

Part of the Windows SharePoint Operations Guide has always been a DVD that contained not only guides covering Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) and Windows Foundation Server 2010 (WSF) but was also filled with training material, white papers, videos and more. The major problem has been that as this information grows the DVD ISO became larger and larger making it longer to upload as well as download for subscribers. Also, even though I include a searchable index of the Guide documents, it doesn’t include all the other material on the DVD.

To overcome both of these issues and provide even greater resources for Guide subscribers I am moving all the content to a hosted SharePoint site. This means that both subscribers and I can add information to the site and have it all readily indexed and available. Much easier.

Also on July 1, I plan to make available via subscription a Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) portal. In here will be information in and around BPOS including how to get signed up as a partner, marketing and sales material, a technical knowledge base and an extensive list of BPOS links.

Again the idea is that subscribers can also contribute information and knowledge to the portal in order for it grow in value. I have a few people testing it now but I plan to make it available for $120 ex GST (basically $10 per month) for subscribers.

Having both of these as SharePoint sites also has another benefit for subscribers, it gives you real world experience with SharePoint. Firstly, subscribers can improve their knowledge of SharePoint by using the portals, secondly they can understand how SharePoint can be used as a knowledge store and finally it means I will be able to update both sites on a regular basis rather than only monthly. Using the power of SharePoint attributes, such as email alerts, subscribers will be able to know exactly when new or updated information becomes available.

In the longer run I plan to start using shared OneNote files to provide even greater flexibility with the information I make available. This is part of the ongoing iterations being made to try and improve the information the CIAOPS makes available.

As always if you want more information or have some suggestions of what should be included don’t hesitate to contact me (director@ciaops.com) as I’d love to hear. Oh yes, all existing Guide subscribers will automatically get access to my new BPOS portal for the duration of their subscription. Another great reason to sign up to the Guide.

Revisiting balance

I received a comment on my recent blog post about sweat, talking about how important balance is and how without it you run the risk of injuring yourself. I couldn’t agree more as these older blog posts highlight:

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2007/07/16/the-one-thing.aspx

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2007/07/16/its-all-about-control.aspx

and

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2007/07/16/your-greatest-strength-is-also-your-greatest-weakness.aspx

However most people don’t achieve balance without effort. If you try and stand on one leg and tie your shoe lace you are certainly going to have to do some work to prevent yourself from falling over. Everyday, in fact, your ability to walk upright requires a constant balancing act yet you do it so often that you don’t even realize you are doing it. Also, because you do it so often your body has developed a way to ensure maximum balance with minimal effort. That didn’t happen overnight, it took years and years of practice yet many time we forget that. Shouldn’t you be able to achieve the same ease of result with everything else? Not without putting in effort you won’t.

The key to balance is control as I wrote in an earlier blog post and control requires effort and discipline (i.e. sweat). In many ways control comes back to being a mental discipline because your mind controls just about every function of your body. Interestingly, one could also content that those who can’t control themselves are destined to be controlled by others.

Like a true Zen puzzle, there are many small pieces which individually they appear very simple. However as you start to interlock them you begin to discover that they actually interact and influence each other. Understanding the pieces comes first, getting them to work together is the challenge and only then do you achieve balance. Yet that all comes to naught without control.

If balance is the goal, effort is the way.

Blog URL rectified

When I started this blog I simply used the native blogging in SharePoint v3. As I felt that was a bit bland I then used a Codeplex template to make it look a bit slicker. One of the big benefits was that the URL of blog posts became more ‘standard’. Thus instead of:

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=816

it became:

http://supportweb.ciaops.net.au/blog/archive/2010/05/28/sql-server-express-2008-r2-database-size-increase.aspx

which as you can see has the date and topic of the post. Problem is that behind the covers the URL was still the top more complex one.

Now if you subscribed to the blog via Feedburner you could read the post but when you clicked on the post in your reader you received a login prompt. Typically, you’d go no further.

To my own detriment I have known about this issue for a while but never gotten around to getting it fixed. I was having a conversation with Hilton Travis about the issue recently and he quite rightly pointed out that even though the RSS feed does display in the reader correctly it only displays the first part of the blog post. Thus, if it is a long blog post and you want to read it and click on the item to get more you are confronted with a login and password. As Hilton quite rightly pointed out, this fact is limiting my readership and frustrating existing subscribers. D’oh, what an idiot I am! Good example of a failure of customer service there. Shame, shame, shame.

So long story short, I believe the issue should now be resolved so that if you click on a link from Feedburner that has a cryptic URL would should be taken to the correct post, without any password prompts and the URL should now read the updated friendly one.

If it doesn’t PLEASE let me know and I will fix this. Apologies to all who have suffered through my lack of attention on this matter and I hope your reading experience with this blog is now much better.