Laurence Millar's Parting Words

I asked the question a while ago whether Laurence Millar's leaving from the New Zealand Government's State Services Commission (SSC) would be detrimental to "open data" and use of "the cloud" within New Zealand and today he posted his final SSC Blog post, Government in the global village.

He talks, from the NZ Government's point of view, about two areas close to my heart and I have to say his viewpoint matches exactly that of my own.

Offshore data ("cloud computing" - use of Google Apps and the like)

NZ will never have the scale to establish a data centre at the price points available from cloud computing, so we will need to decide how much value we place on the areas of risk ...

Open up government data

... government acting alone cannot achieve the outcomes

... will increase the level of trust that NZers have in government

Underlying the this "world change" is a "consumerism" of IT which is now part of the everyday landscape for ALL of us:

... These business leaders don’t need IT to do this for them, they can fund it themselves because: Technology is no longer scarce; Technology expertise is no longer the domain of IT; and Technology is no longer a capital expenditure"

Cracking stuff BUT will the next CIO of NZ government have the same view?
Will it be tears of pain or joy?

My Brooch, Here's Where You Can Get One

Many of you have seen me sporting a natty wee brooch on my suit jacket and quite a few have asked me about it. In fact I am averaging about 5 people per day complimenting me upon it and asking who made it. Oh, and yes I am aware that a man wearing a brooch draws people's attention to it in the first place :-)

The brooch is based upon a range created by Sue Tyler called "Unbearable". Sue, based here in Wellington (New Zealand), uses the awesome online Ponoko service to design, create and sell this and many other examples of her SuperVery jewellery.

Anyone that has attended any of the very successful Craft2.0 fairs or Webstock equivalents ("Craftstock", of course) will have experienced a Sue Tyler run event.
You can also catch Sue on the Friday editions of TVOne's "Good Morning" programme as well as follow her SuperVery blog.

Most awesomely of all you can buy her fantabulous jewellery online at any of these:

• Etsy Shop
• NZ shop
• Ponoko Shop

3 Steps: How To Migrate "Your Mail" To GMail / Google Apps

Moving from one system to another is never fun the very thought of migration can can place a wall between you and a "better world". This can be frustrating as hell when you can see the new world being used by others but you just can't get to it because of the system you're currently using.

In the email client world there hasn't been a lot of innovation because, to be honest, once you've got sending, receiving and replying sorted what else do you want. There are clients that are slightly better at finding your emails, managing your contacts and hooking into your calendar system but fundamentally it's been a world of "meh" for a long time.

But then along came GMail.

GMail initially and then the Google Apps version changed the way we look at:

• Size: it is so big we no longer think about removing old emails to save space
• Search: finding old emails is no longer an issue, it just works
• Conversations: emails are no longer distinct elements but a part of a conversation viewable as one - see all replies in one place, yaay!
• Available how you want: use your email via your iPhone, Outlook, Firebird, other web accounts ... however you want. Plus consolidate your other emails accounts into GMail - one service to rule them all.
• Spam: it is no longer an issue for Google Apps users, simple as that
• Labels ("tags"): getting away from the "one folder" approach and allowing any conversation to be labelled (automatically if you want) with as many labels as you want makes finding conversations so much easier (if you're not naturally a searcher)
• Labs: there's so many "if only it could" about products and the Google approach is to allow innovation and new stuff through all the time using the Labs "add-on" - eg, need to display online photos from an email, add in the Lab item; need to have more control over your IMAP access; add in the Lab item

All of these pieces of functionality add up to a seamless and smooth experience for communicating with people - it rocks!

OK, sounds awesome BUT ...

• How do I move my .PST files into GMail / Google Apps?
• Can I use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps?
• How do I transfer my Lotus Notes email into Google Apps?
• Can I get my mail when I'm not connected to the Internet? (yes,of course)
  
• How can I move my contacts from Outlook into GMail?
• What's the difference between the GMail interface and Outlook?
• I've heard that GMail goes down and there's no way I can afford to be without email!
• GMail's OK for personal use but we need governance, security and archival - how can I get that?
• ... [enter your own question here :-)]

Yep, everyone has questions when there's a change and that's just how it should be, in fact my first step in the process of migrating your email to Google Apps is ...

1. Question The Brave New World

My first question to you is, "Why are you moving to Google Apps?"

I know I should probably sell you all the pros as the silver bullets defeating all your woes and dismiss the cons as mere machinations of the competition but that's not my job. My job is to ensure YOU get the best system for YOUR business.

Take a look at how your staff use your current email client - are there problems? Ask yourself where you're going with your email in the future - do you need access anytime/anywhere? How do "real people" in your organisation use email, what are the links they have to other applications (particularly calendaring) that you have to think of?

In essence take the "shiny new toy" label off Google Apps, sit back with the real business reasons for changing and put them onto a piece of paper - if it all adds up then change, if not then don't.

For those that decide that there is a definite business reason for changing (examples include lower operational cost, huge decrease in IT support requirements and increased flexibility for users) then you'll start to think about how to get from A to B ...

2. Do You Need To Migrate Everything?

Change is never easy and one way to avoid change is to not do it. By that I mean only change when you have to - do you have to change EVERYTHING?

Emails
Maybe you can get away with only migrating last weeks emails, last months emails, emails send by current customers, emails that were direct to you and not CC. Why migrate everything when you may never need to read them again? I'm not saying you have to pick a subset but this is a good time to have an email cull :-)

Oh, and you may chose to migrate over time using dual delivery of email - mail goes to the new shiny Google Apps and to the old tired system :-)

Contacts

Another good opportunity to dump those prospective client details from the 1990s - they aren't calling you back and you've surely got all their wrong details anyway.

Experience

This is a hard one for a lot of people but if you think about it in the same light as above you can help people through it. Why try and take across/migrate to the new system with everything you already know - yes the "Compose email" icon might be comforting but it won't be migrated. Your current set of rules might relish a revisit before being migrated across.

This is something that (probably) can't be done at a corporate level but those migrating can provide help, guidelines and even real life examples of how they dumped the "old view".

Links to other applications

And finally, email is no longer a client that sits all alone and interacts with others - CRM, calendar, to-do/tasks lists. You may not be able to migrate those links/applications across to Google Apps and if that is the case now is the time to revisit them.

3. Get The Tools & Services To Help You

Finally you're set to migrate.

If you've not done it before then you're going to need help from tools and others and here's a list of both for you:

Tools

• Google help: IMAP mail migration
• Google help: Mail fetcher ("reaching across" to other email accounts)
• Google Apps: Email Uploader (doesn't work with GMail accounts)
• Google Apps: Dual delivery of email
• Lotus Notes to GMail migration tool
  

Service providers that can help

• WaveAdept (NZ)
  
• Google Solutions Marketplace: Migration & Sync
• OnCompany (NZ)

(and why the gratuitous picture - again proving how right Kathy Sierra is (Webstock preso)



Other articles related to this:

• GMail Keeps 74% Of Email Sent To You Hidden
• What To Say When You Are Told You Can't Access Webmail
• Email is so old skool
• Google Wants To Own Your Content ... Doesn't It?
• Email, The Number One Government Record Keeping Tool

This article is dedicated to Sue Tyler (fantabulous creator of my MiramarMike.co.nz brooch) who coincidentally asked me about moving to a new mail system this very morning proving once again that life is all about timing :-)

1 Easy Way Of Making Information Usable

Make it legible - use Plain English

Heck even the NZ Ministry of Education are gonna give it a whirl ;-)

It's easy to do as well. Really, it is.

When you write for someone think of one reader, a real person in your organisation that will have to take your writings and actually do something with it (they don't have to know). But, if you really truly can't think of one person you either need to STOP writing as you don't have an audience and are wasting your own time OR you need to pick up the phone and talk with people to find one.

Once you have that one person in mind you may find it useful to talk with them, have them check your writing and even ask them to critique it. After a while you'll know their style and write naturally for them. Then you find one other person.

And if it sounds like hard work because you're putting out soooo much information and you believe you have the time then I would suggest you are dealing in quantity and not quality.

Some lucky people write naturally with a flow that seems supernatural, the rest of us have to work hard at it by being constantly on the watch for jargon, use of 3 words when 1 will do and general self importance in our writing. This occurs with me when I forget that I am writing FOR someone else and just like to hear the sound of my own voice :-)

There are quite a few automated tools that can help remove the worse "business wanky speak" - a great list at Wikipedia: Readbility tests. Heck, Google Docs has the Flesch-Kincaid test and Microsoft Word the Flesch reading Ease test built-in - what are you waiting for?

Within your organisation there are extremely helpful people that can help such a your comms department although sometimes they can be the worst offenders. We all know someone close that rants whenever an email full of pompousness plops into their InBox, use them and ask them what they think of your missive. And, of course, there are all those people that have to take your writings and use them ... they are the best to let you know if your writing is relevant and useful.

Finally, if you need professional help (and that's fine, we all do!) may I suggest Rachel and Alice at Contented - give them a call

Other articles related to this:

• Plain English - making information available and usable
• A great way of thinking about your website and make it useful
• 5 survival tips to the information avalanche

Open Source: What It's Not

Speaking to an old friend and past colleague sometime ago I was struck by how he saw the weird and wacky world of "open source". He talked about it as more than a way of creating, distributing and supporting software, in essence he saw it as a (new) way of operating if you're a software vendor that promises $0 cost software for all. He also saw this as a lie!

As an example he related a story of how he had had discussions with vendors about a (traditional - eek) Intranet CMS for a client. He then delivered the options to the people with the money (management) and it went something like this:

Mate: Ok, so the choice is ProprietarySW at $1,000 and OpenSourceSW at $0.

Management: Wow, it's OpenSourceSW, surely.

Mate: Hmm, but OpenSourceSW is limited and only meets about 50% of what we know we want right now whilst ProprietarySW probably meets 95%.

Mgt: Ah. So what do we do?

Mate: Well, OpenSourceSW vendor says it's all sweet because "we" can get modules to add-on or even dive right into the code and write the other 50% for us at a cost of $950. As they say, "that's the beauty of open source"

Mgt: Oh well, that's a small saving (!) of $50.

Mate: Hmm, but then we'll be relying on OpenSourceSW vendor to maintain our version of the OpenSourceSW for ever ... and I don't see the difference between that and ProprietarySW, it's a "lock-in" of one type or another. And, to be honest, I know the ProprietarySW and it's support reseller/development network so much more.

...

You see the problem - open source = free/$0 in the minds of management (the lie) and in my mates it is the same cost and therefore why bother changing, what is the advantage of doing it?

Open source is NOT defined by cost; it is NOT $0.

There are distributions of Linux (an open source operating system) that will cost you money.

What open source IS free of is a lot (not all) limitations.

You can, if you want and have the skills, amend the source code yourself - you are free to do so.

You can, if you want, pass on your amendments to others - you are free to do so.

Libre not Gratis

Fundamentally open source software is therefore is a development "environment" within which the raw materials, the lines of code, are open to all and to which you are free to amend (if you have the skills) and pass on. This is, of course, fundamentally different to proprietary software where the raw materials are kept under lock and key and you are allowed to use the software for set and agreed reasons.

The question is, why would you pay for open source generated software - well, if the code is open then there can be no lock-in. If Vendor1 asks for $1,000 for use of the software you can, if you have the skills, merely get the code yourself and away you go. Mostly you'd turn to Vendors2 -99 and use one them. Having the code as "free to use" means it's tough, but not impossible, to only charge for code.

How does this relate my mate?

I think the key term I've used a lot is "if you have the skills" - if you have a team of developers available (either in-house or within the community) then it's much easier to make the transition. But where do you find this community - if my mate is used to talking with ProprietarySW vendor and knows nothing of the open source community on his own doorstep then it can be a very daunting path to step on to. - "Who are these people, are they just one-shed-Joes, is there an eco-system I can call upon ... Christ this all sounds very weird and scary I think I'll stay where I am."

And there's the rub, "open source" IS a different set of people than the proprietary bunch.

They meet in different places. They have their own conferences. They interact with different people. It can sometimes be a clique.

What's a mate to do - what would you say to him?

Other articles related to this:

• Penguins In Wellington - February 2010 Is Linux.Conf Month
• Open, The Word Of The Moment
• Help me as I don't understand ... why pay for free stuff?

Picture: Introducing Olive, originally uploaded by massdistraction

3 Reasons Why Free is NOT Free

I am still surprised by those that are experienced and knee-deep within 'the cloud"* asking me why a company would pay for the Google Apps Enterprise when they can use the free one.

The obvious answer is that you get more ... dur!

Everyone with Google Apps gets 25 users with access to:

• Email
• Calendar
• Docs (words, numbers and presos)
• Sites ("wiki" + gadgets)

With Google Apps Enterprise (which costs) you have the above PLUS:

• Email security and archival/retrieval
• Voice and video chat
• Video (think in-house YouTube)
• Single sign on using your in-house authorisation (SAML)
• As many users as you'd care to pay for (around NZ$100/user/year)

Oh, and don't forget about the Google Apps Education Edition which is "free" excluding Postini and Video but talk to your local reseller ASAP ;-)

But remember, the "free" verson is NOT free.

This is a comment I left on Ben's Diversity.net.nz sometime ago that explains what I mean:

... When I take SME's through Google Apps (a "free" service) I am very honest that it's NOT "free". It's paid for by advertising (as you mention) which in turn they contribute to by paying for it with their "data" and "attention". TV3 is "free" to the consumer but it's not really is it? Same deal. And those that "give away" their s/w (Silverstripe for example) are using the software to generate an audience for their service offerings. "Free" isn't "free" there either.

Another example - I give "free" preso/speeches at conferences, put up free IP on my websites but it's all designed to generate the same for me, a demand for my services.

I think "free" is different to how software/computer stuff has normally been moved around (as a product, like shoes, cars and other physical stuff) but the alternative ways of making $$$ are also occurring. It's not one or the other, it's a world of every which way The trick is to be very clear HOW the money is coming and not be sucked into some sort of hippy concept of "free".

And finally there is a payment for everything in "the cloud"* - your attention.

Everything you do is recorded, aggregated and used. Every click, every tag added, every email marked as spam ... it al goes into the great big pot and helps that company (be it Google or whoever) create better products, more relevant information and ultimately more coins in their pocket.

Nothing is free ... but somethings are worth paying for.

Other articles related to this:

• Are You Being Google-Clever About Information Relevancy?
• Whoever pays for your information, owns it
• Help me as I don't understand ... why pay for free stuff?

* SaaS, grid, Web 2.0 - whatever your favourite yet soon to sound old hat moniker is

LinkedIn Is A "Recession Happy" Service - Are You Using It?

It's interesting to watch the growth of LinkedIn during these troubled times (ie, redundancies). I can almost detect those that have lost or think they're going to lose their job by the flurry of activity as they connect themselves to those around in order to cushion the change.

But merely connecting to others you already know on LinkedIn misses out on a larger audience - those seeking you because of your skills.

A while ago Chris Brogan wrote Write Your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future that is of the same mind:

It’s an opportunity to stay connected to people, and to demonstrate where you are now, and where you plan to go next.

Chris then outlines a stack of very practical tips to achieving that:

1. Review your LinkedIn profile. Look at it as if you’re a prospective new boss, or a client. Would you hire YOU to do something? If not, rewrite it. Keep it tight. Do as much editing as you can.
2. Enter your blog’s RSS feed on the profile page. People want more color.
3. Add a photo. Not one of those weird grown up versions of a school class picture. Find a good candid. If you don’t have one, go to a social media meetup. Someone will snap you a good one. Worried about discrimination? Guess what: they’ll figure it out eventually. Get it out of the way up front.
4. Start writing quality recommendations for people you can vouch for. If they can do the same for you, ask for one back. If not, hold off. No sense making someone feel awkward.
5. Grow your network. LinkedIn and I don’t agree on this. I say connect to whoever. It helps you build a network. (I only recommend people I can vouch for, and to me, that’s where who you know or don’t know really matters).
6. Keep looking at your profile as it applies to your future.

The one insight I would share is that true, deep and ultimately useful connections are not made in the panicky moments surrounding a redundancy (although I most certainly understand why we all do it) but during the more solid and smoother times. Take the long view on the use of LinkedIn and start small, stay with it and make sure you're consistent.

Good luck everyone that currently needs it.

Related to this post:

• Tough Times Call For Easy Decisions