MiramarMike - Blog

It's been a long time coming but here it is folks. And before I start, a wee reminder that collaboration comprises 3 pillars : Good information Clear communication Active connections In this post I will delve further into the what I mean by 'clear communication', namely that communication  MUST * be: Available Timely Relevant As with 'good information' (and the more slippery 'active connections') it's no good having 2 out of 3 (this isn't a Meat Loaf song) and if a communication piece doesn't meet all three then it's probably worthless to the person receiving that communication. For instance, don’t tell me about a past meeting that I should have been at (available and relevant but not timely). The most common failing within communication is not making it relevant - hence the perceived information overload, we are inundated with irrelevant information being communicated to us. It's worth pointing out that Communication

[Updated] 2014 shared note taking site is here:  http://goo.gl/rFJiYu The 2013 Webstock is promising to be a very special one as they come to the end of an era - BUY YOUR TICKET NOW ! And lookey here, I've got us all prepared for the 2-day conference and sharing our notes, yay! http://webstock2013.miramarmike.co.nz/ Question : Is the shared note taking just for the 2-day full conference? Answer : Yes My reasoning: the practical "how to" workshops are the product of many hours preparation for which the attendees have paid hard earned money in order for Webstock to recompense the facilitators and I do not believe sharing full and comprehensive notes for such workshops is fair. Ah, but that's just the same for the presentations which are given during the conference .. yeah, but nah. The presentations are normally more "inspirational" / "generic" and, to be honest, to get the most out of them you HAVE to be there and the notes aren'

Collaboration , literally, consists of working together with one or more other people. All parties work together and build consensus to reach a decision or create a product, the result of which benefits all parties. Competition is a nearly-insurmountable roadblock to collaboration, and the relationship among parties must continue beyond the accomplishment of the task in order to assure its viability. The goal is dynamic. Why bother doing collaboration? There are times when it is inappropriate so firstly be aware of the differences between the 3 C's (collaboration, consultation and communication) . Once easy method of deciding is to ask yourself if you want to: Achieve collective results that the participants would be incapable of accomplishing working alone If so, collaboration is the way to go. What do you need around you for good collaboration? Base collaboration comprises 3 pillars: Good information Clear communication Shared objectives; Active connections Sense of bel

Back in the day of WaveAdept the team had all finally had enough of boring ass IT events and drew up the following lists to help you decide whether the next invite you get is worth going to or, as is more likely, gonna bore the pants off you and end up with your email address being spammed until hell freezes over. If it's got any of the following then the event is likely to be all, "wah, wah, wah, give us your business card, wah wah ..." You have the opportunity to get a free introductory drink There will be a NZ b-celebrity with a shoe-horned connection delivering the key note presentation Breakfast It's in a hotel The event is proudly co-hosted by ... yet another IT company All your IT colleagues have received the same invite and you just know it will be full of IT people you meet every time You will get to takeaways leaflets, watch slides and listen to "industry experts" but NOT use the software itself The invite excitedly tells you there will b

Yes, I have popped up a site for all 2013 Conference attendees, Shared Note Taking: http://goo.gl/LOY2w As a jolly exercise back in February I posted, " Webstock 2013: Who Would You Like To See " and it's been slowly collecting votes and input over the past 7 months. I've now removed the form and, remembering, "this is merely a whisper in the dark and no-one from Webstock has to take any notice whatsoever" holds as true now as it did then, here's the results: And for those that want to know who else people wanted: Bret Victor Jan Chipchase Avinash Kaushik Oliver Jeffers Kirby Ferguson Bill Buxton Erik Spiekermann Oliver Jeffers Jan Chipchase - http://janchipchase.com/ Tim Ferris Pete Cashmore Kiwi speakers! Reggie Watts Reggie Watts Bret Victor Tim Ferris Paul Dacre daily mail Jason Calacanis all the above except that last one Speakers from NEW ZEALAND!!! Give Kiwis a chance. All of the above! Rob Conery mike masnick I think th

If you know me, you will know how much I going to share this using every piece of the Internet I have to hand!

Salesforce has long been the poster child for "business use of SaaS" or, as we now call it, "business use of the cloud". Google is known for being "born on the web" which they have, through their massive consumer presence, introduced into businesses using Google Apps for Business . And in the past Google and Salesforce have been, at a company level, very happy partners ... [image source:  Techcrunch ] Which fits with my experience that all organisations of size (more than 50) that are moving to the cloud will have one, or more likely, both companies products being used - Salesforce is almost the de facto cloud CRM and Gmail is very quickly becoming the business choice for email. The number 1 talking point for those that already have Salesforce and look to move to the Gmail is the interface between the both. These people almost exclusively are looking to move away from Microsoft Outlook, in fact I have yet to meet anyone using any other email cl

It's been released today at the Cloud Summit conference in Auckland. Who's it aimed at - " ... businesses who offer remotely hosted IT services of any type, either to New Zealand or within New Zealand. ". A perfect example would be Xero. If this is you OR you are a customer of such a New Zealand service then check out v1.0 of the code: (BTW: isn't embedding the PDF into this page nice - that's the original as embedded using the Google Docs Viewer )

It's not easy being that guy (and it still is likely to be a guy ) that has worked in IT for the past 20 years, transitioned the organisation into the PC world, built up a complex infrastructure and finally had people accept that you were right about these "PC things" (around the time  Windows XP  entered our lives). It's not easy for so many different reasons including, "Now it all hangs together no-one bothers saying thanks any more", to, "You want to plug what into my network?" It can all be quite wearing and to top it off you now hear that your organisation wants to dump it all and give it to Google! "So, now what do I do?" At this point you have 3 options: Move on to pastures new Fight them every step of the way Remember why you got into the job in the first place Maybe it is time to take your extensive business experience and apply it outside of the pure IT world view - how about business strategy, change management, or any

Post is actually on Google Plus: The context is that you're receiving emails, some go into your InBox and some are auto-labelled and skip the InBox. You log in to your Gmail (using a web browser, this stuff isn't aimed at any other way) and you just want to see all your unread emails in one go, with one click. ... Read it all >>>

It's all very well Google giving us access to "everything" they know about us in our own Google Dashboard but who really remembers to visit and check? And with so many services being tied back to your account there is the very real risk of having a single point of failure - someone gets into your Google Account and they can run riot through all those other services hanging off it. Oh, and you're more likely to have your password stolen off you by someone looking over your shoulder than black hat hackers targeting your account. Right, to keep your Google Account secure you first you need to have a smart password AND turn on 2-step verification - yes, I mean it, go on, turn on 2-step verification as it's the simplest way of upping your security level from smokey white to flashing red, from security level Bunnykins to Death Dragon. Do it now. But once you've done that you can't just sit back and pray to the Internet goddesses that nothing bad will happe

"Using the Google solution meant we would lose our strategic investment in a Microsoft infrastructure." - Alison Ross, Head of Service Support, Trader Media Group This comment is quite remarkable - no, I won't change even if it serves the business better because I (the IT person) have paid for hardware and insist on using it - "Don't you try and make me look bad now!" How about this: "Features are added continuously, and in our organisation we prefer to control our releases. I wasn’t pleased that new functionality could pop up tomorrow, and our helpdesk wouldn’t be prepared to help with problems. That would compromise the high level of service we give our internal customers." - Alison Ross, Head of Service Support, Trader Media Group Turn on Scheduled Release, it is that simple: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/new-google-apps-feature-release-process.html (note the blog post date, is this an old comment and Microsoft are leavin

Yes, I have popped up a site for all 2013 Conference attendees, Shared Note Taking: http://goo.gl/LOY2w There's no harm in asking and providing the Webstock team some ammo when they approach people to talk. Also remember the 2013 might be a pivotal year for Webstock if these tweet from Russell (@publicaddress) is anything to go by: Seems Wellington Town Hall will be available for #webstock 2013, but not for two years after. To be closed mid-2013 for #eqnz strengthening. Having said that, this from @Webstock: We know, we know… We've just finished Webstock '12. Announcing: Webstock '13 will be on 11-15 February next year!! #nosleeptillthen Anyway, have your say remembering that this is merely a whisper in the dark and no-one from Webstock has to take any notice whatsoever ... unless we are legion :-) [[Form removed on 7-Sept-2012]] The Mike Options in more detail Gina Trapani I listen to Gina on the TWiG podcast and she always says what I'm thinking!

To be honest Google only have two certifications and after becoming a Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialist this completes the list :-)

Last year WaveAdept (now a part of Cloud Sherpas ), the company I co-founded to bring cloud computing and "make IT invisible", gave to all Webstock attendees a set of open/editable Google Docs with a simple index site allowing us to share our note taking - it was a roaring success . This year I'm not attending and felt doing something similar would be somehow be "rude", and so I asked on Twitter : Would it be rude to pop up a @webstock set of Google Docs (like last year) for collaborative session not taking when I'm not going? The overwhelming response was, "No, get on with it you fool!" Here it is: http://webstock2012.miramarmike.co.nz/ [Update] Question : Is this just for the 2-day full conference? Answer: Yes My reasoning: the practical "how to" workshops are the product of many hours preparation for which the attendees have paid hard earned money in order for Webstock to recompense the facilitators and I do not believe

I've just been through a report, Customer Perspectives on the Real Benefits Delivered by Google Apps , from Google outlining why their/our* customers have moved to the "cloud" (in this case Google Apps) and the benefits therein. And, of course, there's a lot of "Google is awesome" in the report and no, "We tried but it didn't work for us", but what do you expect. * [Disclaimer] I work for Cloud Sherpas and Google recently named Cloud Sherpas their number one enterprise partner . My overwhelming thought as I read the client comments is that using the "cloud" (subscribed services and your data delivered to you via any web browser/device) has, at it's most basic level, made life easier. The hurdles normal people doing their every day-to-day jobs are going away. Technology is becoming a silent partner that just works - a cause I put my money behind with the old WaveAdept tag line of, "Making IT invisible". Here's

For some time now the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner has had a draft "The User’s Guide To Privacy and Cloud Computing" set of guidelines that she/they would like your input on. Here's how: Read the document (below or open in a new window ) Email thoughts to  simon.rae@privacy.org.nz Deadline: 14th February, 2012 And if you'd like toget more involved in the New Zealand "cloud" arena I highly recommend the NZ Cloud Computing Code Of Practice : The NZ Cloud Code Initiative is supported by many of New Zealand’s most prominent cloud providers as well as international cloud leaders such as Google and Microsoft. Financial contributors to the project include Xero, Gen-I, Equinox, OneNet, Webdrive, Google, Salesforce.com, InternetNZ, NZRise, EOSS Online Ltd, Systems Advisory Services and NZCS. Draft "The User’s Guide To Privacy and Cloud Computing"