Mark Schneider's SharePoint Taxonomy and Governance Blog

WWSD - What Would Steve Jobs Do?

Steve Jobs is a remarkable man, and his impact on the world is enormous.  The man was the original high-tech "rock star."  He managed to be the coolest guy on the planet and an underdog at the same time.  He was unapologetically arrogant, demanding, and hard to work with, but he was also almost always right.  He had an uncanny ability to get the best out of people.  He was a visionary.  His rags to riches, to rags to riches, to rags to super-riches story is the stuff of American folklore and legend.  I'm proud that he was part of my generation, and I his.  He was Apples' greatest advantage and his absence is Apple's greatest weakness.

The problem Apple faces right now, is that Steve was THE guy at Apple.  It was all about his vision, his hunches, his dreams, his decisions and his leadership.  The people at Apple went through their professional lives thinking, more or less, "What Would Steve Do?" in every situation.  He was the gold standard and his way was right.  Those that didn't understand this probably didn't last long at Apple.  So, a new generation of visionary leaders has almost certainly NOT been developed at Apple.  The iPhone 4S launch this week was, to me, a clear indication that the folk at Apple don't have a clue what to do next.

Steve Jobs led his people brilliantly, but he didn't develop them to think and lead in their own right.  Good governance is not about controlling people, it is about guiding and developing them.  I don't know first hand, but I'm willing to bet there isn't a lot of governance structure in place at Apple right now.

If I am not mistaken, there are a number of people at Apple vying to step into Steve Job's rock star spotlight.  They would do well to see the movie Moneyball and learn that the answer isn't in finding a new rock star, but in establishing a team that fits together and works.  Good governance means making the whole more amazing than the sum of the parts.

I love Apple computer and I hope they find their way.

SharePoint, Apple, Google and Governance

This blog is not about hardware and software, so much as it is about "peopleware."  I think the chief purpose of governance is to focus on the needs and wants of the people served, and find ways to bend technology to meet those requirements.  Sadly, governance usually means getting together and deciding what people can't do, and finding ways to prevent them from making choices.

So, although I think that SharePoint offers the very best collaboration layer for any organization, let's not forget Google and Apple.  I think it is just plain foolish to marginalize Apple and Google just because one is sold on SharePoint and its associated products.

A truly world-class governance strategy will provide the people with the opportunity to use various technologies in the pursuit of their business goals, while maintaining enough structure and best practice to keep things under control.

So, how do the various technologies fit together in a robust governance environment?  Well, I consider myself a pretty good source for solving that problem since I've been contributing author on two Microsoft Press SharePoint books, used to run an Apple Store, have a cousin who is a Google "rock star", and am primarily concerned with making organizations run smoothly.  The real world is not a sole source environment.  I am currently writing this on a Mac Book Air 13" that runs Windows and Mac OS in parallel, because the Mac Air is the best hardware platform on the planet right now, IMHO.

So, when do you use various technologies?

1. SharePoint.  SharePoint is, in my opinion, the only viable foundation technology for the modern organization.  It offers collaboration, flexibility, data mining, workflow management, code-free customization and does so in a manner that allows people to work in a natural manner.  It has a very robust security layer, and it is built to be deployed and maintianed by a real world IT shop under real world conditions.  So, in my world, if you are trying to provide maximum flexibility, collaboration, adaptability, security and sustainability in an organization, SharePoint is the only show in town.

2. Office365.  Not everybody has the staff, drive or interest in implementing SharePoint and bringing it up to its full potential, and yet even the smallest organization needs what SharePoint has to offer.  So, Microsoft has launched a very useable and effective "by the drink" model for small to mid-sized organizations.  At $6/month/user, the price is pretty amazing.  It offers SharePoint, Exchange email services, and online MS Office applications. I use Office365 for my personal business needs.

3. Google Docs and Google Sites.  Google is a strong player in most things digital.  Their tools are free, powerful, and appeal to tech-savy users.  The problem is that Google's tools are more like Legos than a finished turn-key product.  It is more like a tool kit than an integrated solution.  So if you like putzing around with your computer for the fun of it, then Google is a great source of entertainment and free applications.

4. Apple's iCloud.  This is a great tool for the individual who wants to share music, photographs, individual documents and other consumer applications across their personal devices.  If you want to buy a song on iTunes and have it available on your iPad, iPod, Mac Air, and iPhone (all of which I own) then this is the way to go.  There is no putzing around, and no hassle.  It just works.  I currently use MobileMe and will definitely upgrade to iCloud when it is available--for my personal stuff.

A truly robust and mature governance approach needs to recognize and make provision for all these technologies, and perhaps EverNote, DropBox and others as well.  IT is simply not able to meet all of the demands the users have, at least not in a timely fashion.  So, as a matter of self preservation, IT and Business Governance need to think well outside the box in solving user problems.

A recommended "thumbnail strategy" for leveraging the various technologies available is as follows.

1.  Enterprise Collaboration and Document Management = SharePoint.  I HIGHLY recommend using SharePoint as your in-house solution architecture for your organization.

2. Office365 for potential use in regional offices and other "small staff" locations.

3. Although I wouldn't encourage it, people are going to use iCloud, Google Docs, Evernote, DropBox and the like (I do).  Set up policies explaining that they are taking responsibility for protecting those documents, just as they would if they put paper copies in their brief case and took them home.  Establish procedures for checking these documents into the SharePoint environment.

4. Consider the possibility of "opening up" the desktop to user modification.  If you are keeping your documents and applications within the browser, you may find that there is wisdom in letting people police their own desktops.  Establish a base installation image, and if they crash their system then you will re-image their machine.  It is up to them to manage their own ad-hoc apps and keep their documents someplace safe. 

 

Mixed emotions on the Apple 4S rollout today. The 4S is a nice evolutionary bump up in technology, but it is not a revolution.

* Dual channel communications is cool and promises to double download speeds. Apple is quite right that "4G" is more of a buzz word than a reality. The 4G providers don't even agree amongst themselves what "4G" means and there is no definition, so Apple has focused on throughput rather than technology.

* The new camera optics and software should be a real plus. There is far more to good photography and video than ratcheting up the Mega Pixel count, and Apple seems to be focusing on the right factors- Optics, software and integration.

* Siri voice recognition shows great promise, but it is still beta. Nothing like faulty voice recognition to make you want to fling your phone violently out the car window, so we'll see how this works. Apple led the voice recognition revolution a good fifteen+ years ago, and then didn't keep moving on it. Hopefully they can make good now. Siri's parser seems to be quite amazing, but it is probably picking out certain key words and ignoring the grammatical markers like determiners in the stream. This will work fine for voice command but not so well for the voice recognition needed for true dictation. As someone who has engineered a few parsers in the past, I don't envy Apple/Siri the task of making a true natural-language parser based on audio recognition!

* I am speechless that they are integrating Twitter deeply into the system! How bizarre is that? To me Twitter is a footnote in digital history. The only reason they chose Twitter is because, frankly, it isn't Google+

* iCloud should be an excellent OS layer for personal users. It would be great if it had a seamless conduit to the more robust Microsoft SharePoint. Gearheads might like Google Docs/Sites integration as well.

* The new dual-core chip sounds great.

* Turn-by-turn navigation is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and Apple doesn't have an answer. They rely upon Google for base layer maps, and their contract states that they can't use it for GPS navigation (or legalese to that affect). Since this is Google's main advantage in the marketplace, I don't see Google sharing any time soon.

* HOPEFULLY Apple will at least leave the Siri API open so that third-party turn-by-turn navigation vendors can smoothly integrate their apps into Siri's voice command system.

I am definitely an "early adopter" when it comes to innovative technology, and I doubt I will use one of my Verizon upgrade credits to move from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S. I mean "Twitter?" Seriously?