Software Consultant

Give us the tools and we will finish the job. Winston Churchill 1941. Just as true today as is was then. So why is it that so many businesses
don't use the right tools and get the wrong result?

Starting from scratch


When Wilbur and Orville Wright decided that they wanted to build an aeroplane, they had little information to go on.
There were no tools and few experimental results to start them off.



Traction shifts us into first gear


They seized on the work of Otto Lilienthal, who had found a way or measuring the lift of an aerofoil. Although Otto had

concluded that a flat aerofoil was impractical for a flying machine, it was in a glider fitted with such an aerofoil

that he died.
With few resources, the Wright brothers conducted their own experiments using different aerofoils attached to the

handlebar of a bicycle as they cycled around their home town. It was these experiments that convinced them that a

heavier than air powered aeroplane could be built.



Think out of the box and exploit to win


As their knowledge grew, so they designed a wind tunnel, in which they continued to understand the problem they were

trying to solve until a number of prototype gliders were successively tested at Kitty Hawk. As we now know, eventually,

hey got it right, and the rest, as they say, is history.
They recorded their progress, successes and failures in notebooks and by the most up-to-date technology, the camera,

which helped them to review and document their remarkable achievement. They started from the back of the pack, and by

sheer hard work and determination made a world shattering discovery.




Innovate to succeed.


But if they were starting today would they allow themselves to be dogged by the same technology.


I believe not.



Leading edge developments save time and money


When Burt Rutan developed Spaceship 1, he didn't rely on the established technology of wind tunnels and

experimentation. To do so would have consigned him to thousands of man hours of hard work, just like the Wright

brothers. Instead, he stood on the shoulders of others and used computers and their applications that would help him to

shortcut the experiment cycle.
Algorithms and modelling were the modern tools that helped Burt Rutan to throw away the rule book and design amazing

and improbable machines.

Time is the enemy of every business, and any business that doesn't re-equip to exploit technology will always lose its

competitive advantage.

If you stick with old technology and practices it will cost you time and money. Old processes become inefficient

processes, and these days every business needs to embrace innovation all the time.


Getting off the cycle


It's not a five year cycle.
It's not optional.
Review technology every project.
It is a life saver.

Its time to get out of your comfort zone, and embrace innovative ideas that will save you time, and your money. Buy

some space for a holiday or reduce stress by learning new ideas.



I upgrade regularly, with new apps, new means of keeping in touch and by improving my technical knowledge to give offer

more efficiency to my customers.

Do you?

The Tower of London is steeped in history and every year it attracts some 2.5 million visitors. The Tower has been used as a place of execution, an armoury, a prison, a treasury, royal mint and even a public records office. But most of those 2.5 million visitors stream past the historical artefacts and information in the quest for one exhibition. That exhibition is the Crown Jewels.

Glamour or Hype?


So why it that the Crown Jewels is is the doyenne of the action. Why is it far and beyond the most popular exhibition in the whole of this attraction? Granted it is full of splendour and fabulously valuable, but this hides its original purpose. Monarchs in the middle ages traditionally held their wealth in jewels and gold plate, so that they had a ready source of finance in case of a war with its neighbours. In fact the original Crown Jewels were ordered to be disposed of by Oliver Cromwell.



By elevating one part of the attraction above all of the rest, it creates a focal point that the visitor must have. I've visited the Tower, and although I am enthralled by the whole experience, it is impossible to absorb it all in one visit. But as long as the visitor can get to the main event, then they have achieved their goal.




Elevate and resonate


Put this into context in your business. There are a million small medium and large problems that threaten to affect its profitability. You can attempt to micro-manage every aspect of the enterprise, but inevitably it's an impossible task, that will not only defeat you, but will drive you into the ground.



By elevating and ring fencing one of your products, you can focus on making it the most polished, and very best in your portfolio. It becomes your crown jewels and the one product that your customers must have. Focus on that one product and develop it until it is the market leader and it becomes the one product that your customers must have out of everything in your catalogue.



Streamline to win.


So does this work whether your product line is software, services or a physical product?

If you were, for instance, selling operating systems, and you were Microsoft, then all the ancillary sales follow on from your flagship operating system.
If you were a bank, then all of the ancillary sales would follow on the back of free personal banking.
If you sold the iPhone, it would be the iPhone that you put the highest amount of your design effort in the knowledge that all of the ancillary sales will follow.



My brother-in-law bought an iPhone, because he loved the design and functionality that it offered. He paid $299, but sadly within the first few months he dropped it and broke the face glass. Now at $199 you might have thought that a new face glass was disproportionately priced, but it didn't prevent him from buying it!



Will it really work for me?


So will it work for your business?



Well don't believe me, just look at the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London which draws a massive 2.5 million people a year, most of whom brush past the fabulous historical artefacts whilst beating a path to its door. Make your product the best of breed by using the best advice to develop it,
and while you're there just remember that the best advice came from me


Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
22nd May 2009

There cannot be many of us who haven't been tempted by glitzy get rich quick schemes, and after the shine and razzmatazz has been taken away there is no substance to the scheme. Whilst no one wants to be caught by such a money draining experience, is there any way in which it can benefit your business?..

Selling a pyramid.


Selling to your friends seems easy. Just take the product, show it to them and they will want to buy it. But even if they don't want to buy it, you can still earn commission from them as long as they sell it to someone else. Sounds a brilliant idea, until you sit down and work out that the further you are down the pyramid the harder you have to work to get back the considerable investment you've made in the scheme itself.



People who are down on their luck are emotionally vulnerable. It takes a psychological leap to pick yourself up and heave yourself bodily back into the Matrix of life. And if just at that stage you see a glimmer of hope, wouldn't you take the bait and be tantalised by the hook that was dangling in front of you?



Make Big Bucks!!.


Put in a few expensive cars (hired for the day) and a touch of showmanship, and hey presto, the sequins and stardust have drawn you in. You can almost smell the money, and the magnet it becomes, so that you and thousands of other people are tempted to throw, sometimes considerable, money into the pot. You will be told, it takes money, your money to make money. And for the promoters that's exactly what will happen. They will make money hand over fist from those optimists who think they can buck the trend by signing up for instant riches.


Taking the bait.


I'm sure you wouldn't be taken in by such scams, but just a little bit inside you might just be tempted by the thought of easy money. You might wrestle for a moment or two wondering if you could make your life easier by taking t he bait. But believe me you shouldn't!



The one thing you can do is to learn from this. Nothing in life will give you easy money. All money comes after a lot of hard work up front. It might flow a bit easier once you hit a comfort threshold but I am pleased that there are get rich merchants around.



Avoiding the easy money trap.


If you want to end up steering your business in the right direction then you could go with the easy money experts. And after trying one or two of these it becomes evident that there is no easy solution. Finding business solutions burns up a lot of time and effort if you want to get the best business result. This is especially so for solutions involving technology.



By avoiding get-solutions-quick schemes your business will benefit from sustainable answers to your business pinch points.


The team at tactips.com is ready to help you.



Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
15th May 2009

Business can be an immense headache or a joy, but with a little planning some of the headache can disappear.

Deserted not forgotten.


Picture yourself on a desert island, stranded from a shipwreck and you are on your own. To start with you have rations that have floated ashore with your lifeboat, and you don't know where the next square meal is coming from. You investigate the island and find nothing. Sitting down, you ponder the position, and wonder how long it will take to rescue you.



You start to gnaw at your lip as hunger begins to bite. You look at the ration packs which are laid out in individual day by day packages. The hunger bites even deeper, and you now have to make a decision, whether to eat just the ration that has been set out in the pack, to gorge yourself in a short feast that will satisfy your aching belly, or to eek out the rations even more than is laid out on the pack, in the hope that rescue will come.




Rescue is not all good news.


Let's say you were rescued, and that the strategy you took earlier was the right one for you. However, by the time you are rescued you have no rations left, and your body is deprived of food. As soon as you are rescued, you are presented with a huge banquet of every type of cooked and cold food that you can image and told to 'dig in'.



You can feel your belly start to rumble in anticipation; your mouth waters at the thought and sight of all these delicacies, and as directed you tuck right in!



Image how your belly and brain thought before you tucked in. How your belly was aching at the thought of the food that was denied you before you were rescued. How your mind just dreamed of every cut of meat, with crisp vegetables and soft fruity wine to drink. Think of the reaction you would have locked inside this room with acres of food to satisfy your every whim.




Groaning bellies.


Would you be selective when you walked into the room? Would you just pick out the few things that were your favourites and sit delicately nibbling the finer parts of the dish Or would you be more likely to gorge yourself, eating rabidly until your belly groaned 'no more'?



Selective you would not be, at least until you had filled up once. Then you might come back to the table and look again, picking out the specialities that you enjoyed beyond all else.



Is it much the same in your business?



Every organisation cycles between feast and famine. We have just had the feast years were every organisation has gorged itself on technology, products and solutions to boost up their business. Perhaps some of them haven't been too selective when they were feasting, because they just didn't need to!



If they gorged themselves on the wrong things, hey, it didn't matter! There was some more coming along, so the mistakes that were made could be swept under the carpet. As long as profits are good, you can be forgiven.



Trimming the fat.


But what about the lean years? Famine is upon us and rations will need to be managed wisely. As no one is sure how long the famine will go on, the idea of feasting is not good. Will you let your business gorge itself on solutions that you can't be sure of? Will you let yourself burn up resources wantonly in the quest for a new level of profitability? I think not!



How about starving your business by eking out the rations?
Well on your desert island, you could have taken half rations, but you would have become weak more quickly and unable to light the flare that the ship saw when it came to rescue you. You and your business need a steady flow of life sustaining food to keep it in shape for when the rescue comes.



So a steady, measured drip feed is what is needed to make sure that your business progresses and poised to take advantage of the upturn. On starvation rations your business will not be able to build and grow except with a longer term injection of resources.



Inject a measured, moderated, amount of business innovation into your enterprise to keep it really humming.


Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
8th May 2009

You might have thought that invention was an art that is restricted to no more than a few people in a generation. But is it just possible that by taking a different path you just may be able to become a successful inventor?

Tying in error

Why you were very tiny you had a great problem working out how to tie up your shoes. You were shown how to make bunny rabbit ears from the laces, and fold them over, under and back again until they made a knot. Now you know that the first few times that you did it, tying your shoelace was a disaster. But after a few more tries it became really easy.



Intellect schmitellect

Did it take the intellect of a genius to crack this problem? Were you injected with intelligence serum in order to jump over this technology bump that you were stalled against? I would suggest that was not the case and that by being given a workshop and by learning a technique that just like millions of others you managed to overcome the problem.




Did you learn to drive a car? And did the exhilaration of your first drive wear down a little? Didn't you find that in end it wasn't as bead as you thought it was? By learning to live with your fear and adopting new brain programming it became a doddle!




Invention is a doddle

Why is it that we believe that inventing solutions has to be any different? We think that because everyone's brain is different that it's obvious that some people can do certain tasks better than others. It's true that each brain has been trained to do different things, and that is a fact of the unique experiences that each one of us has encountered during our lifetime.




That doesn't mean that we shouldn't learn new skills, but that each of us has to decide whether they want to invest their processing and memory resources in each task.




Re-program your brain

Brain programming can be broken down into steps, and in much the same way that we learned to tie our show laces, so we can learn the steps that are needed to trigger our brains to become innovators. Training the brain to do any new task is difficult, but not impossible. The teacher needs to understand the coding that the subject has already programmed in, and adapt it to understand a new brain program.




Coming up with new ideas is very much that type of process. Take an individual or a group and add a small spark of brain programming and the lazy old brain will do the rest.

Much business is won as a result of good planning.
and a little guile but sometimes decision makers have to resort to a little subterfuge to stretch their credibility. Is there more to this than meets the eye?

Bring on the clowns.


Chameleons are a good example of this. It is widely supposed that they change colour so that they blend in with the background to keep themselves away from predators such as birds or snakes. But in fact most chameleons change their colour away from the background they are sitting in to a bright red or a blue. Hardly colours that would keep them safe in the jungles of Madagascar.


What makes them take the extraordinary decision to stand out from their surroundings is the simple game of mating. A brightly coloured chameleon is shouting from the rooftops, 'I am here', and 'I'm a good mate' just like the rest of the animal kingdom.



By exaggerating their skin colour the males are more attractive even though their mating prowess may be in question.




Home improvements


Through the whole of my career I have tried, in the things that I do, to improve each time I come across a problem. Even when I wrote software, I would get to the end of a project and then would see a better way of tackling the problem than when I started. There is rarely an opportunity to revisit the code at the end of the project, and in any case there is never any time or budget to undertake a re-design. So whatever the state of the design is when it is delivered, then that is essentially the way it will stay.



That doesn't mean that the solution was a bad one, or that it will stop working. In fact there is every possibility that this software will work for years without any substantial change to it. That doesn't mean that the code should be re-written just because I could see a different, probably clearer way to form a solution, but what it does mean is that there is more than one good way of completing the task.


What it also means is that I, and hopefully other software engineers recognise the limitations of their work and expect to do a better job next time.




Stretching the limits.


The accusation that could be levelled at me, is that I must have overplayed my hand at the time I took on the job, and possibly even exaggerated my ability in an effort to secure the work. If I had, then it was no different to any business transaction that takes place every day, because there has to be a little colour in the presentation to make either the business or the individual to stand out from the crowd.



Exaggerate to win


We all try to exploit the Chameleon effect in out daily lives, whether it's a business owner who is persuading a customer to place an order or an employee who over eggs their skills to get the work that they really want.
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In the final analysis, is there any harm in this behaviour? In my opinion there must certainly is not. Wouldn't you rather have one keen employee who will move heaven and earth to solve your business problems rather than another who is highly qualified but has no motivation?



People who exhibit the Chameleon effect are bigger achievers and have the ability to really benefit your business.


Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
24th April 2009

17th April 2009
Flowers are the end of a process that starts from a humble seed. No one is interested in the flower at the bud stage.

It is only when there is nectar inside the flower that birds and bees come to feed.

As the petals form on the flower, so the birds and bees become interested in what the plant has to offer.

Stimulating appetite

The birds and bees are only interested in the plants when their flowers are sending out a signal that they have nectar for them.

The plant generates a steady flow of flowers to keep them coming back.


But the whole cycle creates a steady flow of information that give signals that increases their interest until they finally go for the hidden nectar.




Banish the banquet

Businesses want quick answers, and expect them to be the right ones. So you provide a banquet at which the business owners and decision makers gorge themselves until they are violently ill.




These banquets throw in huge starters, a belly bursting main meal and the sweet to follow with ideas being cast in a confusing mass that are presented in a magnificent way, but which may leave a bitter aftertaste.


Each of the courses look appealing, but no-one told you that the starter contained nuts, and you know how allergic you are to them! It may be better to take a tour of the meal first, with the chef, to understand how it was put together so that you know what you should eat.



Snack and digest.

We were built to eat and then digest our food, and to only eat again once our stomachs are empty. It's only through greed that we over consume as if we had no notion where the next plate of food was coming from. Digestion gives your system a chance to rest and absorb the food. Your stomach doesn't stretch and ache, it decides whether it likes what you've eaten and comes back for a little more if it does like it.


Drip feeding concepts

Business owners and decision makers can't be expected to know everything about technology, or how it will make their business effective and sustainable. Just like the flower bud, the beauty of an idea has to grow and attain its own value. Just like the banquet, too many ideas forced into a small session are difficult to digest, and by digesting them slowly the business owners and decision makers can decide what sits comfortable.



Feeding development.

The same idea works with development teams. There is a great competition to be the one who has arrived at a development solution first. A great banquet of ideas is forced down the throat of anyone who participates, with the expectation that the proposer's solution is the one to gorge on.


But by starting early and watching the bud turn into a flower, the reward is the nectar inside. Good innovation develops slowly in tune with the opening petals of the flower.



Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
17th April 2009

10th April 2009

Some of the businesses I work with really rock. The people want to be at their work place and have the drive to interact with their co-workers with little management interaction. Managers become steering agents in a highly co-operative environment. Other businesses I work with are turgid environments that react to events at the pace of a garden slug. Getting the message across from the lap of the gods to the implementers below is a difficult task, but there are a few tips that can help to make the task more effective.

We will Rock you

We felt the vibration through our seats as the beat of the music reached a crescendo. Dry ice filtered from the side of the stage and coloured spotlights flashed from the front to the back of the stage. A video played, setting the scene as an electric guitar sang its melody in our ears. As the video came to an end so the music rose again, and on came the performers, rocking their socks to the sound of Queen. Our attention was well and truly engaged, and the scene had been set for the night ahead.



The worst time is the best time.

Any audience at any event arrives with their own pre-conceived idea of what is going to happen. It becomes to promoters job to make sure that those expectations are exceeded and that the customer goes away ready to recommend the experience to their friends and associates. In business, surprisingly, it's very much the same, where your workers are the audience. Most shows are put on at the very worst part of the daily cycle, the evening. At that time everyone has traipsed their way home through the rush hour, on buses and the metro, and all they really want to do is flop down and recover. Not only has the promoter got the job of rousing us from our torpor with a well chose advertising campaign, but they must also make sure that the delivery of the entertainment is second to none.



Your workers; your audience.

Getting people engaged, whether it is in leisure or business is an art can pay back enormous dividends in worker effort and participation. There are, however, a few simple guidelines that will make your delivery more effective, in just the same way as the theatre.



Time is of the essence.

Some years ago I used to work with a wonderful old chap called Maurice, who would enjoy a healthy lunch, and then we as a development team, would watch and wait. After some 30 minutes his head would nod, and we would be entertained to a gentle serenade of snoring for about 15 minutes. He we a good enough worker, and as workers were in short supply, the personnel department (now Human Resources) had no alternative but to turn a blind eye!


So just after lunch is not a good time to deliver important news. Most of us didn't follow the Maurice example, but it is true to say that if the brain is going to shut down, it will do so at that magic p.m. hour around 2 o'clock! Again, if its an important message, you can bet your bippy that there will be those amongst us who have an urgent appointment at the end of the day. That doesn't make them bad people, but your message will not get across at the end of the day if workers are glancing at their watches.

So choose an early morning slot to deliver news that you want your workers to accept and absorb.



Prepping the target area.

Just as the Theatre relies on advertising to sell the show, it will help your cause if your workers have been wormed up in advance. Have you ever had a Theatre ask you to read Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' before you arrive? If you are hoping that your workers are busy, the warm up must be short and concise.

Would you be inspired by: -

'Mr Jones, MD of Flebrty Corporation invites you to Work harder for the business'



or would your attention be grabbed by:-



'How you can help beat your recession'

'How to put more money in your pocket'



A small number of well themed titles with chosen content that takes no more than a few minutes to read are more likely to grab your workers attention.



Credibility.

Audience preparation can be exploited to reveal your credibility. If you deliver your message, and no one believes that you are sincere or credible, then you will see a sea of blank expressions that disclose their disinterest.

After all, it's your Corporation's money that is invested in getting your message across. Isn't it worth making the job effective?




Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
10th April 2009

3rd April 2009
Specifications can be an absolute godsend or a complete shambles depending on which perspective they are written from. Many are purely defensive documents that are used to ring fence and protect the vendor or buyer. Most buyers don't know what they are buying, and looking for a solution, whilst vendors believe they can deliver. How is this dilemma resolved?

Lost in a crowd

Crowds have a life of their own when viewed from afar. At a traffic accident people will be attracted by the spectacle and a crowd will form around it. When the life of the crowd is analysed, it has its own characteristics that are shaped by the event that is being played out. The crowd around our accident will build from an initial core, develop, as more people are attracted to the scene and, surprisingly form into a circle around the incident. As the event comes to a conclusion, so the crowd will thin until it dissipates entirely.



Different crowds have a different behaviour, which is dictated by the event around which the crowd is forming and the intentions of the people who form the crowd.




Theft by bidding.

Whether you have visited a physical or online auction, you will have seen, or experienced the moment when a lot is sold for what seems to be more than its true value. Bidding fever is a problem that some cannot control, because, once they have placed a bid, an overbid is almost a violation of their right to the product. The under bidder feels the surprise of loss, even though they have not yet bought the lot, and it spurs them on to bid again.



Luckily, most of us learn to control this behaviour, but for some it is like a gambling addiction. There is the euphoria of winning, which is tinged with the guilt of paying over the odds.




Bidding on your business.

There are some parallels with these two analogies in business, when buying technology or software from a third party vendor. Crowd behaviour is a significant factor in the buying process. How many times have you heard the words 'best of breed', only to find that when delivered it's no better than its cheaper competitors. This is emphasised by the Open Source movement, where a number of 'no cost' products are used successfully in innovative solutions.



Major technology projects have a habit of going wrong. They often turn out to be more complex than originally anticipated, and what the customer wants starts to change as the project evolves. Two reasons for this are that the customer begins to understand the problem as the fog clears, and also the corporate culture shifts in one way or another. Key decision makers are then left as the over bidder, holding the baby.



Win-win outcomes.

This doesn't have to be the case. If you are a buyer who wants to limit the collateral damage when the balloon goes up, or a seller who wants to limit their exposure to a doomed project then a little preparation will help out.


A win-win outcome is where all of the participants in a project get something out of it. It may be that it becomes clear that the project can't achieve all of its objectives at the first attempt, so why even try.



When Barnes Wallis developed the bouncing bomb in 1942 he had a steep learning curve to overcome. His initial design was for a spherical bomb, which eventually evolved into the cylindrical example that is more familiar. It was not until he understood how to use backspin to slow the bombs progress whilst the aircraft made its escape that the project became successful.

By producing a product that met some of the projects key objectives not only was it possible to provide an interim solution, but he was also able to refine and deliver an effective solution.



Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting
3rd April 2009

If you have
ever been in a shop where the assistant tries hard to sell only the
most expensive item
in a product line, then you will know how a
customers’ resistance grows when painted into a corner, when
there is seemingly only one way out. Can open-minded thinking improve
your position?

Budget busting decision

My brother-in-law needs to paint the outside of his house, and the
outside walls were originally finished with mortar in a Tyrolean
finish. (For those who don’t know; this type of rendering leaves
the rough native finish characteristic of Austrian chalets).



He took a long time to think about the amount of time it would take to
paint the walls with a brush, and the difficulty he would have stubbing
the bristles into the rough surface to make sure the paint covered
well, not to mention the potential wrath that might be visited on him
should his brush stray and flick masonry paint over the pants and
animals strewn around the property.



Perhaps a spray gun might do the trick, he thought, sending us off on a
mission to fins the right tool for the job. A budget was set, and after
a while on the Internet we came up with a bewildering array of
potential candidates, with an associated enormous price gap. It would
have been easy to have just plumped and hoped for something towards the
lower end of the scale, but caution suggested that we investigate a bit
closer, since we had both had mixed experiences of the low end of any
market.



Painting your way out of a corner 

After a while, it was still not clear, because all of the low end tools
still said that they would cope with outside masonry paint, but we were
somewhat wary of  their claims.



A chum suggested a machinery store that specialised in tools for the
trade and DIY person, who had, in the past been very helpful.



We rang them up, and a gentleman on the ‘phone was keen to help.
Upon explaining the job in hand, we suggested a model of paint sprayer,
somewhere above the bottom tier which appeared to offer the type of
performance we needed. It would have been the easiest thing in the
world for the chap to just agree with us and net an easy sale, but
instead he explained the differences between the types of spray gun we
were interested in. It seems that they fall into two general camps,
those that deliver the paint by way of air under pressure, and those
that don’t.



Using self-persuasion

He explained the why the latter were more expensive and why their were
more suited to outside work. Although the cheaper models claimed that
they would deliver masonry paint to the walls, he explained, logically,
that the paint sprayers in that range would only deliver the paint if
it were thinned, usually with water.



We went away to ponder, and, having convinced ourselves that he was
right, rang again to ask about the most basic of the high spec
machines. At that time, again, he could have made an easy sale, by just
accepting our selection, but instead he explained why this machine was
the cheapest in the range, and instead suggested the model one higher,
saying that he felt that he would be getting a call from a not entirely
happy customer if we plumped for the one we has selected.



Of course, we ended up buying his selection, because psychologically he
had taken the responsibility for our satisfaction in the product.



Candour complements innovation

We all know that whether your organisation develops a physical product,
or delivers services, that it’s extremely important that the
customer is delivered something that you business has entire confidence
in.



It’s the same when you ask your innovators to come up with
enhancements to an old product or even when developing a new one. Both
they, you and your customer must feel entirely comfortable that you all
have complete confidence in what you are selling. When encouraging
product innovation, encourage your development team to be frank about
the advantages and disadvantages of the product that you will be
selling. It’s all to easy for developers to pitch a product so
that your decision makers will buy it, when in fact it doesn’t
come up to a standard that wow the people who might buy it.

Rob Wendes Business
Technology Consulting 27th March 2009

Do you have too many
problems, which are too difficult to solve.
Your workers just
come to you with problems, and expect answers from you alone. They pose
difficult and complex technical problems which you thought you employed
them to deal with, but the complexity of the problems give more than
one path towards a solution.

It seems a hopeless cause, and
it’s difficult to know where to start, or if it is even
possible to finish it.

A
feeling of hopelessness

Biting cold pierced the flimsy layer of clothes that protected the
intrepid adventurers as they forged their way up through the
treacherous landscape, through waist deep snow and the threat of
blizzard the trek must have seemed quite daunting.



Their ascent was seemed quite daunting, since the previous seven had
failed, with attendant loss of life, placing the stakes quite high for
this attempt. In the back of their mind would have been the potential
for real failure as it would have seemed that this team was facing
impossible odds in their quest for success.

 



On
the verge of giving up?

It was 1953, and Edmund Hillary, a beekeeper from New Zealand made
their way towards the towering mountain named after the surveyor who
discovered it, Everest.



This was the culmination of years of work, in which Hillary was aware
of a high probability of failure and the prospect of the ultimate
sacrifice of his life. The problems seemed insurmountable, since at
that height there was the threat of freezing to death, becoming
engulfed with snow and dying through lack of oxygen. At this point
Hilliary might have decided to give it all up, and go back to
beekeeping. Much safer, with none of the multitude of pressures that he
would have to deal with in this venture. He could have just given up!



Planning
for the impossible

What was working in his favour was the knowledge gained from the
previous attempts.



They had better clothing than the flimsy military issue worn by those
before them. Hilliary had come up with idea of designing garments that
had layers of material to withstand the rigors of this hostile
environment. Although inadequate by today’s’
standards the outer clothes were a huge step forward for the time.



He set up camps as staging posts, which were well equipped and provided
refuge, supplies and bases from which the final ascent could be planned.



He invested in oxygen equipment to make sure that they
wouldn’t suffer from oxygen starvation, and set up two
separate parties for the final ascent. The first party took a close
circuit television, so that they could learn from the failed attempt,
and finally at 11:30 am May 29th 1953 they stood at the top of the
world.





Find
that Sherpa!

A consistent theme that comes across from my clients is one of the
hopelessness of the situation that they find themselves in, which is
most marked in Internet technologies. They feel they are struggling to
catch up, and I tell them that they are bound to struggle when learning
about new ground-breaking concepts.



What I say to them is that, just in the same way as the Everest
expedition, that the goal may seem unattainable, but by taking each
problem and solving it, you chip away at the bigger problem until there
is only one challenge left to resolve.



If your firm need help to get started, then you need a Sherpa, just
like Hilliary, and that Sherpa is me! 

The very last thing that
you might expect to boost your business output
is the concept of encouraging idleness in the workplace. Although in
wholehearted agreement, there may just be one situation in which
loafing can actually help.

Laptop
battery resistance



Batteries, especially in
laptops, have a hard life, are abused and have been known to catch
light! Every time I but a laptop, someone has a new idea about how to
look after it to improve its sorry life. Not so long a go, one of my
early laptops had a battery that lasted barely a year before it gave
up, exhausted, never to work again.



I used to give my early laptops a good hammering, putting those poor
lithium cells under tremendous pressure. I never even thought about the
battery when my laptop lid came flying open and I used it with
applications that burned up energy and produced loads of heat.



Inside the battery, the chemicals are in chaos; at one time the
electricity is being sucked out of the battery, and almost the next
moment its being pushed back in to it through the mains charger. When
the battery is full, and the nerd on the outside doesn’t
disconnect the mains adapter then what happens to the battery?



The adapter doesn’t stop pushing hard, causing resistance and
a hot spot when the battery is already bursting with the energy that it
already holds. Would you do the same with a bucket of water? I think
not.

..



Striking
a light



There’s no doubt that many things generate heat when they are
worked hard. Just think of two sticks that are used to light a fire,
and the amount of energy and pressure that is used to cause friction.
Get enough friction and you get to the objective you desired, with
plenty of heat and energy consumed in the process.



It’s the same with a match, except that the amount of energy
that is expended in arriving at the same outcome is much less.

..

If
it aint broke, don't fix it!

Batteries need a break to
make them work efficiently. Just unplugging the mains adapter when
it’s full will help, just as removing it will also give it a
break. The pressure applied with the sticks generates fire as the
limits that the sticks can stand is exceeded.



The team that deliver your products and services are much the same as
both the battery and the sticks. Businesses need their workers to be
efficient, and there’s no doubt that they need to earn the
rewards that the business generates. But just like the battery, your
teams push back as the limits of their capacity are reached. High
levels of pressure help to deliver results, but too much pressure will
cause friction and heat that eventually cause lasting damage.

Knowing when  to ease off can be one of the best decisions you
make in your business, and just occasionally, idleness can actually
give it a boost!

Every business hits a jam at one time or another.Is brushing
away crises by using information technology consulting a futile cause, or is
there real value in seeking a second opinion?

Dentists
have the answer

My wife is always exhorting that I plan for the unexpected, and in
general I agree. I was fortunate enough to have a little time on my
hands the other day when I was due for a dental appointment first thing
in the morning. It occurred to me that I could just sit down and get
into a job or read an article, but I have a thing about being late, so
I decided to head off to the dentist’s surgery early. I had a
laptop with me, and it really wouldn’t be a chore to sit in
the waiting room while I was waiting. Any job I did there would take
the purpose of my visit off my mind, and even though I don’t
tend to get nervous there isn’t a lot to do whilst you are
sitting there.



Being
well equipped, I started the short journey of about three
milesinto the town where the dental practice was set up. I passed the
local
hospital and had a good half an hour to spare as I approached the
junction just before the surgery.



Expecting
the unexpected

There was a bit of a queue at the junction, and it was immediately
obvious why it had come to a halt. I was not at all anxious because I
had time on my side, but as I got nearer I felt that slight tug at my
heart brought on by the shock of finding our all was not well.



With the
surgery only about a quarter of a mile away, it turned out
that the road was closed due road re-surfacing, leaving only a single
exit to the left through the wrong side of town. Other than turning
around and going back the way I came there was no alternative but to
sit it out, moving slowly with the queue around the outskirts of town.



The
pulse starts racing

It’s difficult to suppress anxiety when you know you have a
deadline, and this was no exception. I knew that keeping cool was
important because it would ensure that I made rational decisions rather
than tilting at windmills. I took the next right into town and that
proved to be my salvation. Although there was traffic in the town, it
was moving steadily.



Facing
the truth

Later on I was chatting to a client who was bemoaning the economic
downturn. Technology was leaving him behind and his products needed to
be brought up to date. When times were good there had seemed to be no
reason to invest heavily in the future, but here he was now finding
that he was in a lather because his business was under siege from all
directions.



Luckily as I helped him with information technology consulting, it
became clear that we had a way forward. He relied on his niche software
solutions for a long time, but in fact there were two potential paths
he could follow that would help him out. It was going to cost him a
lot, and at a time when money was not as easy to come by, but we talked
about how my small business consulting skills were there to help him
economically.




Without
the right mindset
I would never have arrived at the dentist on
time,
and I would have generated my own local crisis. Being prepared
for the unexpected is just the reason that my clients have realised
that an information technology consulting partner is an economical to
unlock
today’s road jams, and to plan a strategy for the unknown of
tomorrow.

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