Single Points of Failure

As I write this in 2010, our political, economic, cultural and social systems in the western world are for the most part driven by corporations.  Our art is subsidized by corporations, our charities are funded by corporations, our culture is promoted by corporations and our laws are defined by corporations.

These corporations come in various forms, whether they are businesses, governments, or religious corporations.  In many ways the corporate form is very useful.  It's one way to provide a structure for people to work toward a common goal.  It provides some level of predictability.  And in some cases, it provides for economies of scale.

Much has been written about the weaknesses of the corporate form, and the corruption it attracts so I leave that to others to draw attention to but there is one aspect of the corporate form that I don't see being written about, and that's the fact that they represent a single point of failure.  Big corporations have big failures.  We permit corporations to grow infinitely large and then rely on them not to fail.  But they do fail, we know they fail, and we permit it anyway.

In the enterprise software space the "one throat to choke" mantra is used to persuade the listener that putting all of your eggs in one basket is a good thing. What it hides though is the fact that the vendor represents a single point of failure, and when it's a large project, that often mean large failure.  The high failure rate of large IT projects is well known but how often are these throats actually choked?  Almost never.

If these large organizations never failed, that would be one thing, but the fact is, they do fail.  And somehow when we are voting, or shopping or doing our cost benefit analysis and selecting the vendor we forget that that entity we are dealing with may not be around tomorrow.  The "bet the farm" ideology invented hundreds of years ago and popularized during the industrial revolution is showing it's age in our current distributed global world.

When the costs of communication were high it made a lot of sense to build organizations as hierarchies to minimize the costs of communication through a top down pyramid and command and control theme. This model was so efficient that it offset the risks of the single point of failure. Today though, we have the internet and mobile phones minimizing those costs for everyone so the pyramid isn't adding as much value as it used to and the cost of the single point of failure is still there.

There are some structures and strategies though that can help with this.  They are used in organizations and projects that are designed with failure in mind.  These organizational models admit from the outset that there will be failures and rather than pretend that all is well and there will be someone to choke if anything goes wrong, they make failure part of the equation.

With the BP Oil Disaster destroying the gulf of Mexico, the failure of 247 US banks and millions unemployed due to the economic meltdown, people are starting to wake up to the enormous risk and costs of these single points of failure.  Simultaneously, open source software, open data, grass roots communities and cooperatives are becoming increasingly popular as people start to look for alternative ways to get things done.

Smart companies, governments and other organizations are letting go of "command and contol" and are discovering game changing philosophies based on engagement and collaboration that give them an edge that is not surprisingly almost non-existent in the traditional corporate form.

Collaboration, gifting and doing things for the sheer joy of working and contributing to the world and enhancing the quality of life of others are being rediscovered. And while we speak of these things as new, they are as old as civilization itself and were here long before the corporate form and will be here long after.

Licensing Costs

This article about the cost of unlicensed software use has left me wondering how commercial software will deal with unlicensed users. Specifically, will they treat them as "the enemy" as the commercial music industry seems to do on a regular basis? I doubt it, actually.

The software business has a lot more experience in dealing with the licensing of content than the music industry has, since everything the software business does is by definition digital. We have been through the copy protection schemes, the hardware dongles, the secret activation keys, and these have probably worked to some extent and the other thing they have done is helped fuel the open software movement.

Free and open software is important for many reasons social, political and practical but I think software licensing schemes like these, that make it a pain to use commercial software, that are at least partially responsible for users looking for alternatives, and free and open software is a pretty attractive alternative.

When you can get the software for free, without worrying about whether or not you are licensed properly, get free upgrades on a regular basis, have it supported by teams of people, and know that you can transfer it to any machines and use it forever at no cost... well, that seems like a much better option. The fact that's even more reliable and secure than the commercial alternative is gravy.

There is obviously a market for innovative commercial software, and happily some of that is still being produced, and some of it is even no cost!

But a lot of commercial software just offers the same old licensing, same big sticker price, same old promises, and a shiny new look... but putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the fact that it's a pig.

Who knows you?

I wrote some time ago that who you know isn't nearly as important as "Who Knows You". Seth Godin wrote today about something else... "Who trusts you?"

So, if trust is important, it begs the question... what is it that has people trust other people? There are probably many factors that go into the formula of trust, people have written whole books about trust, but I would say there is one over arching principle that is the foundation of trust, the entry level from which all other trust factors are built and I can say it in one word.

Integrity

I could write a whole chapter on integrity because I have studied it in some depth and it has become such an integral (no pun intended) part of how I choose to live my life but in short, the definition of integrity I live by is: "Honouring Your Word".

When people know that they can count on my to walk my talk, to do what I said I would do, their level of trust goes up. This shows up numerous ways every day and I find that I have many opportunities every day to increase my level of trust ( or not ).

I also find that when people in my life don't do what they said they would do that my level of trust for them sometimes goes down depending on how they are about it. It doesn't mean that I love them less, or think less of them. I just means I trust them less. When translates into, I don't count on them as much and when they say something, I don't rely on the validity of what they say as much... in short, I don't make decisions for myself based on what they say.

Why is that important? Because human beings live in stories, we make decisions based on stories, and people who can tell stories well can influence other people and can in turn make a real difference for other poeple. And to be a good story teller, one that can make a difference, one whose stories are believed and can make a difference for others, people need to trust you. Because people listen to people they trust... people talk to people they trust and people do business with people they trust.

Hard to say goodbye

Beware the free cell phone! I am tired of being held hostage by cell phone companies. Multi-year contracts, locked handsets and huge cancellation fees makes me very cautious about trying a new cell company but also leaves me choosing cell services like I sometimes choose who to vote for. I end up choosing the one that I think is least likely to steal from me than the others.

Imagine what would happen if a cell phone company came in with unlocked phones and no contracts. Just pay us for the service we provide. Oh, and bring your own handset if you want or we'll sell you one that is yours to keep, for a reasonable profit. Oh, and if you want to stop, no problem, just let us know. We hope to have the opportunity to serve you again some day. Thank you for your business.

Seth's riff (Hard to say goodbye) about companies that make it hard to leave is right on. Companies aren't taking into account the opportunity cost of holding their existing customers hostage.

Sadly, it may take a disruptive technology (SIP over WiFi anyone?) to break free of the stranglehold.

Open Source in Government

I have been an advocate of using open source software for govenment for several years. So far, little progress has been made. Large software corporations still tend to dominate in this arena. A recent article, Open standards group to beat Microsoft at its own game, talks of part of the struggle that is in progress to create more open and free (as in freedom) software options for the public sector in their software choices. I would love to see more software being used and supported financially by government.

Why are we throwing away millions and millions of dollars on plans, requirements and specifications for software that never sees the light of day? Why aren't we spending some of that money on open source development? Because the game of selling mega software (failures) is way too lucrative.

Some traditional IT managers insist on banning open source software from their IT shops.

Why? Because it's unreliable? I don't think so. Because it's not robust? Nope. Because it's a security risk? Wrong again. It's good enough for google, Yahoo, IBM, so why not the IT manager?

Because it's free.

• Free software developers probably aren't going to throw a nice big dinner party for you in every major city in the country.
  
• Free software developers aren't going to come and schmooze you over a nice lunch.
  
• Free doesn't require a multi-million dollar budget.
  
• Free doesn't satisfy the ego.
  
• Free isn't as much fun.
  

But, what traditional IT managers conveniently ignore is that if they are doing anything with the internet, they are already using free open source software.

Free software works. And that's why it's successful.

The binders that are produced are impressive... but I, for one, would much rather have my tax dollars spent on supporting software that works.

Are you really ready for more?

I am currently reading Ready for Anything by David Allen. In chapter 11, titled The deeper the channel, the greater the flow, David talks about how sometimes when an opportunity comes up for us, we get a little internal danger signal, like a tiny little "uh oh" feeling from inside.

Most of us say we want more business, more clients, more money, more responsibility, more fun, more time. But do we really? He says that because we have this subconscious resistance we actually miss a lot of opportunities for these things we say we want. Why? Because what we want is only a part of what is considered when we choose what to do. When some part of us isn't prepared to handle the opportunities that are presented to us, we resist them and we let them slip by, unrecognized, or even when we do recognize them we push them away in subtle ways. Are we really prepared to recieve the things we say we want? We are often defeated by our concern of what will happen if we actually take on one of these opportunties. I say get prepared for success. Find out what's keeping you from recognizing these opportunities for what they are and deal with it. Are you not paying yourself enough? Do you have too much overhead? Are there issues in your relationships with others that need to be resolved? Deal with them because to see these opportunities for what they are, you have you have to stop stopping yourself. Allen advises, take a risk, and do what you need to do to get back to eagerly anticipating the ringing of your bell. I couldn't agree more. Life's to short to be afraid of your phone ringing.

The Node Market

As information becomes more plentiful we are faced with the challenge of constantly searching for better ways of finding what we want. The ability to find and intepret information is more valuable that the ability to acutally store it. I think that as people become better and better at using search it becomes less of a differentiator so creative people will come up with new strategies to be sure to propogate their ideas.

Because of this, nodes will become more and more important. As they do, people who control nodes now will become more powerful and wealthy. Because, a node is the smallest unit of governance on the internet. If you own the node, you have full control over what you do with it. Interestingly, nodes are also free (practially) and the transaction fee for transferring ownership is virtually nothing, so, it's frictionless. It's a very fluid market. Concentrations of power that can freely move from owner to owner.

Knowing how people will behave slightly before others figure it out is sure to provide a competitive advantage in that market. I wonder who has the ability to tell what people are thinking about slightly before anyone else.... hmm...

Debate as Entertainment

Something struck me when I read about the upcoming "The Battle Over Books" debate between Google and the Association of Americal Publishers on Lawrence Lessig's excellent blog. The debate is being promoted, sort of like an entertainment event. I wonder if we are going to start to see huge legal debates over privacy, freedom and democracy being promoted as entertainment. It seems strange at first but... why not? I think more people would pay attention if legal debates were promoted something like title fights are.

"In this corner we have the super agile weight contender Google at 10 years old and 1.2 billion in annual revenue and in this corner we have the Association of American Publishers weighing in at 80 years old and 74 billion in estimated annual revenue. Who will win? Stay tuned and find out! ... fade to black ... The Book Debate is brought to you by Amazon.com!"

We all have so much at stake. It's a shame more people aren't more informed about how laws are being passed that erode our right to privacy and our freedom to choose. I think that most people find keeping up with this stuff boring, and to tell the truth I wouldn't consider myself super informed although I am very interested. I know that I would love to go to this debate, or watch it on a webcast. Maybe it will show up on youtube.com at some point. :-)

Incidentally, Mr. Lessig's blog is one of a few great places to watch the issues unfold. He has also written a number of books on ths subjects of freedom, privacy and the law as it relates to technology. I am currently reading his book Free Culture which you can purchase at the store or download for free. I'll post a review when I finish it.

Pure Viral

One of my favorite writers (and heros), Seth Godin, offers us this link to a guy who is going to make a killing selling the numbers 1 to 1000. This is pure genius and a great example of Seth's influence.

M$ to buy eBay?

An article I read today says that Microsoft is thinking about buying eBay. This would be a very interesting move for Microsoft because I can't think of a single online applicaiton that they run that is of any real significance except maybe LavaLife (was that too harsh? maybe).

eBay would be a considerable chunk of the net and is a space that Google does not yet dominate. And, let's face it, eBay could probably use some changes. Have they done anything innovative lately other than sell new classes of things, like houses and cars? Not that I can tell. They perform a basic service well and dominate that market so much that they just haven't had to innovate much. I use eBay, and like it, it's just not exactly a hotbed of innovation.

The thing that I really don't like about this potential deal is that if this went through, Microsoft would own Skype. As anyone who has been reading here knows, I love Skype and I reacted similarly when eBay first purchased it. It seems as though eBay has left Skype alone for the most part, which is great, but would Microsoft do the same? I doubt it. For that reason, I hope it doesn't happen, at least not right now. Skype is just too cool and they have done such a good job with marketing themselves that I would hate to see someone come in and mess with it right now.

An open source business model

I have been reading a lot about Open Source business models lately. This article by Denis de Bernardy outlines a revolutionary new business model for open source software.

Are you ready?

Charge money for it.

Yes, that's it. He proposes that we just charge money for the software, the original development and for any enhancements that someone might want/need. He makes a good case and I think he's onto something here.

Love is the Killer App

I read this book back in January, and wanted to write a review but didn't. Some of the thoughts keep coming up for me so I wanted to just write a few words about it.

First, I thought the book was good. Not great but good. I would recommend it but there are a lot of other books that I would recommend first. Why? I felt that it didn't have as much meat as I usually like to have in this sort of book.

Now, what do I mean by "This sort of Book"? Good question. By the title it's a bit difficult to figure out what the book could be about. It could be about Love and relationships, it could be about computing, it could be about business. It turns out, its about all of those things.

It's about Karma. It describes and promotes a way of life, a philosophy, that the author has used to propel his career and his life in general to new heights. What he proposes is essentially to read a lot, read books thoroughly, marking them up (a practice that I have yet to try) with your own notes, and then if you like them, spreading the word on what the book said.

He says, to get into the practice of sharing, being authentic and learning as much as you can about your subject of choice, through reading and conversing with other people and then sharing everything you know, unreservedly with whoever you think might benefit from it. It's a very generous way of living and to me, quite appealing.

He says that if you make this a practice, people will notice and will come to see you as the one who spreads the love and the knowledge around. You become the glue, the one that people want to work with because of your knowledge, generosity and authenticity.

Like I said, it's a good book, I would recommend it. The title's a bit strange IMHO, but hey, it got my attention and that's what great titles do.

Google Finance

Google has added some cool new investment tools to their ever growing list of applications. I think it's a great start, and I am using it, but the porfolio could use some more features. I do love the simple interface though and the stock chart visualization gadget is incredibly cool. Check it out.

Mini Review: The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable: Books: The Group of 33,Seth Godin

Seth Godin has put together a tasty little book telling us that to have a remarkable business (and I would argue a remarkable life) you need to give up being perfect. Give up being all things to all people. Give up going after that big market because there is no big market. Give up being boring.

There are many, many individuals and niches just waiting to be explored. How, be remarkable. Decide what you are up to and find a way to be remarkable at it. This book will not disappoint.

It's also about an attitude. A new attitude that seems to be emerging in technology, psychology, science and in some (very succesful) businesses. An attitude that there's more to life than profits. There's more than me first. Sharing, helping and grace are becoming the new competitive edge. You can't treat customers like cogs anymore.

What’s remarkable about this book? It was written by 33 volunteers, all business and marketing and life gurus, assembled and fostered by Seth and 100% of the revenues are being donated to charity. I think that’s remarkable.

Check it out here: Amazon.com: The Big Moo : Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable: Books: The Group of 33,Seth Godin

I am going to buy 10 copies to give away.

Fair Use

Lawrence Lessig makes a brilliant argument about Google's Book Search service and whether or not it should be considered "fair use" of the works. Naturally some book publishers are threatened and are suing Google over this service. He talks about the mp3.com case in this talk also. It appears that if the book service is deemed to be not "fair use" then Google's entire search engine could be threatened (along with Yahoo, MSN and every other search engine). If it is found to be "fair use" however, I think this will be a huge win for innovation and freedom not to mention cultural history.

Review: GTD

OK, I have decided to start this year off with a book review. A book about getting things done, which is often what people make new years resolutions about, so it seemed appropriate. I know these reviews are going to be a bit long for a blog but I haven't figured out a better place to post them quite yet so here is where it's going!

Getting Things Done - (aka GTD)
''The Art of Stress Free Productivity''

This book presents a new angle on, well, getting the most done with your time. At first I thought, oh, another time management technique... and I guess it would fit into the same category as time management, however, I would say it is more accurately called activity management.

Traditional time management encourages you to get in tune with your life vision, you 5 year vision, your goals, etc... and then gets you to cut your calendar into chunks and then split those into itsy bits and assign those bits of specific time to specific tasks. The theory goes that if you do all the activities at the time you say you will, you'll reach your goals. This is what Allen calls a top down approach. In the software world we call this BDUF (Big Design Up Front).

Allan says the traditional approach was backwards, and took up way too much brain space or (RAM as he calls it). His suggestion is that we follow some really simple rules and put some simple structures in place so we don't have to juggle so many things in our heads thus reducing stress and freeing our minds for more creative pursuits.

The basic steps in the process are:

1. Collect all your stuff.
   Gather all of the to-dos, mail, project info, reference materials and other stuff that you have around your office, briefcase, notebooks, whatever, that needs some sort of action into a collection area to get ready for processing. Get all this stuff out of your head and into some other reliable form (like an inbox) where you know it will be dealt with, so you can forget about it for now. If you're like me, you'll have several collection areas (physical inbox, an e-mail inbox, a PDA with voice memos and a notepad).
   


2. Process your collections
   Periodically and on a regular schedule, process your collections. Processing means scanning your collection bins and one by one take each item from the top and do the thinking that goes with it.
   
   If it is actionable decide if it gets done now or later or not at all. If it takes less than two minutes to do, do it now.
   
   If it is reference material, store it in a filing system if you want it, if not, get rid of it.
   
   Allen gives a ton of helpful tricks and tips to make this process a breeze and even fun. I personally found the immediate feeling that I was getting a lot of small stuff done that I had been putting off, was pretty gratifying.
   


3. 
   Deal with Actionable Items
   Allan suggests that deciding exactly where to put things during processing is a very important but often under-rated task.
   
   Traditional time management would have us creating a to-do list and sorting them in priority order, then crossing things off as they are done and transferring undone things to a new list each day. I don't know about you but I find it frustrating to transfer all the items that I wanted to do but didn't do each day.
   
   Allan says, forget prioritization and forget copying lists. Priorities are constantly changing in our fast paced world. Rather than set priorities, classify actionable items by context - where you are going to do it - so that next time you are there, you have a list of relevant items for that context.
   
   This is where traditional time management falls apart. We don't make the best use of our time because we don't have a ready list of things we should be doing, or worse, we have scheduled an hour to work on our project, only to find that we can't start because some piece of information is missing.
   
   Allan says, you only put things on your calendar if they really need to be done at a specific time, otherwise, they are just things to be done ASAP. Putting them on a list that is specific to a context that you will find yourself in allows you to make phone calls while you are waiting at the coffee shop for someone to join you, brainstorm about your projects while you sit in a ferry lineup, buy that gift when you are already out running errands. You get the idea.
   


4. 
   File Reference Items
   Allen's suggestion for your filing system is key. You need something that is fast and reliable and most of all simple to use. If you have to think about where to file it, you probably won't.
   
   What he suggests is to just use an alphabetical system A - Z and just file stuff under that letter, wherever that may be. The theory goes, that if you are filing a proposal for Space Widgets for your client, Jones Publishing, you could file it under "Proposals", "Space Widgets" or "Jones", but that about exhausts your options. So, pick one, it doesn't matter which, and file it. You can try to be consistent but even that is not critical.
   
   When you go to look for it later (if you ever do) you are likely to look in those places in your filing system and thus you are likely to find the item. Way more likely than in one of the random piles of paper in your office or briefcase.
   


5. Review
   The review process is critical in Allan's method because it's the periodic review that gives you the confidence that you are not letting anything slip through the cracks (at least nothing that you don't intend to let slip). Periodically reviewing your action lists keeps you on top of what's on your plate and focused on what you want to be doing.
   
   

People who use the ideas in this book report being much more productive and organized and as a result the book seems to have created quite a buzz (have personally seen it referred to many times online and several friends have mentioned it to me). All I know is I have been following just some of the ideas for the last couple of months and I definitely feel like I am much more on top of what's on my project list (I had over 100 projects when I started and am down to about 40 now). I'll keep you posted as to how it works for me in the longer run as I get more experience with it.

By using your brain for what it is good at, choosing the best thing to do in the given context, you will get way more done, more efficiently, with less stress than before. For the $22 this book costs and the time it takes to read, I recommend anyone who has a lot of projects and activities I have one thing to say:

Read this book.

The Startup News

Here's a cool site. It's simple. It's clean. It does one thing really well. It provides links to news about startups. That's it.

The Startup News

a beautiful thing

Seth Godin had a blog entry pointing to a very interesting new service with the strange name Amazon Mechanical Turk.

You have to check this out for yourself but basically what they are offering is work doing small tasks called Human Intelligence Tasks or HITs. These are tasks that are very difficult to get a program to do but easy for humans to do.

I love the idea. I will be signing up to try out the HITs as well as learning how I might use these web services in my programs.

Am I the only one that thinks it's a little bit creepy though? Is this one more step toward the Matirx where humans are servants of machines?

What do you think?

Google Analytics

Google is launching another cool new service called Google Analytics.

http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html

They have shut down new registrations claiming that they had extrodinarily high demand so they have stopped taking new users temporarily.

I don't know if I believe that. I don't want to say they are lying but c'mon, this is Google. It's hard to believe that they are having load problems with this since everything else runs so astoundingly well.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. All this temporarily closed door does is builds up demand and buzz... just like their gmail launch, where you had to be recommended by someone and each recommender could only recommend 10 people.

Genius. Ya gotta love it.

Virtual Monopolies

I just read an article about how great ideas are a myth and it reminded me of a thought I had the other day while standing in Starbucks. I was looking around the coffee shop thinking what a great execution it was. I mean they sell coffee for goodness sake. That's hardly a great idea. And yet, I was in awe at how amazingly well they have figured out how to supply me with a cup of joe.

Great ideas are cheap. I can go to coffee with my friends any day of the week and we'll spin off a few great ideas, guaranteed. But, we hardly ever act on them.

What's really great about Starbucks is what's really great about Dell and Apple and other companies that dominate in their niches... great execution.

When you walk into Starbucks you get a certain familiar feeling. Look around, the place is totally engineered. The colours are great, the smell is great, the packaging, the desk where you put in your creme, the cups, the gifts, the dress code, all done deliberatly. A Starbucks outlet is the result of someone taking the time to look at the details and make sure it all fits and leaving very little to chance. It's the result of a whole bunch of great ideas that have been executed flawlessly so that the entire package of great ideas is executed so that it is recognizable as a Starbucks.

How much attention are you paying to how you execute in your business. When you deliver your product or service does your customer know or care that it was you that did that? Was your widget remarkable enough that she said, "ah yes, the familiar feel of an Acme Widget, nothing like it", or is your customer saying, "I think I saw this cheaper last week... where was that?".

The reason Starbucks and Dell and Apple put so much attention into their products and services is because it gives them an edge. They have virtual monopolies. Sure, you can get an MP3 player from anyone but the only place you can get an iPod is Apple, and the only place you can purchase a cutting edge screaming machine completely online for a low prce and have it delivered to your door in a week is Dell, and of course the only place you can get a grande soy extra-hot gingerbread latte with room in a familiar friendly comfortable environment anywhere on the planet is Starbucks.

Forget your great idea. What's your monopoly?