What happens when the natural tendency of confirmation bias meets the game of connect the unrelated dots?

How many dots does it take to draw a giraffe?

Using confirmation bias, data points are enhanced to support the preconception.  These data points are connected to form a patten or a conclusion despite the fact that these dots are flawed with no true picture of the rejected data surrounding the decision. In the extreme, one dot can be used to draw a substantial conclusion – akin to using one dot to draw a large giraffe!

Rarely talked about is that many preconceptions are formed based on personal bias – the like or dislike of individuals in an organization. This typically builds over many years with many technology battles waged and lost and a secret score of the campaigns now influence the personal bias of the winners and losers.

No Silver Bullets

Presumably, an organization would want to eliminate these biases but most don’t challenge strong personalities or politically connected leaders. Management gets defensive when their judgment is questioned and a defensive manager can be a vengeful manager!

Vendors also have their own built-in biases that support their self-preservation within their customer’s ecosystem.  One technique to validate important decisions is to use peer reviews facilitated by vendors who can be objective.

These reviews rely on your staff presenting their data points or dots and the vendor facilitates the objective discovery of the resulting conclusions. Most internal staff detest these reviews. Incumbent vendors also fear these reviews because they shine light on their inefficiencies. Outsiders readily identify the confirmation and personal bias and ask uncomfortable questions that linger long after the initial engagement.

The game of connect the unrelated dots is in daily use as individuals advance their causes.  Challenging the conclusions that were based on potentially biased data requires strong leaders and outsiders willing to ask uncomfortable questions.

E-Oasis conducts peer reviews to help organizations with technology projects, budget allocations of competing projects, acceleration of stalled projects, and termination of weak projects.  Contact us to learn more. Learn about our data center relocation services here.

1. Have you migrated to a current and supported version of Exchange (that supports the mobility users want with their mobile devices)?
2. When was the last time you audited both the backup and restore elements of your infrastructure?
3. Are you taking full advantage of virtualization in your data center?
4. Can you complete an eDiscovery request from your legal department in an organized manner?
5. Did you kill any weak and resource-draining IT (Information Technology) projects?
6. Do you have a Windows 7 strategy for replacing Microsoft XP?
7. Have you looked at consolidating your data center and actually retiring unneeded applications and their servers?
8. Did you fix any of those vulnerabilities your last security audit discovered?
9. Have you refreshed your storage infrastructure with more efficient and higher capacity equipment?
10. Is your disaster recovery and business continuity plan real or imagined?

The hard, boring work of 2011 might not be as exciting as moving to the cloud or filling your organization with iPads, but isn’t it essential for your business to get the basics working well?

Maybe not. After all, expending extraordinary effort for ordinary gain is how some advance their Information Technology careers.

Where is the sense of urgency?

A sense of urgency is often missing in these boring IT projects but a well-run shop is characterized by few surprises and stable, working (and documented) infrastructure. Not all leaders recognize this and get caught up in the latest trends pushed by the trade press as silver bullets of cost savings and hyper-coolness.

What will you prioritize as important for 2011?

Blaine Berger is the President of E-Oasis and a business and technology veteran with over 25 years of experience. You can contact Blaine via e-mail at blaine@e-oasis.com or connect with Blaine on LinkedIn.

Finding people who understand the value of completing a mission without filing a flight plan, without endless questioning, without frivolous interruptions is a mission all by itself.

Initiative, according to Elbert Hubbard who wrote the famous essay had one definition:

Doing the Right Thing without being told.

Hubbard goes on:

But next to doing the thing without being told is to do it when you are told once. That is to say, carry the Message to Garcia: those who can carry a message get high honors, but their pay is not always in proportion.

Next, there are those who never do a thing until they are told twice; such get no honors and small pay.

Next, there are those who do the right thing onlywhen necessity kicks them from behind, and these get indifference instead of honors, and a pittance for pay. This kind spends most of its time polishing a bench with a hard-luck story.

Then, still lower down in the scale than this, we have fellow who will not do the right thing even when some one goes along to show him how and stays to see that he does it; he is always out of job, and receives the contempt he deserves, unless he happens to have a rich Pa, in which case Destiny patiently awaits around a corner with a stuffed club.

To which class do you belong?

I promise you that sometime in your life you will have wished you had printed Elbert Hubbard’s 1899 Essay so that you could hand it to someone and save them decades of excuses!

Find it here and save a copy to your computer for that eventuality:

http://www.nato.int/nrdc-it/about/message_to_garcia.pdf

Frustrated, you send that e-mail to the CEO to get some attention on something that should have been fixed a decade ago. Interestingly, this touches off a pattern of waste that is repeated daily in organizations everywhere. Allowing  pedestrian problems to ignite into full-blown all-hands-on-deck emergencies is completely avoidable.  Sadly, it’s more the norm than the exception.

Even worse, real emergencies often go unrecognized while extraordinary effort is expended for ordinary gain.

If this happens frequently in your organization, isn’t it time to look beyond the fire fighting?

1. Do you have chronic issues that are never completely resolved?
2. Do the same people make the same mistakes unable to turn a lesson learned into a lesson remembered?
3. Are resources stretched so thin that a satisfactory root cause analysis is omitted in order to fight the next fire?
4. Is Executive Management seemingly oblivious to the perils since they often benefit from extraordinary effort exercises?

Breaking your organization’s dependency on fire-fighting as a normal reaction is not a quick-fix proposition. Finding a way to measure and report the cost of extraordinary efforts and contrasting them against the underwhelming, ordinary results they produce is a good first step.

Getting someone to act on that data is the real trick.

John has over 25 years of economic experience with a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning, a Certified Economic Developer (CED), and prior experience in Louisiana, Wyoming, and Colorado.

Q1.You work with Primary Employers and Longmont has seen some interesting industry clusters develop in the area. What is an industry cluster and how long do they take to develop? What are the main industry clusters and the emerging clusters now developing?

Industry Clusters are basically concentrations of companies in a geographic region within a specific industry classification.  The term was popularized by Michael Porter in his book “The Competitive Advantage of Nations”.  In a classic sense they represent an industry group that is integrated on both a vertical and horizontal basis.  However, outside the classic definition, “clusters” are used to define concentrations of employment that are multiples of the national average.

In that regard, Longmont has four identified clusters: Data Storage, Biotech, Software and Semiconductor Design.  Each of these “clusters” has a high concentration in the Longmont area.  We are also seeing the emergence of possible clusters in the aerospace and renewable energy industries.  In a larger sense, Advanced Technology, as a group of industries, represents more than half of the primary employment in Longmont.  This is many times the national average.

In recent years we have also seen the rise of data centers in Longmont, due to our low cost and availability of electricity and because we are located in a relatively “disaster free area”.  While data centers are not specific to a given industry, we are beginning to see a concentration of these facilities.  So far, American Honda, Xilinx, West Corporation and Ongoing operations are here in Longmont.

Q2.Are there any industry clusters Longmont currently hasn’t developed that would be a good fit for the area?

No, not really.  Business, like water, tends to seek its own level.  We look for a presence in the region as evidence that an industry likes this area and then we determine if that industry is poised to grow and how effectively we can compete for expansions and relocations.

Q3.Awareness is a problem for many regions. What kind of outreach are you doing outside of Colorado to highlight the business benefits of Longmont?

As a small community (87,000 population) we rely on two primary vehicles for getting our word out.  First, we work with our regional and state partners to promote this part of Colorado, recognizing we will compete best when this region is selected as a good location by a prospective company.  We participate in trade shows, site selection conferences, trade missions and national marketing efforts by these groups to get the word out about the Denver metro region.

We then begin the process of “coopitition” to try and attract a given prospect that is looking for a community like Longmont.  Second, we use our web page, which has become the standard for initial stages of the site selection process.

In addition to information (demographics, incentives, community profile, industry profile, etc.) we also maintain a comprehensive real estate database that is searchable online and which is maintained completely by our organization.  We are the only organization in Colorado to do this.

Q4.I’m often surprised by Longmont Primary Employers who are unaware of each other. What kind of events does the LAEC sponsor so these companies learn about each other?

We promote our companies in a variety of ways including:  two industry recognition events that have a 10 year history in Longmont, promotion on our web page and quarterly newsletter, promotion through our quarterly supplement in the Boulder County Business Report and news items that are included in our weekly updates to investors.

In addition, we periodically bring together companies that have common issues to facilitate discussion.  Topics have included government procurement, employment law, lean manufacturing, telecommunications, etc.

Q5.What have you found is the best-kept-secret of Longmont that businesses are surprised to learn when you engage with them?

With the advent of the Internet, secrets have become mostly a thing of the past.  What I do notice is that people seem surprised about the caliber of companies we have based on the size of our community.  Names like Seagate, Amgen, DigitalGlobe and Intrado locally and IBM, Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft in Boulder County are usually reserved for much larger populated areas.

Our competitive advantages include the quality of our workforce, the cost of doing business (especially for advanced technology companies), and a business friendly local government are usually uncovered before we talk with them.

Q6.What advice can you give Longmont Primary Employers who are interested in seeing their particular industry cluster develop or grow?

Obviously, no one is better at growing their companies than they are.  What we want companies to know is that when they are ready to grow, Longmont has the right talent, the right tools and the right business environment to contribute to their success.

Q7.Is there anything you’d like to add about LAEC, Longmont, or business development?

Just that the site selection process is complex because there are so many factors to be considered.  Our office has over 50 years of experience in working with companies to find a location and a process that meets their needs.  Not every community is a good fit for every company.

We can facilitate a company’s needs in finding the best location and in the time frame that matches their needs to be operational.  Longmont is a great community for the right company and we want them to know they have an ally in the Economic Council and the City of Longmont.

See these additional LAEC resources if you are considering the Longmont Area for a corporate relocation:

• Online Site Selection Database – http://longmont.org/Site_Selection-Find_a_Location.aspx
• Existing Industries - http://longmont.org/Existing-Industries.aspx
• LAEC Contacts - http://longmont.org/Contact-Us.aspx

You can contact John Cody and Staff at the Longmont Area Economic Council via phone at 303-651-0128.

About the Author:

Blaine Berger is the President of E-Oasis, a business and technology veteran with over 25 years of experience. You can contact Blaine via e-mail at blaine@e-oasis.com or follow @eoasis on Twitter. You may also leave a comment here.

E-Oasis offers complete data center moving services for the  life-cycle of a data center or computer room move. We help you avoid Complexity Blindness in your data center move planning. Additionally, our workshop series addresses all aspects of data center moving.

About republication:  Contact blaine@e-oasis.com with your republication inquiry about this story.

About your Economic Development organization: Send your pitch and information about your organization to be considered for future stories on economic development to blaine@e-oasis.com .

Nothing Concentrates the Mind Like a Hanging

A sense of urgency is often missing in IT projects. Milestones are missed with regularity and it’s often unclear who is responsible for deliverables. The expectation that a Google search will yield the technical recipe often substitutes for seeking out experienced help.

It’s not uncommon to hear some imaginative reasoning for why a project missed a deadline or failed to accomplish the objective. Most of these reasons are just fabrications. Sometimes the simple steps such as having clear consequences (the hanging) and an immovable deadline (at dawn) are not sufficient to provoke any meaningful results.

Now what?

It’s no secret that most people inherently avoid conflicts. They know what they should do, but inexplicably can not confront the situation before them. It’s no different with a technology project but there is a twist. You may not be able to overcome the imaginative technical fabrications in addition to confronting the individuals involved.

It’s time to seek out a peer review of the project and place a technical expert in direct conflict with your in-house resources.

What happens next will be the real test of your own leadership.

Can We Afford Point Solutions?

The Vendor interest at HIMSS09 was apparent, however the physician reaction to the stimulus is lukewarm at best.  A first year payment of $18K in 2011 or 2012 to the physician practice is hardly an economic incentive to deploy a point solution that is unlikely to integrate with anything else.

Speaking with CIOs after the CIO Forum in Chicago, the overall view expressed was one of apathy towards the stimulus changing priorities within their organizations. Some spoke candidly that the stimulus will not affect the current IT initiatives already underway in their organizations. Others wondered if their organizations would be able to avoid the penalty phase of the ARRA.

What Problem Are We Trying To Solve?

Clearly, we’re not trying to fix healthcare with these incentive payments. In fact some view that this program will worsen the healthcare crisis. Absent from HIMSS09 were discussions about a revolution in healthcare with more of the same glacial progress expected in the coming years.

Does Healthcare’s Journey Continue Glacially Down The Same Path?

What do you think? Is the inertia so great that healthcare will not be able to overcome its own coefficient of drag?

1. Will Twitter find a way to make money? (Apologies to Fred Wilson)
2. Is Twitter useful for <insert favorite use>?
3. How does Twitter <help><hurt> me <my business>?
4. What the heck is Twitter anyway?
5. I <hate><love><don’t care about> Twitter.
6. You should not use  Twitter for <insert-your-favorite-rule>.

Ignore the fail whale, the fanboys/girls,  and the crowd-based do’s and don’ts. Even Captain Obvious can see that Twitter is a work in progress as evidenced by the good folks at Twitter explaining they will scale first and seek revenue second.

Suppose instead you conduct this thought experiment:

Every Person on the planet with a wireless phone or computer is a Twitter user.

And these millions of Twitter users are all talking at once all in the same room.  Some in small groups and some in large. Some organized and most ad-hoc. Some talk is polite, some is rude, and most is seemingly without context.

What then becomes important when you realize these conversations, occurring in real time and possessing the possibility of crowd consensus, are about your brand?

About your industry? About something you care about? Maybe even about you personally?

What becomes important once Twitter scales?

What will matter when the discordant din from Twitterville is loud, overwhelming, and impossible to manage with the current tools?

Listening.

Not eavesdropping, but really Listening.

Listening at the flash-point of need.

Responding is an entirely different post.

But Listening is something you can start right now. This reason alone may not be compelling enough to compete for your time at this point in Twitter’s development.

Maybe there’s plenty of time and you can relax while Twitter is the rock your competitors break themselves against.

Or maybe others have the Listening part down and they’ve moved on to Responding?

Diagnosis Twitter: Relevant, not yet at scale, and ignored at the expense of your brand.

What’s your story about listening at the flash-point of need?

####

• Eliminate Travel
• Eliminate Training
• Cut Contractors
• Layoff Employees
• Extended shutdown during the Holidays
• Eliminate employee reimbursements for cell phones and Internet access
• Eliminate trade show exhibits
• Reduce Management bonuses
• Reduce Staff salaries
• Stop Hiring
• Consolidate or eliminate physical locations

However, even an arm-chair economist knows that cutting expenses alone does not ensure business survival. Now that the latest job loss numbers are out, the acceleration effect those job losses have on confidence and other industries will be telling. This effect will be fueled by media-led fear-based metaphors and inaction by those watching the panic parade.

After you’ve cut the expense side of the equation ( one hint: Kill your Weak IT Projects Right Now), what are you doing about the demand side of the equation?

The C-Suite can not legitimately hide behind “unexpected weaker demand” and fail to act.  By now, who doesn’t expect weaker demand?

The question is, what are you doing to stimulate the demand for your products and services given the economic downdraft?