“I will have to send you the tracker.”

“We have developed a tool that helps us track things.”

“You have the wrong version of the tracker.  I am sending a new one out now.”

“Did you get the tracker I sent last night?“

Ugh. Head butt me with a barbed wire bust of myself. I really do have a visceral reaction to the word “tracker”. It pains me greatly. I immediately have nightmarish visions of being buried alive under reams of awkwardly-printed spreadsheets. I peer up out of my Office-borne grave while a lifesize Excel icon cackles madly and continues to shovel.  No thanks (unnamed) friends (quoted above). Keep your trackers. I’m opting for sanity.

Seemingly, the act of “tracking” things is important. But the tool of choice for execution is almost always an utter failure. I mean no disrespect to the people I have come to know that use these tools. For the most part you work off inertia, inheriting endless scrolling and eye-scratching color schemes from some former POC. You toil madly to maintain the false reality of “up to date”, applying cryptic file naming conventions that no one understands but you, all the while crushing your co-workers’ email with multiple meg attachments replete with animated gifs and 18pt Comic Sans. Super. Please send more.

I thunk on this for a while and tried to figure out what about this practice bothers me so much. Here’s what I came up with:

1. The information is never current. Never. The sheer mechanics of emailing requests, receiving and consolidating information, and then sending out again is too slow to keep up with the velocity of life. Every time I get a tracker briefed to me, there are always caveats that x,y, and z, have changed since the time of publication. Alrighty then. So what’s the point? Thanks for letting me know what life was like last week.
2. The information is presented in the way the “collector” believes to be logical, understandable, and efficient. Unfortunately, this thesis is rarely true for anyone else. There are discrete professions dedicated to making information consumable and meaningful. 99 times out of 100, you are not one of these professionals. Therefore your use of color, presentation, and the basic tenets of usability are about as informed as my understanding of dairy farming or snake handling. (I love me some Dirty Jobs, but you definitely don’t want me to milk anything.)
3. Spreadsheets are great for accounting. But drop dead awful for faking workflow or including narrative. Creating columns to be filled in with dates that signify actions is not only the technological equivalent of building a house with an shoe-last celt, but completely ridiculous for conveying current status. And don’t get me started on narrative. Spreadsheets can handle a word or two here and there, but if I have to read another center-aligned, 6pt font excerpt in cell AZ154 I am going to blow a major artery.

So what is the alternative you ask? Simple:

Anytime you think you might need to track something with inputs from multiple people, say one word out loud: WEB-BASED. Start there and you will probably be miles ahead of where you are today.  I am a big fan of Confluence and JIRA for things like this but there are literally thousands of applications out there that will remove you from the hellish existence of spreadsheet trackers.

So sports fans….tell me. Did you too spill Flavia-powered coffee on your moderately pressed J. Crew button down shirt, curse the beard of Zeus, and fall directly out of your rarely comfortable office chair when the World Bank announced they had built what data.gov should be today? No? Huh. Weird. And here I was thinking I was normal.

Whether you are a data geek, care about transparency, or work in international development, this app is exceptionally relevant and seriously hot. And it’s hot for a whole rack of reasons I would guess the traditional development types will probably miss. In fact, I asked a few today and confirmed this hypothesis. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I heart the multiple advanced degrees out of each and every one of you, but seriously, lemme see some jazz hands at least when the World Bank makes Biggest Loser bellyflop size waves in the choppy wading pool of open government.  Here are my favorite statements so far and a bit of editorializing as to why they are missing the proverbial enchilada.

• “So what? The World Bank Data has been public for years.” – Well ok. That is partially true. But not really and you’re missing the point. Granted, some of it was behind a paywall, but even that isn’t the point. The point is the nuanced meaning of the word available.  Much like the World Bank data, the capabilities of the iPhone were available for years prior to its launch. You could call people. You could sort of use apps. You could sort of watch videos or listen to music. But when the iPhone arrived, the interface, seamless integration, and overwhelmingly usable presentation of functionality fundamentally changed our expectations around a mobile device. And by extension, it changed the way we work. So yeah, the data has been around for a while. But this interface, seamless integration, and overwhelmingly usable presentation of functionality are fresh like strawberries in July. And that positions the underlying data to fundamentally change the way we work.
• “Cool. It’s all in one place now” – Um…kinda. It’s definitely all in one “place” from a presentation perspective, and undoubtedly, that is bangin’. But the underlying data work to make it all in one service is what really changes my oil. More technically, the API made publicly available is the same one powering the app itself. Yeah this is a touch wonky, but stay with me. The World Bank had an API for a while. But it was built for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t built to power an app like data.worldbank.org. I am not sure why it was built, but it wasn’t really used and missed cashing in on why APIs for data are hip. By first building (or extending) the API, then presenting an app on top of it, the World Bank has shown the developer community the art of the possible. They are inviting leagues of people to use their data to drive applications that can benefit the overall mission of the Bank without spending a dime. By creating an API that is shown to be usable (i.e. cool app with stuff in one place), they demonstrate the real power of open data – crowdsourcing the development of innovative (and free) applications to support their mission.
• “It isn’t detailed enough for what I need.” – Ugh. This one really gets me. Come on, have some vision people. Again, yes. The level of detail presented may not be what you need. But frankly that only matters right now. And it really only matters to you. The architecture is what is important. Moreover, the potential impact to the business of international development embodied by the architecture is vastly important. Even if you don’t care about APIs, XML, GTL, or the Biggest Loser, mark my words, this move will present “detail” in the future that you never thought possible. As partners and implementers around the world begin mashing up their own data with the data provided by the World Bank in a usable, open, and transparent manner, the results will be detailed and ramifications will be significant.

So go check it out. Even if you aren’t a data geek, it’s worth a look. Also, I can’t wrap up without a hat tip to my boys at Developmentseed for creating a website that is just plain fun to use. An even bigger hat tip for doing it all with open source tools and proving that open gov data exposition can (and should) be more than just spreadsheets and FOIA streamlining.

Nonetheless, I promised some time ago that I would keep you posted on the score with respect to Wiki Part Deux (Electric Boogaloo) . In short – so far, so good. Adoption, usage, and pervasiveness continue to steadily grow regardless of some rather daunting challenges like no SSO, no communication efforts, mandated account requests, and no integration with enterprise search. It’s all viral, all day and frankly it has been working surprisingly well. Like a virus. Errr…a friendly virus. A friendly virus that promotes transparency and recently added some hot new drag and drop capabilities. Yeah. That kind of virus.

As awareness increases, I have been fielding more and more questions on the difference between the wiki and (insert any big name document management platform here). The questions pertain to other internal systems or client systems. I (as well as a bunch of other much smarter people) have said some of this before, but thought it helpful to put it out there again.

Simply put, the wiki is not a new place to put content. It is a new way to create content. Think of the wiki as a replacement for Word or Email. Big name document management systems (in almost every organization I have seen) work like this: Open Word. Write something. Save it on your desktop. Upload it somewhere a few people can see it. Hopefully they find it. Hopefully they are the “right” people. Hopefully they download it. They make comments or changes. Hopefully they reupload. Hopefully you can reconcile the changes with everybody else’s. Rinse and repeat.

The wiki (in my organization) works like this -> Open the wiki. Write something. Save it. Everyone sees it. Some people comment or make changes. Actual (and rapid) collaboration ensues.

In my book the big difference between the two is a process improvement, not a location improvement. I don’t download. I don’t save attachments. I don’t worry about versions. I don’t send emails . I produce actual content.  My team and I are able to produce better content because we can work faster and with more brains at the table. Sure, there are great benefits in the knowledge management game, but at the end of the day it is about $ to me. Efficiency and leverage are the lifeblood of successful projects. Shifting how you think about producing the content, not where you think about putting the content will get you larger gains. It just so happens that the wiki is indeed a “place” of sorts at the end of the day, but the true value is in the process itself. This is why I see so many disappointed wiki users who do nothing but create pages and attach documents to them. There isn’t really a compelling improvement there. But when you change the process…now we’re cooking with gas.

The strip mall loomed large in the chilled morning dew as I glanced back at 18 lanes worth of growing traffic idling through lights spaced a stone’s throw apart. Mega marts, chain restaurants, and expansive parking lots slumbered in preparation for the daily assault of inconsiderate consumers seeking considerable bargains and waistlines. The smell of yesterday’s funnel-cakes and tomorrow’s liquidation sale floated in the air, hell-bent on spoiling my otherwise unadulterated view of the Rockies.  I walk past a few rows of parked cars into a brightly lit storefront labeled “Fitness Rocks!” The substantial woman behind the desk smiles pleasantly at me while tending to a stack of fresh towels. I must have looked confused (hungover?) because she (much too cheerily) stepped toward me and (much too loudly) proclaimed,

“Welcome to Fitness Rocks! Where Fitness rocks! Are you interested in a membership? Or maybe a tour? Our MamboJitsu class is starting right this very minute! It’s like a cross between Dancing with the Stars and MMA. Hahahaha!! It rocks! Just like Fitness Rocks! YAAAAY!!”

Oh dear. Something was amiss. Many things were amiss. Most of which centered on this yapping Miss at my 12 o’clock. I pondered backing away slowly and distracting her by lobbing the nearby UltraZone PowerPack MilkBlast ProteinNuggets toward an idle StairMaster but after a few moments of frightened grunts, I mumbled something intelligible.

“I am staying at the Holiday Inn. They told me I could work out here.”

She unsuccessfully hid her disappointment and reached beneath the counter to retrieve some sort of form I was required to fill out. According to my newly befriended, awkwardly crestfallen attendant, this was mandated for adequate insurance coverage during my (hopefully?) brief stint at Fitness Rocks!  Huh. Weird. Never knew an insurance company to be concerned with my “Fav Workout Tunes” preference. But who am I to judge? Fine. I’ll bite. Mark one up in the Josh Grobin’s Greatest Hits column, Jessica. You and I both know the angels in his voice are the only thing sure to raise up our self esteem after failingly huffing and puffing through an advanced Ricky Martin Kwan Do class. (Also known as “Tae Chi Bangs.)

After satisfactorily registering my identity, I was allowed to enter the complex. I walked past rows and rows of awful dispositions forced by awful impositions. The machines appeared odd. The people on them appeared more so. It seemed to me that while there was sweat being produced, the actions producing it were foreign, contrived, and far, far removed from anything resembling a movement I might execute in the course of my daily life. I mean, how many times during a week do you find yourself on your back, pushing weight up in the air with your arms? (Other than your “workout” at the gym, that is…) It all just seemed so…I don’t know…slow. And antiquated. And easy. And more importantly…fruitless.

I pondered my reaction and sought to understand why. Why is it that this all seems so slow? While avoiding a leering turret of a man who had worked his biceps into a state that would deny him the freshness of feeling afforded by toilet paper, it dawned on me. It has been months since I patronized a “normal” gym. In line with furthering my CrossFit obsession and seeking a place where the WOD was not only condoned, but instructed, I had joined Primal Fitness this summer. As such, all of the traditionally normal things about normal gyms, seemed…well…abnormal.

For the 3 of you who have been reading this post (Hi Mom, Dad, Jay), patiently waiting for what this has to do with the transparent enterprise, gimmie a couple more paragraphs, and I promise we will get there.

When I walk into Primal in the morning, it is a completely different experience. There is no neon. There is no strip mall. There is no chipper receptionist. There are no remixes, no bodybars, no machines, and no dancers trying to be martial artists. Most importantly, there is no easy and there are no illusions. What greets me at Primal in the morning is an opportunity to work harder than I ever had before, exercising in a real, meaningful, and productive manner that has inevitably left me in better shape. There are no attempts to make things easy, fun, or even all that enjoyable. There is no complaining. It is competitive. It is hard. It is designed to be both. Frankly, it (exercise) should be. If you don’t like it, fair enough.  Head back to solo hours on the elliptical and keep complaining about the 3 flights of stairs you had to walk in a recent fire drill. Keep complaining about those tenacious 15, 30, 50 pounds you have been working on for years. Keep complaining about the back pain, the blood pressure, the weakness, and the expanding midsection. Keep complaining. And keep assuaging those complaints with fruitless trips to Fitness Rocks!

As I pondered, my mind drifted back to perhaps my second favorite topic – the transparent enterprise. Specifically, the now stark (to me) differences between those that have adopted the tools and processes of E2, and those who have not. It strikes me that there are huge similarities between my recent experience with a gym and my recent experience working outside of the wiki. For a brief period of time, there was no E2-enabled environment within which I or my colleagues could work. It has since been resolved but due to some mechanical issues there were a few dark days where I was reduced to working with (gasp!)…files. There was uploading. There was downloading. There was emailing and there was lack-of-version-controlling. All in all, it was like a step back in time.

I won’t mention the specific tool (read: way) I was working with/in, but seriously, it was the technological and cultural equivalent of Fitness Rocks!  There were hundreds of chipper people surrounding it, espousing how collaborative and transparent and effective it all was, begging me to sign up. There were people begrudgingly using it, albeit appearing in slow motion, fooling themselves into thinking they too were collaborative and transparent and effective. There were the muscle-bound super users who seemed to have pushed its operational capabilities to freakish levels of taxonomy and access control, all the while eliminating usability. There was a form I had to fill out in order to represent my identity. There was neon. There were sweat-free foreheads. There were complaints. There were expensive, long term contracts.  There was the illusion of utility. There was the illusion of return. There was the illusion of easy. There was…just an illusion.

Luckily, an E2-enabled environment resurfaced and I was able to return to my preferred method of working. I walk into that environment and am presented with an austere, yet overtly functional palette that responds accordingly to the amount of work I put in. There are no forms to fill out. There are no shiny advertisements. There are no huge costs. There is only work. There is true return. There is the opportunity to compete in a transparent, collaborative, and effective environment.

I look back on my brief interlude with both a 1.0 approach and Fitness Rocks! and shudder. Much like I am not satisfied with an hour on a treadmill, I too cannot sit idly by, waiting for the knowledge workday whistle to blow, all the while knowing there is a better way. I will not argue that change isn’t hard. However, after my time in the doldrums of traditional collaboration and fitness, I am ready to argue that hard is invariably better.

I am one thing, however. I am a use case.

In the post linked above, Dennis Howlett gives the so called crock of E2 a lashing of epic proportion. I saw it go up and sort of delighted as the powers that be reacted to his assertion. I really chuckled out loud when one commenter referenced Karate Kid in her reply. Read it for yourself to form your own opinion, but best I can tell, the very debate itself, regardless of what side you are on, is the real crock.

While the critics and advocates go back and forth, wrangling for (what appears to me to be) pole position in the Blogpost Hit Count 500, there are those of us who have work to do. And, despite Mr. Howlett’s claims, we accomplish it using not only the tools of Enterprise 2.0, but via the ethos of a transparent enterprise.

I would consider the majority of the posts Jay and I have written to be evidence of our collective use case. We now work in a different way. Our organization, or at least the parts that need things from us, have changed the way they work as well. Sure, we may have speculated a bit on the evils E2 could cure, but all of them are based on real problems we faced on a day to day basis. The only criticism or advocacy we can provide for E2 is the sum of our experiences. Furthermore, if those experiences didn’t in some way improve our value to the organization, increase efficiency, drive additional revenue, whatever, we sure as hell wouldn’t continue to have them. After all, employment is my primary concern. Not the soapbox I am often accused of standing on.

Similar to the work I have to accomplish, the punditry will undoubtedly continue. While the debate rages on, there is in fact, actual change.  There are people like Jay and me everywhere, faced with “pressing business issues”, working via the tools and tenets of E2. Evangelism or criticism of the outcomes by the uninvolved is moot. Mr. Howlett asked, what problem is E2 trying to solve? For me….all of them.

Man. Aint that the truth.

This quote is from a recent blog post by one of my favorite Enterprise 2.0 authors, Paula Thorton.  It literally jumped off of the screen, landed in my mint julep, and was ported directly into the underwhelming organ I refer to as my brain. I can count on one hand (finger?) the number of business applications I consider great experiences. As such, it has been stewing there for the past little bit and I have been trying to figure out why. Not necessarily why it has been stewing (that part is easy – I am simple), but why the statement is true.

I have also been stewing on a rallying cry I continue to hear while waging the undying E2 adoption battle. People seem to be transfixed on the idea that things (technologies) “must be easy to use” in order to opt for a change. I hear this in bunches and have sort of reduced it to ‘a technology must be relatively easier to use in order to induce change”.  For argument’s sake I mean change in the most binary of senses.  As in stop using SharePoint and start using Confluence. Forget all the other stuff like organizational transformation or culture shift or <insert change buzzword here>.

So when these two stews came together, I asked myself the following question:

• Does a great experience with a business application imply that it is easy to use? Moreover, should it be?

In attempting to answer this question I thought about experiences I consider “great”. What are the attributes of an experience, professional or otherwise, that inevitably make it great? After sifting through my collective experience of persistent mediocrity, it boiled down to a couple things. They usually entail some sort of hard work, possibly even pain, and a sense of accomplishment. For example, I hiked up Mount Washington with Brother Nash this past winter. In one day with temperatures well below freezing, we covered 8 miles, gained and lost a mile of altitude, and carried a sweet ice axe. Hard work? Yup. Sense of accomplishment? For sheezy. Great experience? Check. Another example is my obsession with CrossFit. Most weekdays, the fine folks at Primal Fitness DC are kind enough to hand back my ass after a seriously proper kicking up and down New York Avenue.  From Fights Gone Bad to dancing with the clown, there is definitely both pain and a sense of accomplishment. Mark another in the “great” column. Finally, the time I spent working in the Middle East was definitely a great experience. We accomplished many things and well…the reason why life might be a bit hard in Baghdad is pretty self-evident.

So how does this translate to business applications? The only app I really consider a great experience is our wiki. I have never really thought about it until now, but why is that? Why do I think it’s great? For the longest time, I thought it was because it was easy to use. But the more I think about it, while the tool itself may be easy, the experience is anything but. It is hard. It is sometimes painful. And frankly, it should be.

When we write professional content (like deliverables) in wiki form, we are forced to expand our minds beyond typical expectations. We must increase our understanding of context, look for the bigger picture, and understand where the content we are producing fits into it. What does this link to?  Where else are people writing about this? What are they saying? Am I wrong? Are they wrong? What should this link to?

I would posit that none of these questions existed so blatantly until I had a tool that exposed them to me. I worked away in my little silo of knowledge (more of a shed really) and never had to consider the bigger picture. Maybe there was some other eRoom with similar content, but I sure didn’t have access to it. Even if I could link my document to the other, what did that do? It didn’t help the search engine. It didn’t provide trackback for the other author. It would also usually break if either doc was moved or renamed. Now those were the easy days. So why bother?

Well…I didnt. And most people still don’t. Even though there is a clear option to  produce a great experience, people are still slogging through version control nightmares fueled by email attachments and track changes. Why? Because it is easier??? No. Ease of use is often a foil for thought laziness. Email attachments are easy. But they don’t precipitate a great experience. Why bother to expand your perspective when the siren of a paperclip icon (or a folder upload) calls so sweetly? Silo shmilo…I have Facebooking to get to!

My great experiences with business applications (or anything for that matter) always require some level of hard work. Authoring in the wiki provides for a great experience, but when the content is at its most powerful, it is in no way easier to produce. It forces me to think beyond what I usually think about. Isn’t that what organizations want out of their employees? Isn’t that what employees want from their jobs? Challenging assignments? Big thinking? I know it’s what I want.  And yes, it can be hard. But, just like the feeling you get from a correct choice in the Big Mac vs. spaghetti squash conundrum…it is great.

This is key. While the drive to do IT differently, more cheaply and more transparently is clearly emanating from the folks now holding the reigns of the government, this notion easily be lost somewhere deep in the opaque depths of the IT procurement process. If there is one thing that some government technology contractors have come to appreciate, it’s that building a system that is expensive, difficult to retire, and complicated can often serve to lock in years of future revenue. As one presenter put it, some companies consider building bad enterprise software “a competitive advantage”. In some cases, this has become the only way they know how to operate. Think of the billions in contracting vehicles now rendered useless by a government who only wants to buy lightweight, open source software built on flexible data exchange standards – software that many of its legacy contracts aren’t able to provide.

Some will adapt. Some won’t. But, this opens a tremendous opportunity for smaller, more agile firms that have concepts like OSS, sound UX design, and web services built into their DNA. At Government 2.0, people like Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs showed the feds that massive, data-intensive websites can be built quickly, and even crowd sourced to citizens who feel engaged by this approach. His Apps for Democracy project exemplifies this (in fact, Vivek Kundra sponsored this project when he was DC’s CIO). I’m confident that we’ll see the new administration work with IT vendors that can deliver projects that follow this model, big or small.

While my interactions with Jeffrey were relatively limited from there on out, he was unwavering in his support and advocacy.  No matter how long it had been since a sale or a marketing event, he was gracious, appreciative, and genuinely interested in our continuing slog through the E2 adoption quagmire. In light of his tragic passing yesterday, we wanted to express our condolences and gratitude to his personal and professional family at home and Atlassian HQ.

Jeffrey, you will be sorely missed. We would not be where we are today without you and the dedicated people at Atlassian.

Thank you.

Needless to say, I am stoked. After 3 months of a painful regression through file uploads, track changes, and hourly knowledge assassinations from email, I could not be happier to again, author content in Confluence. I mean really though…how do people do it? I haven’t been removed from that world for decades but Jesus Murphy…I almost missed my handball game with Gordon due to the total time suck of outdated and inefficient tools and methods.

So…I have been a thinkin’. Thinkin ’bout 2.0 and what not. Know how people say ‘If I had to do it all over again…”, and then ramble off a litany of mistakes from their latest project? (Or complete life in my case). Sometimes they even go so far as to turn these pricey little gems of consulting pontification into deliverables we call “Lessons Learned”. Strangely, for as introspective and growth-oriented as this process appears, I always get the sense no one actually “learns the lessons”. They are more just an embarrassing admission of failure recurrence when “learned” again on the next project.

So with that, I figured I would put down on paper (monitor?) a few lessons we learned from our multiple 2.0 implementations over the years. We are essentially starting over in the adoption marathon at our new company, and maybe, just maybe we won’t have to learn these lessons again.

• Lesson 1 – Completely disregard anything said by anyone referring to themselves as a social media expert, selling only a social media strategy, or claiming that it’s not about the technology. The real “experts” out there are the employees with their heads down, screaming like a banshee for a better way to work. They don’t need a strategy.  They need permission and a tool that will enable them to serve as a vanguard for the organizationally elite .  They will guide the rest of the herd, knowingly or not. And don’t call them early adopters. Call everyone else late.
• Lesson 2 – Realize you probably know way less about “how your organization works” than you think. “Culture” can be a tricky devil in the world of limited choice. Maybe your organization hoards information because they have never been given an option otherwise. Don’t presuppose any of the actions of the crowd. Go into projects with a focus on flexibility and agile adaptation to the movements of the masses. This is social software after all, and I know I am not nearly smart enough to accurately predict anything a society might do.
• Lesson 3 – Convince yourself you are never informed enough to always be right. You are only informed enough to sometimes be present. If you ask more questions than you answer, you reduce the risk of looking like a complete knucklehead and increase your chances of getting a second date. Wait…that’s not a lesson I learned at work…definitely learned that in Adams Morgan. Seems to sort of work both places though.
• Lesson 4 – Start a blog and make fun of yourself for being a 2.0 zealot. I mean…we are kind of nutty, right? And just like Dairy Queen, everyone loves a little substance dipped in crunchy self deprecation.

I can say with absolute certainty that I have committed the mistakes driving these “lessons” dozens of times. Hell, I might be committing one of them by writing this post.  As we move ahead with Wiki Part Deux, we’ll keep the scoreboard updated on how we are doing.  Put on your rally caps though, because if my writing is any indication of my ability, I am coming from down a ton and need all the help I can get.

It can, and agencies are starting to show how. NASA’s Nebula enables project teams to develop and deploy software to meet their needs, and can take advantage of the scalability Cloud platforms can provide. The GSA’s planned “app store” would allow government users to quickly purchase applications and infrastructure, have them delivered through the Cloud, and pay via a credit card. Agencies that want to make their internal Cloud platforms successful should keep the notion of customer centricity in mind; to be successful they’ll need to keep their private Cloud simple, and accessible to end users. Looking at Cloud computing solely from the lens of an IT director or CFO won’t make Cloud computing anything more significant than the infrastructure technologies that preceded it. By bringing users a step closer to the technology that can help solve their problems, Cloud Computing can be as transformative in government as it has been in the private sector.