Innovation From All Sides

Over the last few years, Innovation and Disruption seem to be making the rounds along the conference circuit.  Those speeches effects can be found in the actions of CIOs around the country making innovation teams, and disruption evaluation projects.  Unfortunately, most attempts to harness innovation and disruptive methodologies seem designed to run afoul of the same processes that have killed innovation in the past.

Decades ago, when explaining how to productively brainstorm, Alex Osborn made the case that quantity of ideas coming out of a brainstorming session was more important than the quality of the ideas.  The less restrictive the bounds on presenting ideas, the more ideas presented during a brainstorming session.  And, with more ideas, and less restrictions, one might actually find that golden nugget of an idea that can change everything.

Establishing a defined innovation group seems to fight that freedom that actually leads to challenging ideas.  By establishing a group dedicated to washing a fleet of cars, no one else feels empowered or has the responsibility to ensure that the cars get washed.  Washing cars is someone else’s job and I heard that Bob got in trouble for washing his own fleet car.  But, for any organization, presenting a good image is everybody’s responsibility.  The analogy holds, and generating ideas that can improve an organization is everyone’s responsibility.

And, any innovation group has to be ready to present their ideas to management.  Those ideas have to be actionable and there’s always a pressure to produce – on a timetable.  Anyone that will produce a truly innovative idea loves knocking around ideas for improvement.  Hopefully, an innovation team enjoys doing that even more.  But when those ideas have to be codified and reported up the management chain on a defined timetable, an enjoyable exercise becomes one more task that has to be addressed for the week.  Given that most innovation teams are composed of managers and subject matter experts tasked with a great quantity of work, this makes “innovation” work even more onerous.  Formalization of innovation can quickly make an enjoyable and rewarding exercise into a painful and soul-killing experience.

Innovative ideas can be the lifeblood of an institution.  But they don’t have to be big ideas to have big effects.

Recent readings in the Harvard Business Review all point to creating value for customers as being the criteria for which new ideas should be judged.  And creating value for customers, whether they are students or consumers, comes from understanding their needs.  Understanding the needs of our constituencies is not owned by upper level management, or even the most technically astute among us.  The needs of our constituencies are best understood by our constituency itself.  They may not be in a position to design solutions, but they know what they need.

And, in the case of a public university, our constituency consists of every student, staff, or faculty member that ever steps foot on campus.  They can be the font of innovative ideas that propel universities forward.  Innovation teams may be necessary, but not as the creators of innovative ideas, but as the people that make those ideas a reality.  An environment that fosters creativity doesn’t need to be much more than an environment that doesn’t crush it. 

Innovation teams can serve a vital role in that environment – but they don’t own innovation.

I was walking across UF campus some months ago with my daughter and talking about her future.  We tossed around the normal topics: school, her future, career, insecurities and son.  But in the midst of the discussion we crossed one of our many green spaces and I pointed out one of our wireless access points that we have mounted in one of our campus blue light phones.

I thought I had found a great teachable moment.  I told her the story of how that installation came to be.  Folks from networking had a problem, they reached out to folks in telecom, a member of UFPD chimed in with a solution, and finally working with grounds we had delivered Wi-Fi to the space.  It wasn’t really any one group’s job but an idea had taken hold and everyone made it happen.  I avoided terms like “leveraging original investment” and “maximizing return on deployment”.  I didn’t want to turn her off the conversation with jargon.  And then she asked a question.

“Where’s the camera?”

She had been paying attention and wanted to know with all the infrastructure in place, why hadn’t we put a camera there as well.  Wouldn’t we want prospective students to see how much fun it was playing Frisbee in the field?  Wouldn’t we want to have a live camera where students came to protest?  With all the work we had already put into the location, putting up a camera seemed simple… to her.

None of the highly paid technical professionals that worked on the project had considered the possibility.

With that, I went to work getting a camera in place.  It hasn’t gone online yet.  There have been holdups and roadblocks. But good ideas don’t die an easy death.

And good ideas can come from anywhere.  Listen to everyone at your institution, that’s where the next game changing idea will come from.  The groundskeepers will know some of the secrets of an institution that an executive will never understand.  Whether that knowledge can be acted upon or not, will be the province of administrative personnel but do not discount the input of the rank and file.

Often, they understand “you” better than you do yourself. 

Embedded with the Enemy

For two years I was honored to serve as the chair of the Program and Content Committee for ACUTA.  My primary responsibility was to coordinate the committee‘s mission to procure quality speakers and intense educational content for these who work in Information Technology in higher education.  In the midst of those responsibilities, for the 2016 Annual conference in San Diego, I thought to assemble a random student panel to answer questions for our attendees. 

Like most of my good ideas, this one resulted from equal parts inspiration and desperation.  We needed to fill a speaking slot at the conference on short notice and San Diego State University was overflowing with students.  I thought a chance to interact directly with students might give our attendees (mostly back office information technology and telecommunications staff) a chance for some entertaining feedback.  It was a hit.  We held student panels at each event following until the end of my term.

From each panel, I took away insights into what students really wanted – not what a magazine reported that they wanted, what they truly desired.  It was invigorating for a back office staff member to hear how technology was affecting student lives.

And, if you’ve never heard a student directly thank you for your work in maintaining some obscure piece of infrastructure, then you haven’t lived.

But, rallies fade and insights can grow stale.  Once returning to the office, direct and energizing interaction disappeared and feedback was once again reduced to reports, customer surveys, focus groups, complaints, refinement requests, trouble tickets, project proposals, six sigma, performance appraisals…

And then I started graduate school in the Fall of 2017.  I was a student.

And overnight I stepped into a role I thought I understood, in a technological environment that I know I understand.

And immediately, I stumbled. Loss of Wi-Fi meant something completely different.  I was limited in where I could work on group projects.  I tripped during registration.  I registered for classes in one web site, found out what books I needed in another, and actually took classes at another web site.  I followed procedural forms from yet another web site in order to make sure my class fees were paid.

As a service user, I was left wondering why it was so hard to get the services I needed.  While working, I was busy patting myself on the back for being part of the team that delivered those services with minimal downtime and short response time.  I had never lived it from the user perspective.  And living it, is a completely different experience. 

And now, I was interacting with students on a daily basis.  In conversation after conversation, I was learning what was truly important to our student body: easy use of systems, calendars, and ubiquitous campus Wi-Fi in the exterior of buildings.  Student Pokemon Go players became an unpaid cadre of Wi-Fi testers now that they knew they had some one’s ear.  They’ve directed me to multiple sites where Wi-Fi needed to be reinforced and the students had a demonstrated need.

With all of the efforts we take to solicit student opinion, the simplest solution seems evident. Become a student.  Many institutes of higher education offer free classes as a benefit but I don’t think that we truly realize the gains that come from having employees become students.  The employees become invested in the institution.  The institution has value and the students are no longer complaining kids, they become our peers.

And, as UF begins the effort of rolling out two factor authentication to our general population, I’m glad that, as a student, I was able to bump my head against the student side of adaptation before the general population.  Luckily, my professor was kind enough to allow me to have my phone with me during our secure testing procedures.  His rules did not allow for any phones or anything other than a laptop, but without my phone I cannot log in to any university system.  He and I worked it out, and I was able to report back on a probable pain point in our upcoming deployment.

They aren’t the enemy, but there’s no better way to understand the students on your campus than becoming one of them.  And, staff enrollment is an underutilized option that institutes of higher education have available for both professional development, and student outreach.  We shouldn’t ask whether classes will help our employees in their roles, but rather acknowledge how the act of taking classes at our colleges inherently make them better employees. 

Staff involvement in our campuses pays dividends.

Making the Rules and Breaking Them

Designers study incredibly hard to memorize the rules of their craft.  Architects and codes, plumbers and the Uniform Plumbing Code, electricians and the NEC, IT professionals and current best practices, and my personal favorite – engineers and the laws of physics.

But, aside from the laws of physics (theoretical physicists notwithstanding), the rules of any craft are just rules.  Professional organizations work diligently to keep those codes/standards up to date, but this means those same organizations are constantly rewriting those same codes/standards.  If organizations constantly rewrite the rules, how can they expect anyone to respect them? 

Codes have the power of law behind them and any contractor can explain why it’s important to respect those codes, and the inspector enforcing them.  But, telecommunications standards and IT current best practices have no such champions or strength.  They only have their own practitioners to stand as their standard bearers (pun intended).

Practitioners have a vested interest in following standards.  Contractors can tout “standards compliance” as a market differentiator.  Standards for one trade often mark the handoff to another trade so if work isn’t standards compliant, the next trade can’t do their work.  And, standards allow tradesmen to work together peacefully instead of rewriting technical manuals each time a new professional is hired. 

But, practitioners of any trade rarely control the purse strings for any project or organization.  In all but the smallest organizations, dedicated management professionals exist whose primary responsibilities are safeguarding the budget and timeline of the project/organization.  Standards often threaten both budget and timeline, for good reasons, but threaten nonetheless.

·       Install one cabling drop in each room instead of two. (budget/timeline savings)

·       Install Category 5e cabling instead of Category 6 (budget savings)

·       Defer maintenance on server hardware (budget savings)

·       Design a building without adequate Telco Room coverage because connectivity is not needed on day one. (serious budget savings)

To address this, designers must recognize that they have a vested interest in being able to explain the reasoning behind their standards.  Unfortunately, far too many tradespeople do not understand the reasoning behind the standards of their fields.  Inspectors will learn the rules and then point to the rulebook if challenged.  This strategy can work well for a code enforcement official but will eventually fail for all other trades.  Adherence to any non-mandated rule set will eventually fall to the pressures of budget and/or time. 

But, understanding the “why” behind a standard can do more than fend off an over-eager manager, it can bring non-tradespeople into the fold.  When a tradesperson approaches a management question as an opportunity to educate, they generate a dialogue.  Those questions lead to more and the tradesperson becomes a part of the design/management team.  A tradesperson that is a management resource will be sought out.  A tradesperson that is an obstructionist is to be avoided.

In designing a library storage facility, a project manager questioned the Wi-Fi design that required numerous access points in an area where hardly anyone would be working.  Multiple e-mails and meetings had taken place with the network design team becoming personally offended that their design was being questioned.  The project manager and networking design team seemed to be at an impasse.  But, with the building owner present, a quick discussion concerning future RFID systems for book tracking and the need for Wi-Fi settled the issue.  In fact, the Wi-Fi design became more robust with the full support of the project manager.  Instead of relying on the standard to enforce the design, we explained the design and in the end, strengthened the standard.

And finally, management deserves the right to ask questions and confront longstanding practices.  After all, that is their job.  Along with a fair amount of bumbling, they will often question longstanding practices that might benefit from being reconsidered.  And, if a tradesperson cannot defend that practice with a response more nuanced than “it’s the standard”, maybe that practice deserves to be abandoned.

Without knowing, the UF police department has contributed to my own work at UF by questioning some of the basic premises of Ethernet design.  I’ve been able to deploy Wi-Fi in some locations I considered impossible because I didn’t step outside my own understanding of the rules.   Stephen Shapiro said, “Expertise is the enemy of innovation.”  Learn to listen to people outside of your trade.  A different perspective can be invaluable.

But, all of this requires that we, as professionals, understand why we do what we do.  It is not enough, to memorize the rulebook.  We need to be ready to explain every standard and the ramifications of their abandonment.  We need to know why we should stand our ground, and when.

Only then, can we understand what we have to gain by breaking the rules.

Attendance and Associations

Times are tough in higher education.  Of course, times are always tough in higher education but many institutions are cutting expenses like never before.  And, when administrators look to cut expenses, they often discover maintenance and professional development.

Maintenance draws attention because failure to maintain only becomes evident when the failure becomes critical.  Most don’t care about bridge maintenance until the bridge collapses.  A manager’s ability to keep up with maintenance isn’t the subject of many awards or headlines.  “Things still work” doesn’t jump off the screen or gather many clicks.  For the manager who can find a way to make maintenance work sexy, write the book: there are many of us waiting to read it.

But, I would like to discuss the latter topic, professional development.

Most organizations maintain a portion of their budget to fund the professional development of their staff.  This pays dividends both in increased employee morale and the increased skill set of that same staff.  But again, professional development can be cut with little immediate effect.  Loss of professional development dollars only becomes evident when staff leave.  Skillset stagnation may never become evident.  Projects take a bit longer, some decisions are made poorly, and processes may never evolve.  None of these scream for immediate attention and are well hidden.

And in the arena of professional development, nothing gets cut faster than participation in professional associations.

Administrators, as a whole, prefer funding for training classes in IT.  Tying training dollars to a defined skill set definitely makes for an easier management argument.  Does the organization need a new skill? Pick an employee and fund training for the new skill.  Test the employee’s skill when they return.  Rinse and repeat.

An organization can measure the value of training in the contents of the training, and the applicability of those contents to the needs of the organization.  The employee occupies a relatively passive role in the evaluation process.  We can evaluate the effect of the training independent of the employee.

The value of participation in a professional association is harder to define.

I participate in two separate associations: ACUTA (www.acuta.org) and  BICSI (www.bicsi.org).  I’ve attended events held by a few others.  I’ve found them infinitely more professionally rewarding than training.  But this truism holds.

You get out of a trade association, what you put in.

Most associations hold training events, seminars, annual conferences and the like and a number of people (yours truly included) work very hard to populate those events with engaging speakers and training opportunities.  I’ve seen many great speeches and walked away inspired and educated. But, the true value of those associations lie in the membership and without becoming actively engaged, that value will never truly be realized.

Many attend association events, eat the appetizers on the showroom floor, attend the speakers and go home.  They have only scratched the surface of what is available for their membership dues.  Speakers and vendor interaction make up the most documented reasons for attendance of association events.  Compared to defined training events, association events often come up short from an administrative perspective.  The image of employees going off to vacation on the company dime haunts many a manager.

But for those who engage with other members, volunteer on committees, participate in association outreach (listserv, social media, and so on) the association becomes a pivotal professional and personal resource. 

• Considering a new product/consultant/technology, avoid sales literature and consult other association members.
• Stuck on a problem, avoid sales literature and consult other association members.
• After reading an article on what your peers are doing, reach out through the association to see how a solution performed in the field. 

I’ve done all of these multiple times and the University of Florida (UF) has benefited from it.  In addition, I have shared some of our pioneering efforts at UF with other schools.  We all move forward when we help each other.

Look for your trade associations.  Join them.  Participate.  You’ll be amazed at the benefits.    Someone out there is ready to help solve your problems, and someone out there is waiting for you..

A Difference in Perspective

 Experience can be a great teacher.

But, the true test in learning from experience is a function of our ability to appreciate the events of our day to day lives.  Every day has life lessons to give but most of us spend our time observing only the events that support our current beliefs.  I could use this as a point to begin discussing politics but I truly believe that this blindness to the events around us impairs us all.

For a great read, I would suggest “How We Know What Isn’t So” by Thomas Gilovich.

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago while on a walk-through of a new construction project.

A large group of us had finished walking the halls of the building and we were hammering out a few last minute details.  I was looking over floor plans when I noticed a number of cabling drops had been removed from the final prints.  I was lamenting the loss of connectivity when the construction manager (CM) jumped in with a vigorous defense of their removal from the plans.

The tenants only planned to house one staff member in each room.  Extra cabling was useless and unnecessary.  In rooms planned to support more than one staff member the extra cabling was left in place.  In short, the building plan was a lean, mean, and efficient machine delivering connectivity to each desired location without wasting cable.  I got the sharp impression that I and others of my type were a drain on the project trying to wring out any “free” facilities that we could.

This isn’t the first time I had experienced the cost-cutting aggressiveness of value-engineering but I think I learned something from the CM that day.

I explained that his cable drops could be in the wrong place.  I was told to run longer jumpers.  For maintenance, nothing is more annoying at the host than long jumpers.

I explained that his cable drops didn’t account for a change in the room use.  I was told to run additional drops later.  Cabling drops placed “just in case” were a drain on the project and a waste of money.  The first new cabling run will be requested within a week of occupancy.

I explained that some rooms had no cabling at all.  I was told that they would never need cables.  Any room large enough to be an office will one day be an office.

 My shoulders slumped and I shook my head.

I’ve learned these lessons over years of maintaining buildings both on campus, and in a private capacity.  But, as I walked away I wondered why the CM hadn’t learned the same lessons.  He made a few great points about taxing a construction budget to the point where construction is cancelled.  For him, it meant very little to add changes later and come back to do additional work.  He had learned different lessons in his career.

And that’s where, for just a moment, I learned a lesson again in perspective.

The CM works on large construction projects.  For him, every job is large, involved, and complicated.  For every job, impact to budget and time can be measured and used to calculate whether a job should be move forward.  Coming back to install cables is a trivial need when you spend your life constructing buildings.

When maintaining a building and responding to user requests, installation of an additional cable can be a multiple week stumbling block of managerial approval, PO generation, cable installation, and finally making a final patch connection.  The pain in lost productivity can be soul-crushing.

Different perspectives.

I don’t know that he was aware, but I was actually paying attention that day.  Often, my interaction with building construction project managers and construction managers is in an adversarial role.  They want to build a building.  I want UF standards followed.  But, for just a moment that day I truly understood why construction personnel thought the way that they did.

With any luck, it will help me the next time I have to explain why that second cabling drop in a 10’x12’ room is necessary.

Whatever Happened to Customer Service, Pt2

In general, alarmist rhetoric and reminiscing over days long gone rarely produce effective results. The alarmists keep being alarmed, regardless of what actions may be taken. Reminiscing tends to ignore the realities of the past and replaces them with a blurry happy landscape that would have been unrecognizable at the time. With this in mind, I looked over my last blog post and was a little disappointed in my choice of titles.

Customer service hasn’t taken a dramatic dip in recent years. In the last year alone, I have encountered multiple service staff that have gone the extra mile in resolving my issues. A firm but helpful account representative of Alachua General Hospital comes to mind. She dealt with a very frustrated patient who had been repeatedly ignored, shuffled from department to department, and cut off multiple times. She took the issues at hand, calmed the patient, and resolved three weeks of multiple contact attempts in ten minutes.

And, the customer service ethic of the past was not the shining beacon that our older population would have us believe. My father often argued with everyone from salesmen to insurance agents. I don’t think he was experiencing the joy of the good old days back in my good old days.

But, technology has allowed companies to put more distance between themselves and their customers. And, in the name of the bottom line, a number of them do so.

I won’t reiterate my distaste of phone trees here but I would like to share my experiences of the last few weeks.

I was fortunate enough to attend the Fall BICSI conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. While there, the staff of the MGM performed their duties admirably. At no time was there a moment when a staff member was not attending to a customer’s wishes. The staff answered all questions quickly and efficiently. In addition, after dealing with a customer’s immediate needs each staff member was quick to point out other services that they were ready to render.

I asked about the kiosks for printing out my boarding pass at the hotel itself (a wonderful amenity). Not only did the lovely woman at the desk point them out, she asked if I had secured transportation, pointed out the shuttle stops, and offered to have my bags delivered to the airport. For those suspicious of her as a suggestive sales technique, all services were bundled with the room and incurred no additional cost to me.

Following that, I found I needed a receipt for my stay. I am currently engaging in my third attempt to request a receipt from the MGM accounts receivable department. The MGM phone tree (no tree necessary to book a room) bounced me around to where I could leave them a message so I did so. I have e-mailed their friendly support address twice and today I will try calling again.

Technology cannot be the problem though. Technology has made communication easier than ever. Customer service levels should be at an all time high.

As a counter point to my experiences with the MGM Grand, I contacted Blizzard Entertainment at the World of Warcraft support lines. I had received an e-mail informing me that my new account was established and ready for use. I do not play WoW so I was concerned that someone was using my e-mail account for some nefarious purpose.

I submitted a trouble ticket through their online system. My ticket was acted upon and I was notified in less than an hour that there would be no difficulties with my e-mail address. I was impressed. At no point did I make direct contact with a person but Blizzard addressed my complaint quickly and efficiently. I spoke with friends that play WoW and the description of their customer service experience echoed mine.

So, technology has opened up methods of communication that were never available in the past. As organizations become larger, customer service agents become more specialized in order to better cater to the needs of their clientele. But, the general service agent has been replaced by technology that still isn’t mature enough to meet the needs of a customer base.

Companies know the weakness of these systems well. Salesmen will never be replaced by a web form or phone tree – a smart company will never let technology stand in the way of a customer given them money.

I can get a reservation with a hotel without sitting on hold.
I can buy a computer without sitting on hold.
I can get any cell phone service without sitting on hold.

But, Blizzard shows that technology alone doesn’t hinder a company’s ability to address customer demand. Blizzard handles millions of customers remotely year after year and never directly interacts with them. A Blizzard customer would be hard-pressed to tell you where the Blizzard offices are located.

The WoW business model relies on customers to maintain their monthly payments. WoW is not a product that customer requires and there are not long-term contracts. Customers with negative experiences can simply stop payment and walk away – and they have. Customer service requests to Blizzard reflect a customer’s inability to play the game and that is a direct threat to their business. Blizzard trains their staff to deal with problems quickly and directly. Any delay in addressing a customer complaint translates into an opportunity for that customer to break their addiction to the game.

So, we cannot blame advancing technology for any perceived change in customer service. Technology introduces a distance between a customer and the service representative that can adversely affect that relationship. But, tacit company approval is required before that relationship begins to suffer.

So, as always, if a company has poor customer service, the company is to blame. It just becomes more annoying when the company is so good at getting you in the door before they decide to ignore you.

Whatever Happened to Customer Service, Pt1

I hate phone trees.

There really is no better way to communicate how I feel on this topic. I hate calling customer service. When I make a call and a machine answers the phone I just sigh. I punch “0” hoping for the operator anyone else. I hope to reach someone who can actually solve my problem. Eventually, I’ll follow the rules and hope for the best. Usually, the best isn’t very good.

Many smart people work on creating these trees. Vendors make a great deal of money designing these trees. Phone trees, they claim, allow a user to answer a few questions and appropriately route their own calls. Operators and receptionists are no longer necessary. Efficiencies improve. According to surveys customer satisfaction remains steady and companies can cut costs.

It’s very hard to argue against phone trees.

I work in IT and there are times when I’m the one on the other end of that phone tree. I have taken calls from UF staff that need help. They may have been routed to me appropriately or not, they don’t care. They just want someone to fix their problem or provide them service. If I can’t help them, the last thing they want is to be thrown back to the tree.

Usually, I never send them back to dispatch. I know enough people in IT here at UF that I can usually find someone to fix their problems. I listen to their story from beginning to end and make the next step without them. I find someone who can help them, then forward them along.

But, before I send them on their way, I always make sure they have my direct number. If I send you to someone who doesn’t solve their problem, they can call me back directly. Every single time I am thanked profusely. I’ve had a number call me back just to thank me for not letting them loose back into the system.

No one wants to be cut loose.

At UF, we’re currently working on developing a webpage for users to submit problem reports and service requests. There are a number of powerful tools that are available for creating these front ends and we have one at our disposal.

A well-crafted front end to a help desk can be used to route users to the appropriate support staff. Self-diagnosis of a problem can help a user cut through levels of red tape and cut directly to the support staff best suited to solve their problems. Utilization of the web form can be used to gather statistics concerning the incidence of problems in our environment.
A well crafted front page can be a valuable tool for routing users and gathering information.

A well crafted phone tree can be a valuable tool for routing users and gathering information.

But phone trees, in fact all user-managed entry portals, work based on the same fundamental premise. Every phone tree communicates the same message to the user.

My time is more valuable than yours.