Bill Brelsford

Multiple blog disorder

Bill Brelsford — Mon, 16 May 2005 20:11:00 GMT

For the 4 to 6 people (do my parents count?) that read this blog, you may be want to look at my new site. The rss feed for the new site is here. I will continue to post my truly geeky posts here and I will use my new site for posts that blur between technology, business and management.

Schedule Games

Bill Brelsford — Wed, 04 May 2005 18:11:00 GMT

If you haven't seen it yet, Johanna Rothman has a great series on “Schedule Games” over on her blog starting here.

Lean-Agile Software Development Summit – May 23 – Fairfax, Virginia

Bill Brelsford — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 14:47:00 GMT

I received this information today via the Agile Project Management mailing list.

The Lean-Agile Summit: a unique opportunity to meet and interact with the thought-leaders of Lean-Agile Software Development and Project Management. Come hear Rob Thomsett, Mary Poppendieck, and Sanjiv Augustine discuss how organizations can transform their IT to deliver greater business value by combining the principles of lean business management with agile project management. Great for Business Executives and Project Managers. Monday, May 23, 2005 from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm at CC Pace, 4100 Monument Corner Drive, Fairfax, VA. The cost is $500 per person and space is very limited. To register go to http://www.ccpace.com/Resources/Resources_agileForum.htm

For more information contact mblaylock@ccpace.com

Internal Marketing

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 15:32:00 GMT

I found this post about internal marketing over on TomPeters.com to be interesting and timely since the company that I work for will be having a meeting this friday to review our marketing plan.

Hey Hector.......

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 15:26:00 GMT

I added a couple new links in my blog roll that you may be interested in.

Walton on Leadership

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:34:00 GMT

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.“

-Sam Walton, American Retailing

It's fun to recognize local follks in the press

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:32:00 GMT

This month I received my first issue of CMO magazine (subject = marketing). As I was flipping through the pages I noticed that one of the comments from a reader about one of the previous issue's articles. The comment was from John Jantsch, president of Duct Tape Marketing, a marketing firm in Kansas City. The company that I work for is a client of John's, in fact, he will be doing a presentation at our next company meeting. I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say and learning about the plan he is working on for our company.

Saving money with Vonage

Bill Brelsford — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 20:54:00 GMT

I recently changed my phone service to Vonage. Vonage provides VOIP and has 2 basic plans for residential customers, 500 minutes for $15/mo or unlimited calling for $25/mo. Since I don't talk on the phone very often, I went with the 500 min package. My “traditional” phone service cost me roughly $45 just for the service (local) and taxes, so I expect to save ~$300/yr with Vonage. If you make a lot of long distance calls, your savings may be even greater.

I received my router/adapter today and installing it was a snap. I just plugged it into my cable modem and then connected my existing router\wireless access point to it and I was up and running. Made a couple of calls and the quality is excellent.

You also get some pretty cool features like e-mail notifications of voice mail, e-mails with the actual voice message attached, web based account management (call forwading, etc). If you travel, you can take your adapter with you and have your phone number with you anywhere you have high speed internet access (save on calls from hotels). You can get a phone number with and area code in a different city or an 800 number.

Vonage has a referral promotion going on, so if you see this an you are interested, I would appreciate you sending me your e-mail address so that I can submit it for the referral credit. You'll get a free month and I'll get two free months if you end up subscribing.

Yes, I'm still here...

Bill Brelsford — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 20:34:00 GMT

The three readers of this blog have probably noticed that it has been quite here for a while. I have recently started a Six Sigma Black Belt class through Villanova University. If anyone is interested in Six Sigma, Lean, or other quality measures and how they apply to software, I'd love to chat. I have also been doing more private writing lately. I do intend to pick back up with this blog. More posts coming soon.

SQL Server 2005 pricing

Bill Brelsford — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:08:00 GMT

This isn't news, just posting here so I can find it later.

SQL Server 2005 pricing

Enterprise $24,999 per server processor

Standard $ 5,999 per server processor

Workgroup $ 3,899 per server processor

note: Log shipping now available with Workgroup

Dell is selling servers pre-loaded with SQL Server

SQL Server 2000 now has a Workgroup version

Midwest Airlines digEplayer

Bill Brelsford — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:36:00 GMT

Midwest airlines will begin offering handheld, video on demand entertainment. I received this in an email; I couldn't find it on their site to link to it, so here is the cut & paste.

Entertainment Choices Start April 1

The digEplayer^TM – a handheld unit that puts more than 50 entertainment choices right on your tray table. Available on flights over 2 1/2 hours.


	Video-on-demand technology – pre-programmed with great entertainment selections for the whole family
		Pre-release movies, recently released movies, popular films, classic films
		Cartoons, children's movies and music
		Television programs
		Audio selections from most music genres
	The digEplayer will rent for $10, with a second headset and splitter available for $2
	Available to/from Kansas City and Milwaukee to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Florida cities, Boston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Phoenix

The Game of Work - Book Review

Bill Brelsford — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 20:29:00 GMT

The Game of Work Charles A. Coonradt

In the Game of Work, Charles Coonradt shows us the parallels between business and sport. Scorekeeping and defining the field of play in business are some of the principles explained by the author through the use of instructions, worksheets and real life examples. The author shows how the manager as coach can be more than just a metaphor. The author states that there are three ways to manage; by observation, by judgment or by measurement. This book is about managing by measurement, keeping score.

The author notes the interesting fact that people will often pay money to work harder at recreation than they do at work. He notes several reasons for this (see notes below), one of which is that the scorekeeping is better in recreation. There are five characteristics that are used to explain why recreational scorekeeping is better business scorekeeping. These characteristics form the basics to be followed when setting up a business scorekeeping system. The Results to Resources Ratio (RRR) is the key to improving business results through scorekeeping.

A relatively short book, ~140 pages, The Game of Work is an easy read that is chock full of practical advice on how to use scorekeeping to improve your business. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their personal or business performance. I would love hear from anyone that has personal experiences in applying scorekeeping in their business they would like to share.

Notes:

All organizations rise or fall on the personal goals of the individuals in that organization.

3% of Americans are considered wealthy. The main difference between this group and the other groups is the people in the wealthy group have specific, written goals. That is, they keep score.

People often pay to work harder in recreation than they do at work.

Some reasons:

In recreation, the goals are clearly defined

In recreation, the scorekeeping is better

More objective

Self-administered

Peer audited

Dynamic

Allows the player to compare current personal performance with past personal performance as well as with an accepted standard

In recreation, the feedback is more frequent

In recreation, participants feel they have a higher degree of choice

In recreation, they don't change the rules in the middle of the game

Goals

Goals must be written

Goals must be your own

Goals must be positive

Goals must be measurable and specific

Goals are best stated in inflation-proof terms

Goals must be stated in the most visible terms available

Percentages are too vague, use something you can see and touch

Use pounds, units, calls, boxes, etc

Goals must contain a deadline

Goals must allow for personality changes

"You must first set those goals to become before you attempt to set goals to have." - J. Paul Getty, Being Rich

Goals must contain an interrelated statement of benefits

Idea - buy a cd when you reach a goal, write on the cover why you bought it

Goals must be realistic and obtainable

Individual goals are the foundation of corporate human-resource development and planning

Teamwork is based on great individual execution of assigned responsibilities.

Management by exception focuses on things that are going wrong.

When there is an absence of clearly defined goals and accurate scorekeeping, we are forced to concentrate on activity

Behavior precedes results

Spaced repetition is the powerful force behind conditioning of attitudes.

Success is the result of behavior, which is determined by attitudes, which are formed by conditioning, which takes place through spaced repetition.

The concept of defining the field of play shows us that in business, freedom is greatest when boundaries are clearly defined.

Hiring:

Look for coachability

Willingness to be accountable and scored

Explain the field of play (in detail), ask if they can play on this field

Assess past winning behavior, willingness to learn and grow

Don't abidicate the leadership to the people leaving by having them train the new guy

Motivation - motive and action - balance

What is a persona?

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:31:00 GMT

I often hear people talk about personas. Although they correctly attribute them to Alan Cooper, the descriptions I hear often conflict with what I have read in Cooper's books and learned at his companies training seminars. In this post I will try to point out what I think are some important differences between what I have learned and what I often hear described.

To try to keep things clear, I will refer to personas as I hear the typically described as Typical Personas (TP) and personas ala Cooper as Cooper personas (CP).

Discussions of personas are usually related to the requirements gathering phase of a software development project (Cooper does not limit personas to software, but I will for this discussion). The first step in this process is generally to determine the users for the proposed software. The typical process that I hear for generating TPs is described like so: come up with a list of users (usually by brainstorming), consolidate this list and organize into roles, then if you have time and feel it is necessary (would be beneficial), you can create personas by adding some interesting personal details and a picture. While this is a crude description, it fairly describes several conversations I have heard; the common points being 1) personas are created at the end of the process 2) as an extension of user roles 3) they are created by adding personal details to create an imaginary user that project members can identify with.

A CP is a model that is based upon observed behavior, that is, research. User roles are identified to help determined research sample sizes. People trained (special skills) in interviewing and observation to field research to gather information about the users behaviors and environment related to performing business tasks. This may include using software while performing those tasks. Observed behaviors, motivations and goals are analyzed and used to identify personas. Narrative descriptions are developed for each persona.

Each process appears to produce a similar product (a narrative description of a user), but it is the process that leads to each that is important.

TPs tend to start with a brainstorming of potential users. CPs start with observed behavior. In my opinion, this is one of the most important differences. Starting with direct observations by people trained in observation and interviewing techniques is far superior to brainstorming exercises, postulating, or remembering past activities.

TPs tend to have a 1 to 1 relation with a user role, after redundant roles are eliminated. CPs are modeled after patterns of behaviors and goals; they typically represent the needs of many.

I believe personas are a powerful tool for product design and I hope this post will encourage others to further investigate personas further and learn how to use them in their development processes.

Surgery to replace steroids?

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 21:08:00 GMT

The March issue of Wired has an interesting article speculating on the future use of elective surgery as a way to enhance performance for athletes. One example would be a baseball pitcher having Tommy John surgery before they actually have an injury. Interesting read given the current noise regarding steroids.

Primetime Podcast Receiver

Bill Brelsford — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:22:00 GMT

I received a note from Lance Robinson about his new podcast receiver. I'm playing with it this afternoon and here are my first impressions.

Downloading the the software requires providing minimal registration info. The registration looks like the typical Dot Net Nuke registration page. The software requires either Windows 2000 or XP along with the .Net Framework 1.1.

Installation was quick and easy. There appears to be some good documentation, but me being a guy and this being a weekend, of course I didn't read it. After installation I started poking around to see what to do next. There are a half dozen or so feeds set up by default. Double clicking on the feeds didn't do anything so I tried the menu. I selected the first option to “Scan Now”. The application suggested that I should run “Catch Up” first. So I did that and then ran “Scan Now”. As things were downloading I flipped to the Media tab and was able to select a feed and start listening to it. So, all told, I was able to start listening to a feed in about 5 minutes from the time I downloaded the software.

So far I have only 2 very minor comments. The first is I would have the Media tab be the first tab since that's where the action is, where I assume I will be spending most of my time. Second, if I am listening to a feed while downloading others, the list on the right that is filtered by the feed will include unrelated feeds as they are downloaded. This is just an interface updating issue and I'm sure Lance is already working on it.

All in all, it was painless to set up and get started with. I like the application, I'm just not sure podcasting is for me yet, but I'll give it the old two week try and see how it goes.