Does the performance culture delete patience?
I took myself in being frustrated with my fellow danes a few times this week, wondering why they seemed to do things either wrong or too slowly. I kept thinking “why don’t they just..” or “this could be more efficient”.
As I ran through my daily dose of blogs and news media channels I found that I’m not alone; frustration and thoughts of improvement was abundant. Considering this for a while made me wonder if the last decades of continual phases and fads about performance improvement has made me and others less patient?
I’m not a short fused guy, I keep cool calm and collected, but annoyed on the inside, when faced with a process or function not being handled well enough. At times it is ridiculous, we are not talking of hours or minutes of improvement potential. So I wonder if I, like many others, being schooled in efficiency and efficacy is more likely to get annoyed?
Sometimes it is however justified to get annoyed with stupidity and lack of thought. At the checkout in my local supermarket the persons at the counter feel a need to scan every single milk, juice box or can of tomatoes even though they have the same barcode and the same price. In stead of counting the number of items of the same sort and just multiplying on the register they scan ever single item…if they insist on scanning, just scan the same damn can x-times!
At another supermarket this stupidity is copied onto the “self service” check outs. Here you scan your own stuff and pay – scan, pay and go! It should be easy. But the software in these machines rely on a weight – every item corresponds to a known weight of the item – so to “check” that I scan the right item, I need to place it on the weight. I can’t remove them until I’ve payed, so I have to scan every single item one at a time…this could be better!
Well, the question still stands…does the performance culture delete patience..?
Satellite cycling
I’ve bought myself a race bike, the sleek kind made from composite alloys and carbon fibre…no engine here chaps. I’ve wanted one for years but prioritized differently until now.
Being a gadget guy I had to get myself one of those fancy GPS enabled cycling computers…of course! I decided on the Garmin Forerunner 305 – the old model – because it suits my needs and can be turned off hence saving battery. I must admit that being able to map your trips on Google Maps, viewing the speed and heart rate information is quite nerdy…but also great fun and motivating.
Why did I go with a Forerunner and not a dedicated unit? Well, the Forerunner has different modes for running, cycling and skiing…so I can use it for all three activities.
I would recommend it!
Social disablement
In the era of social media revolution I can’t help to feel a little disabled being locked up and locked in by the strict security polices of the financial sector. Understanding the need to secure the internal network and client data helps to cope with the lack of access to most online services besides mail, but it still feels a bit annoying.
Considering the untapped potential of a social media integration in my profession it’s hard not to want change.
I work with a lot of bright minds and if I could reach them, get ideas, answers and contribute I believe we could do more.
Efterklang at Vega
A couple of weeks ago I took the offer from one of my girl friends to joint her at the concert venue Vega in Copenhagen to experience the Danish band: Efterklang. At first I was reluctant to go, I’d been at it all day and was planning to doze off, but I got my act together and flew there to meet Stine.
I didn’t really know the tracks or the band, but I was pleasantly surprised…it was “magic”…not just the music, the performance took some points too! I could help to notice how fast one of the guys was with the midi-controller…crazy fingers dude!
I’d recommend them.
The iBoard is next…
Well, it’s here…the iPad!
And what do we think about it? Considering that more than 1 mio people already bought an iPad within the first month I would call it a great reception. I have had the privilege to use one for a short while (it’s not launched in Europe yet) and although it is obviously an Apple device, I’m not convinced I need one just yet.
However I do appreciate that Apple did produce a take on “the tablet” it always sets a goal for the rest of the industy, and I recon we’ll see more tablets on the market soon; like the HP Slate.
What’s next?…iBoard!
Considering that Apple has produced the iTab (the iPhone) and now the iPad they must be planning to do an iBoard too. Why?! I think Apple has read a little about Mark Weiser. Which leads me to foresee a 20+ inch multi-touch iMac to complete the series of the tab, pad and board. It would serve as a cooperation-whiteboard, a picture frame, a information center or whatever you’d like it to do…much like the mac’s of today and very unlike the computers at Weisers time.
Right-sizing IT
When the pressures on budget rises and the demands remain the same, you should focus your attention on spending money, time and effort where it really matters…nothing new but quite important..
I attended an internal course this week and I was surprised. Not surprised to hear that there is a need to optimize spending on IT nor that many businesses do not have the sufficient data quality to divide IT costs in to more than a few categories. I was surprised that I’ve never considered, that what I took for granted when I worked with IT management, was so overlooked in general.
The course I attended was about IT Cost Reduction and I was introduced to a quite comprehensive methodology and tool-kit by a colleagues from Deloitte in the UK. It was a interesting introduction into a world I already knew, without being aware of it.. It seem that much of the initiatives set forth by the methodology was considerations and efforts I’ve previously done out of necessity. When I worked with IT management, our budgets where small compared to the demands of the business and the geography of the region, hence we had to do things lean.
However I was very pleased with the fact that Deloitte had put together such a healthy package which I can now take to the market and use to help businesses become as lean as posible.
I hereby send a thought to my former IT director, Kerstin…we rocked baby!
Moving past 1.0
Since my last post on assingments I’ve been quite busy. I’m still assigned as Process Architect in the financial sector and still working with requirements specification of a new business application for one of Denmarks biggest players in the pension sector. We’ve past 1.0!
It quite ground breaking within the sector to undertake the specification and development of a system of this magnitude and importance within a year. In this case it was possible to launch the first version of the application in to production and go-live with clients due to the effort and efficiency delivered by the project ressources and the developers. It’s great to see it come to life!
A start-up peptalk..
If you are thinking about starting your own business and need a peptalk to get it going, I’d recommend you to spend half an hour on watching David H. Hansen’s presentation at FOWA ‘09. It’s great stuff!
I wouldn’t say that I know David rather knew…We studied together, attended similar conferences and I interviewed him once for a podcast when he won the “Best Hacker Award” in 2005 for his Rails framework. He is an amazing personality, a fine entrepreneur and is interesting to watch…see for yourself!
Alive and Twittin’
I’ve desided to get informed, be in the loop and to post my thoughts on the Twitter-network…
you can follow my mindgames at twitter.com\peter_monnike
Is Apple getting Weiser?
The late Mark Weiser, the man behind the infamous sentence “The most profound technologies are those that disappear.” , imagined the use of three types of digital-units or screens which he called: tabs, pads and boards.
When I first heard about his ideas about Ubiquitous computing I found the idea of tabs, pads and boards interesting since I like the idea of using computers as leverage in a context and not a determining factor for the context.
If rumors are true it would seem that Apple has plans of releasing a “pad” shortly. I would argue that the iPhone could represent the “tabs” and if the “Apple Tablet” is released it would resemble Weiser’s idea of the pad.
Since the application of the iPhone in any context is quite easy due to the fact, that anyone can develope an application for the iPhone, I find reason to believe that Apple is getting Weiser. If the Apple tablet becomes reality I see great potential in the HCI field.