Futures

Today was departure day. All the students packing up, checking out, heading to the buses for the airport.



Many of the students included a "future" slide in their presentations. They spoke about their plans for their product, next steps for their business aspirations, and where they wanted to take their ideas. All were full of hope and optimism.

The question is how many teams will be around next year? We heard from a number of former contestants who had turned their project into a viable business over the past ten years. No doubt there are more. And many could benefit humanitarian work and help change the world. Yet it was clear that great ideas take incredible persistence to become great businesses.

We learned through Steve Jobs that insanely great products are all important. It was something our business schools overlooked. But the adage that great products without marketing and sales are great shelf-ware is also true, as is under-funding will kill the product. The smart teams had a marketing person on their team, and the best ones were high-energy sales people. And they had done their homework on the financials.

One of the signs about Imagine Cup posted in the conference center said "No DREAM too BIG".



One of the hallmarks of Microsoft is to think big. Passing this on to students is a natural. I heard a quip once that set "all things come to he who waits... as long as you work like hell in the meantime." As others have said, the competition is the beginning of a journey, not the end. I look forward to seeing what next year brings. See you in St. Petersburg!




"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Teamwork

Today we saw the final six teams compete for the software design awards at Imagine Cup. These were the best of the best, cool technology and well rehearsed presentations. Today, all of the demo's worked.

During one presentation, the speaker blanked on one of the slides. It was an awkward moment of silence. Then something special happened. One of his teammates asked him a leading question. The speaker replied and was back on track.

This was a simple and brilliant move. It's a variation on improv theatre, where one actor plays on another's line and extends it in a way that appears seamless.

It's also a great example of teamwork. No member of a team has a solo part. We are all completing each other's sentences.


"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Juggling the Demo

During a break between demos at Imagine Cup, I stepped outside for some fresh air. On the promenade, a crowd had gathered around a juggler. I stepped up to the circle and watched him toss an assortment of knives and one-liners. At one point he dropped a knife, and immediately shifted to some on-the-ground "juggling", which he did slowly, knives on the pavement, so we would not miss a turn. "I don't need your pity," he barked with a cheshire grin!

Of the nine teams I saw at the Imagine Cup, the demo's for more than half failed at some point. The angle of the Kinect box was off for one, a battery pack had drained for another, a laptop failed, an Internet connection was painfully slow, a slide did not build with its image, and so on.

There are a few lessons from our juggler that apply to the software demo. To start, practice, practice, practice. The juggler made sure we knew he had been at his craft for twenty years. He had obviously tossed these knives a few times before.

Plan on something failing. As Murphy's Law states "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." A knife will fall. How will you handle that? (Pun intended :-)

Have a "b-plan". When your first plan fails, what will you do instead? Do you have an on-the-ground demo you can substitute?

Last but not least, use some humor! Nothing cuts the stress of the moment like some levity.

I received an update flag on my iPad today for the Yelp app I have installed. The explanation was priceless: "Fixed a bug causing the iPad app to crash for Italian users. No bosons were harmed during this collision." No less a software design judge, instead of being annoyed, I was entertained.

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Anticipation

Anticipation, [an-tis-uh-pey-sh uh n], noun
2. realisation in advance; foretaste.
3. expectation or hope.

Sitting in Starbucks sipping a reminder from the US, I watch the contestants walking by on the harbour promenade. They are on their way from the hotel to the convention center. The first round of the Imagine Cup competition begins soon and will run into the evening.  There is an urgency in their stride.

I see the Italian team in the coffee shop and say hello. They are nervous, and eye my badge. I ask about their universities.  They are from three cities, scattered across Italy.  I won't be seeing them today.  They are relieved.

We were told yesterday that the teams have been preparing for weeks, getting their presentations down to a rhythm, anticipating the questions we will ask.  Anticipating has a double edge.  As Pasteur reminded us, "chance favours the prepared mind".  Like the athletes in the summer games soon to start in London, there are months of conditioning and rehearsal.  A colleague challenges leaders to imagine the end of the movie, how this will play out.   Anticipating the ending, is rattled by the anticipation in the stomach for it to begin. Many of the teams take a deep breath then start.

The imagination that began the idea that got them here, is also needed for imagining what the audience will hear.  That is beyond the judges to the customers and users of their solutions and products.   Can they imagine the satisfaction, the "ah hah" of their audience.  

This is often an unnatural act for technology wizards, for whom the solution is "obvious". They know the end of the story.  But it is those who can tell the story in the words of their listeners, who will bring their audience along.  They will win the day.   

Tonight we selected 20 students from 72 amazing entries for software design, that in turn beat out almost 400,000 ideas from an equal number of applicants who registered on the site a year ago. The teams in the Sydney auditorium were aching with anticipation. Those that told the good stories of why, how and for how much, anticiapated what their audience needed to hear. Their solutions were, by and large, the best.


"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

The Ultimate Mash-up

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the tenth annual Microsoft Imagine Cup, the world's largest student competition for software. Here is an article I sent to Microsoft Europe.

The Ultimate Mash-up

The prospects for Europe's youth were never bleaker; the prospects were never brighter. You cannot pick up a local paper or magazine without reading about the staggering unemployment and growing frustration among youth in European countries.  Even the best educated have had to ratchet down their expectations to find work, and even then there a few guarantees.  We could stop the story here and allow pessimism to win the day.

But the lessons of the Imagine Cup tell another story.  Team after team with project after project defy the odds with innovation.  I have often counted off the "no's" of Imagine Cup students:

1) No business experience
2) No marketing experience
3) No money
4) No time
5) No sense of limitation

It is that last one that makes all the difference. The contestants I have listened to over the past five years as a software design  judge are not limited by statements like "that will never work here".  They just "do" with whatever means they have within their reach, and then some. And their enthusiasm for their solutions is contagious.

This results in some interesting discoveries that are what I call the "three mash-ups". The first is mashing-up common components in new ways. For example, the team from Jordan, a winner in 2011, duct-taped a WII box to a monitor, pulled the diode from a TV remote and mounted it on a baseball cap, and wrote software so that a young paraplegic woman could simulate a mouse and operate a cursor on a PC by tilting her head and pausing to click.   Watching the team's video is a moving experience (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHP67hrhEWs).  In her words, the OaSys System gave her back her life. Notice the technology pieces that were used; nothing new or extraordinary; but the connection of the parts is brilliant.  The innovation is in the mash-up of the everyday tech.

The second mash-up is in the opportunity for one team to join up with another at the Imagine Cup finals and talk about combining their projects.  At the 2009 competition, I saw an amazing application from the team from Poland that translated music to braille and back again.  The software and use of a Windows phone was extraordinary.  But the braille reader component they used was expensive. The team from China, on the other hand, had invented a braille reader from off-the-shelf components for a tenth of the cost.  At the showcase, I introduced the China team to the Poland team and asked them to do a demo for each other.  The conversation began for how they may combine efforts, mashing up their solutions, if you will, for something that could reach more people.  The key is to find each other and work together.

The third mash-up is combining the inventor-entrepreneur with humanitarian work. The Imagine Cup has encouraged students to write solutions that address the UN Millennium Development Goals.  Each team must demonstrate how their application addresses one of the MDGs.  Most teams focus on improving health or the environment. And the solutions are creative indeed, as shown by the examples above.  Going forward, there is an opportunity for Imagine Cup finalists to take their ideas to scale at humanitarian organizations like the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.  Perhaps as volunteers, or interns or employees of the future.  That is my wish, and something for which I continue to advocate.  I believe this will be the ultimate mash-up of talent and need for the greater good in the world.

What are the three most important words in this article? Find, mash-up, and together.  I can think of nothing more optimistic in my conversations with students at the Imagine cup finals in Sydney this week.




"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

IT Annual Reports

The following Blog post was originally published on the NTEN.org site.

March 5, 2012

One of our senior managers asked me soon after I started at IFRC, “Why is ISD the largest department with the largest budget in our division; what are you doing?”  This is not an unusual question; however, it was wake-up call that the value that IT was adding (and could be adding) to the organization was invisible.

I was first introduced to IT Annual Reports by the CIO Executive Council, where a number of members posted their reports as examples.  None of them grabbed me.  They were too technical, too tactical or too focused on internal customers.  Last year I discovered the annual Intel IT Performance Report.  It was clear, easy to read and answered the fundamental questions of what value are we adding, what are the issues we see for the organization, and where are we going? We set out with this as a model.

As we were setting strategic goals and objectives, we also asked ourselves: how do we know if the Information Services Department (ISD) team has moved the needle at the end of the year? What does success look like and who cares?  This is not a frivolous question.

Since the ISD team is about serving our customers (I take issue with those who say we don't[1]), we need to be clear about the audiences we serve.  We see five:

1. Beneficiaries (everything we do must be measured ultimately by its impact in improving the lives of the most vulnerable).
2. Field-workers in our National Societies who work directly with beneficiaries, delivering our programs
3. Regional offices who work directly with local National Societies
4. Headquarters staff who provide support for all of the above
5. Our senior management team and governing boards who oversee our work

Your audiences may differ, but be clear about who benefits from your programs and who works closest with them.

When Tom Murphy, former Chairman and CEO of Capital Cities / ABC, Inc., was Chairman of Save the Children's Board, I asked him what was most important to him in taking the pulse of how an international child-focused organisation was doing.  He noted four questions, which became our (more positive) Murphy's Laws:

1. Are we reaching more children?
2. Are donations growing?
3. Is the press good?
4. Are employees happy?

These became the core questions that we reinterpreted for an IT organisation.  For our year-end scorecard, we posed ten questions from the standpoints of our audiences and our strategy as leading indicators of how we are doing. Here are the ten, with some sample things we measure for each:

1.  Are more beneficiaries being reached?

We track technology used by beneficiaries (the top of the pyramid[2]), our beneficiary budget spending versus lights-on spending, and number of National Societies completing our Digital Divide capacity building program.

2.  Is our technology investment growing?

We benchmark IT spending against revenue and operating expense.[3]

3.  Are the customers happy?

We survey users annually on all aspects of our IT services and publish our customer satisfaction index for headquarters and the Field.[4]  We also track the number of thank-you notes we receive each month from our employees.

4.  Are my problems getting solved?

We look at the percent of service calls solved on the first call and related data from our satisfaction survey.

5.  Are my projects getting done?

We track timeliness and cost of our larger "flagship" projects against original forecast.  We also track the project team's "confidence" index for completing projects on target.[5]

6.  Are new technologies being delivered?

We monitor adoption rates of new products like mobile phones, and those selected by users. We also report out on new capabilities we deliver like HD video conferencing, on-line meetings, larger email-boxes and other “goodies”.

We also survey users on use of emerging tech tools or applications.

7.  Are National Societies getting stronger? (Is the Field getting stronger?)

Our Digital Divide program and number of countries assisted is our key metric. We track MOU΄s signed, projects completed, and the ratio of budget spending for beneficiaries to IT costs.

8.  IS IT getting greener?

We count servers retired and on-line meetings held instead of travel for in-person meetings.  We also calculate savings in our carbon footprint.[6]

9.  Is IT using financial resources efficiently?

We report budget versus actual and a handful of ratios that we benchmark against other international organisations annually.

10.  Are our systems reliable?

We track "good days" and "bad days" and chart these monthly[7]

Answering these ten questions tells our audience how we are performing for them. If I had to pick two, growing our reach to those in need, and happy internal customers would be at the top of my list.   What value do we add to the organization?  As the title of our inaugural Annual IT Report states, we deliver mission relevant IT.  Ask our customers in the Field and HQ if we deliver on this promise.  We did.

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[1] See Wikipedia the discussion and references on internal customers, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer ; for an interesting comparison, see http://ezinearticles.com/?Myth-of-An-Internal-Customer&id=2578986

[2] For a discussion of the IT Pyramid, see my Blog entry on “Six Views on Innovation”, section 4.

[3] We benchmark against the Gartner and the CIO4Good NGO surveys.

[4] A US colleague tracks one metric: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?"  See the Net Promoter article in Wikipedia, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter

[5] The Project Confidence Index is a periodic average of the front-line project team’s individual and subjective assessment on a 1-10 scale how likely the project will deliver on its objectives (on time, on budget, and within scope.)

[6] We use the carbon footprint calculator from Terrapass (www.terrapass.com). See their paper on Carbon Offsetting & Air Travel for a good review of the carbon savings data.   The Nature Conservancy also has a calculator worth comparing. 

[7] See Hallmark case: James R. Johnson, “Magnifying the Problem “, CIO, November 15, 1992, pp. 34-38.

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Ten Ways Small NGOs Can Collaborate

I made a presentation last week on NetHope and Collaboration to one of the 2012 MBA classes at Tuck/Dartmouth (For a copy of the slide deck, see the Presentation and Articles link on my web site at http://www.eghapp.com/). During the Q&A, someone asked "what can a small nonprofit do to benefit from collaboration?"  It's a a question I often get asked.  Here's an excerpt from my current book project, with the working title "Collaborate or Perish."  I welcome your comments.

* * * * *

I often get the comment during a leadership seminar I teach that goes something like, "Well this is all well and good for large organizations, but what about my twelve-person NGO?" What can small nonprofits do to benefit from collaboration?  Here are ten practical things you can do, starting tomorrow:

1)      Join a list-serve or social media group.  Pick one that fits your size and mission, and addresses technology.  NTEN and TechSoup list a few[1].  The MobileActive listserv is a good one for phone-based app’s.[2]  You can also join Interaction or the CIO4Good forums[3]. Search LinkedIn and Google groups[4]. Social Butterfly has an interesting list of helpful list-servs.  Try one.

Now here's the rub: for this to work for you and the community, plan to answer twice as many questions as you ask. The benefit?  First, the help you receive is proportional to what you give.  Second, it helps build a community of trust and collaboration: the "I know I will get three or more good ideas" as well as, "I had that experience!"  Can't answer what you don't know?  Share your technology experiences and frustrations. These will resonate with the audience.

2)      Partner in Learning. Training on a hoard of ICT topics is available on-line and in the classroom.  Some are free.  For example, LINGOs has a free nonprofit learning catalog.  And the IFRC, my prior organization, has a Learning Network with many free courses for volunteers.

However, many of the in-depth classes cost a bundle and take a week or more of your time.  Even the one-day seminars can be pricey.  What to do? Larger corporations have training departments and a multi-prong syllabus.  The GE Crotonville Center is the legendary example[5]. There are even corporate universities.[6] An easy “ask” for your local corporations is: can I get a donated seat in your classroom?  And while you’re at it, invite the seminar graduates to help implement what you learned.

3)      Partner with colleges and universities.  Students are among the most technology savvy people I know. I volunteer as an Imagine Cup judge each year, and I can tell you first hand that their caliber of technology resourcefulness is extraordinary[7].  These are among the most mission-driven, idealistic people on the planet. And increasingly this includes High School students down the street.  Call your local school and sign 'em up! 

4)      Share an application with an organization in your sector.  Has one of your volunteers, interns or tech-oriented employee developed a cool app?  Donate it! At NetHope we have a project underway to create a technology catalogue of useful apps.  Like old book exchange, give one, take one.  TechSoup has a variation on this called App It Up.  The idea is, the more we share applications, the more likely we will find really useful ones for our specific work.[8]

5)      Share some services with an organization in your sector and split the costs; start by sharing a person.[9] While I was on sabbatical at Tuck/Dartmouth, one of the things I heard from small NGOs in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire, is that they couldn't afford a staff position to manage their donor data and systems.    But they were open to sharing a person. We recommended creating a support consortium. Sometimes this can be informally done, especially with volunteers, but you'll likely need an MOU that covers what each participant commits to and someone to coordinate it.

The After-hours Help consortium is a case in point.  It began with five NGOs in the UK, including four NetHope members, who shared a need to provide service coverage for employees working after hours at home or travelling.  They decided to share a remote help desk service for hours outside UK business hours. The group has an informal oversight Board run by one of the member CIOs.  They contracted with Microland in Bangalore.  IFRC joined in early 2011. For us the value proposition was clear: increase our service desk to 24x7 for less than $2 per hour.  That’s affordable for even the smallest nonprofits.

6)      Sign-up for donated software from TechSoup and Idealware.[10]  TechSoup began by offering sales demo copies of WordPerfect to non-profits. They now offer hundreds of titles from nearly 50 technology-related companies in more 35 countries, primarily serving smaller NGOs.  They also support a community of practice, noted above.  The members support each other with advice and experience. No nonprofit should be going it alone and buying software and hardware retail.

7)      Partner with a corporation to get their laptops and other equipment coming off lease. Many corporations lease their PCs and laptops, often over two years with a $1 buy-out.  These are perfectly good machines for most NGOs and should last another three years. And the donating company may also be eligible for a tax write-off at fair market value.  That's a win-win. Ask for them.

8)      Rent your software on-line.  Non-profits need to get out of the business of managing infrastructure. Technology companies are much better at this, and the incremental costs for NGOs to do this themselves becomes less attractive as the use of technology grows. And it will!  The cost of renting applications is falling and many technology companies will provide these at cost for non-profits.

9)      Develop a partnered IT strategy.  Plan with other local NGOs and create an informal board of IT advisors.  Every NGO needs an IT plan, as much to avoid costs as to invest in the gains technology makes possible. This presupposes a strategic direction for where you want to go.  As the Cheshire Cat remarked, “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”[11]

Going in any direction with technology may result in a downstream cost. This may especially be true for donated hardware, software, and even consulting services.  What is free today may be a cost you can't afford tomorrow.  If you think through a plan and to total cost of ownership (TCO) you can avoid this common mistake.[12]

Take the opportunity to plan together.  This may be counter intuitive for any organization.  Why would nonprofit want to collaborate on IT Strategy?  Because many of the services IT provides are commodity functions that offer no competitive advantage for doing it on your own.  See the shared after-hours help desk, above, as a case in point.  Shared donor management databases may not make sense, but sharing other applications and tech services may be a way to afford the technologies that one small organization cannot. 

10)  Form a cooperative for experiments like I4D.  Most NGOs cannot afford to experiment. Donors want us to implement the "tried and true." This can be the kiss of death for innovation.  Joining a group is one way to mitigate the risk, much as buying shares in a mutual fund reduces the risks of betting on individual stocks.  NetHope has run Information Technology for Development (I4D) pilot programs in half a dozen areas, including mHealth, mEducation and Microfinance.[13]  Once the proof of concept is established, members can adapt the application to their organization and take the successes to scale.  The cost of failed experiments is a sunk cost in the membership fee.  That’s a lower risk way of experimenting your way toward innovation.  Can’t find an organization like this that you can afford to join?  Band together with some other nonprofits and create one.  That’s what we did at NetHope.

That’s my list of ten practical things you can get started on tomorrow, … if you are willing to collaborate and share.  The question I’ll leave you with is why not do this; what’s standing in your way?

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[1] See NTEN’s networking opportunities and Techsoup’s community forums.

[2] See http://mobileactive.org/ and join their mailing list.  With nearly 6 billion cell phones sold to-date, it is the technology of choice to connect not only with your donors, but more importantly to your beneficiaries.

[3] See Interaction’s Working Groups.  For the CIO4Good listserv, send a note to Dave Simon at Sierra Club (dave.simon AT sierraclub DOT org and convert the caps).

[4] A Google search for “nonprofit listservs” has over 830,000 results as of February 2012. 

[5] See the GE Leadership Programs for example

[6] See Mahboob Mahmood and Gurpreet Minhas, “Corporate Universities and Learning Centers: A Primer,” April, 2011 

[7] I’ve written at length about my Imagine Cup experiences in my Blog.  For example, see: http://eghapp.blogspot.com/2011/07/imagine-cup-day-one.html

[8] This is the iPhones or Android App’s store model applied to NGO applications.  See https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/  

[9] This is exactly what two US-based NGOs did to afford an IT Leader; they split his costs and share his time.

[10] See the Stock arm of Techsoup at https://www.techsoup.org/joining-techsoup/how-to-join-techsoup and the software advisory services of Idealware at http://www.idealware.org/

[11] As the Cheshire Cat said in Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865.

[12] For a good review of TCO, see the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_cost_of_ownership

[13] See NetHope’s Solution Center 

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."