User training.....

I spent most of last week getting user requirements for a project I'm doing for an international firm. This firm has excellent video conferencing facilities and as they have offices around the world I spend a lot of time using those facilities to get input from people around the globe. Although I used video conference tools before and in general prefer the face to face situation, I must say I was impressed with the facilities they had and the possibilities it offered.

This made me think of a very bizarre user training I once gave over ten years ago.....

Back then I worked for another major international company where I helped develop an online CRM package for a business unit within the company. Part of the implementation was to deliver a user training. Now this business unit had lot's of small branches around the globe with only a few users at each of the locations so flying around the globe to give the training wasn't an option. Flying the users out to the Netherlands wasn't an option either so the choice was made to do a training by phone conference....

This was the time when internet was far from what it is today and things like a multi-channel video conference or even screen sharing just wasn't an option yet. In fact at that time I had only just gotten rid of my 56kb phone modem.
So a phone conference it was. I had sent out the link with the application URL and login details earlier and had asked each of the users to log in ahead and report any login problems so that we wouldn't have to spend time during the meeting to solve login errors.

At 16:00 CET we started:

<BEEP><BEEP>......<BEEP> ..... Hello?...Hello?... somebody there? This is Hong Kong...<squeek>…..
Me: Hello Hong Kong this is Femke, can you hear me?
Hong Kong: ................ Hello?... Hello?.... Mmm, I think we're first. No one there yet I guess, did we get the time right? (shortly followed by a whole discussion in Chinese)…….
Me: Hong Kong, we're here, can you hear me???
Hong Kong:..........<squeek>........(more Chinese)……
London: Mmm, I think they don't have their speakers set up correctly, wouldn't be the first time either. This is John from London by the way, hello Femke!
Me: Hello John, welcome and good of you to join!
....<BEEP> .....
Hello it's Tim and Brian joining from New York here!
Me: Hello Tim and Brian, welcome! we're still awaiting South Africa and Sao Paulo and then we’ll start the lesson.
.....(more undefinable squeeking and Chinese. Somewhat agitated now).....
...<CLICK>....
London: I think we just lost Hong Kong there......
Me: Probably, let’s hope they call back
....<BEEP> <BEEP>..... (Sao Paulo & Cape Town join the phone conference)
Me: Ok, we're still missing Hong Kong but I'll start anyway.
So welcome all, I hope you all have your pc/laptop in front of you and have logged into the application as requested.
New York (Tim): Ehhh... was that required, ok hold on and let me get my laptop!
Me: Well yes, didn't you see my earlier message on this? Please hurry!
....(lots of scuffle in the background while Tim gets his laptop)....
Me: Ok, now I'll start with a short introduction, can you all open the home page and click the "Contacts" link in the top?
...(sound of clicks in the background while each of the participants opens the requested page)…
London: Mmm... I'm getting an error here, is that normal?
Me: No, in general not. What error do you get?
London: Ehhh... sorry clicked it away, and now my browser hangs. Hang on, let me restart Windows....
Me: No! That would take too long, simply close the browser and reopen it.
London: Ehhh... sorry, too late, I'd already pressed the reset button on the pc. But don't worry, it normally doesn't take long to start.....
Me: Ok, well then start it up asap please while I continue.
...<BEEP>...... Hello?,..... Hello?!? (Chinese swearing)....
..... <CLICK>.......
London: That was Hong Kong again I guess......
Me: Yes, I think so… Ok, let’s go on with the session
So, you should all see the 'Contacts' overview now listing all the contacts that are in the......(Windows Startup song blasts through the speaker while John's pc starts up in London)........
London: Sorry! I'll mute my mic!
Me: Ok, please do while I continue
…..(chuckling on the line).......
New York: Tim here! I’m ready and I’ve got my laptop, where did I need to go?
Me: Ok Tim good. Please open the Contacts overview by clicking the Contacts link in the top
So……where was I…. Ok, the Contacts overview. Now this overview lists all of the contacts in the application you can… <BEEP>……
….. Hello? This is Hong Kong, can you hear me??......
Me: Hello Hong Kong, yes we can, can you hear us?
Hong Kong: Yes, I can! We couldn’t reach you guys but it all seems to work now!
Me: Good, we already started. Could you please open the Contacts overview by clicking the button in the top?
Hong Kong: Ehhh….Which button?
Me: You should see a link in the top of the application page linking to the Contacts overview
Hong Kong: How do I open the application??
Me: Didn’t you get my email? I send the link before?
Hong Kong: Sorry, never saw an email. Let me check…
Me: I can’t wait for that, I’ll sent it to you again, please try to login asap while I continue
….
By this time I’m asking myself how we’re ever going to get through this
…..
Me: John, has your pc restarted yet? Do you get the error again?
London: ……………………………………………………………….
Me: John, if you can hear me then please un-mute your mic, we can’t hear you.
….<squeek>…….
London:  Sorry for that, yes I’m back, no error this time, got the Contacts overview
Me: Good. Ok so the Contacts…… (I continue talking a bit about the Contacts overview)
New York (Brian): ……Damn Tim, stop that!.......
New York (Tim): Shut up, I want to see what’s behind that button!
New York (Brian): She’s still talking about the Contacts, let’s just follow what she says!!
New York (Tim): Get your own pc then!
Me: Ehhh….. sorry, New York is everything ok there?
......(By this point Tim & Brian get into a heated argument followed by a door being slammed)…..
New York (Tim): Sorry for that, Brian just walked out
Me: Ehh…. Is he coming back or should I continue?
New York (Tim): He’s an *&%hole, just continue
Me: Ok, I still feel he should be hearing this but we’ll continue
….<BEEP>….. Hi, this is Brian, I moved next door, sitting behind my own desk here. Sorry for that, Tim just couldn’t wait and listen and was already clicking all kinds of buttons even if you hadn’t told us to do so
New York (Tim): You’re an *&%hole, Brian, you know!
New York (Brian): Likewise!
….(again an  argument between Tim & Brian erupts, this time over the phone conference as they are now sitting in separate offices)……
Hong Kong: (raising his voice to get over the still ongoing argument) : …..Ehh… sorry but I just received your mail, I can’t seem to log in. It says my password is incorrect…..
Me: (while Brian & Tim continue their argument) could it be you have your caps lock on?
Hong Kong: (trying without the caps lock)…… Ah yes, thank you it works
Me: Tim, Brian, please I need to continue, could you please stop this and continue another time?
New York: …...…(Still in a bitter fight between each other, don’t even react to my plea)……
At that moment the Business Unit CEO that was sitting next to me finally intervenes and tells Tim & Brian unceremoniously to shut up…..
…….
 .....<SILENCE>.....
.......
Me: Ok, after all that lets continue….. Where was I
Hong Kong: The Contacts overview. Where was the link to that again?!?
Me: In the top, to the left side
Hong Kong: …..Can’t find it…….
…..hold on, the other left side….. ok, got it!
Me: So, again, contacts....

This went on for two hours straight. It was one of the most memorable training sessions I ever gave. I still don’t know how I managed to actually complete that training but I did..... somehow.....

Get in touch!

You would think that getting in touch with people has become a whole lot easier since we've all become so 'social'. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Connections, IM, chats, etc. You could even say that in some cases it's hard NOT to. But still I find that really getting 'in touch'  sometimes is a challenge. Take a recent situation I encountered.

I wanted to ask a distant social business contact something that required some delicacy and a personal touch. I didn't know the person 'in person' (there's an ocean between us) but I 'knew' her on Twitter, Facebook, through Connections, Sametime and even through a persistent Skype chat group. More then enough venues I guess to contact her. But this was harder than I thought.

First I considered the Connections link I had to her. The question was related to that anyway so this seemed logical. The problem though was that she hadn't listed her contact details and I wasn't about to put my question on her public message stream.
Next was twitter but that is mostly public and even when I had used a DM I couldn't really get my question into a 140 character text anyway. So that one was out of the question too.
Facebook wasn't ideal either. On reviewing her Facebook stream I figured she used it strictly for non- business related stuff and as it was a business related question I didn't want to use that route (DM or Chat) for a business related question. Even social business has its etiquette.....

So I looked on. She didn't have a blog (I knew about or could find) and on LinkedIn I found several people matching here name, most without pictures, so no luck there either.
My last chance seemed to be the Sametime and Skype chat. Not ideal but it would at least allow me to ask her for her mail address.  The problem was though that she wasn't online much and by the time she was, I wasn't (that darn ocean again!).

This was frustrating! Here I am, connected to this person on at least 3 social networks and 2 IM systems and still I had trouble getting in touch with her! Having this persons email address would have saved me a lot of trouble. In stead I had all these social links but no decent way of getting in touch.

So in the end I solved it the old fashioned way. I called her company switchboard and asked for her.

Ironic isn't it? That even with all these digital channels and links to her I finally had to resort to the old fashioned phone call to really get in touch...

Early Adopter

I got a baby card in the mail this weekend from a good friend that just had his first son. Nothing special there, it listed the obvious details as name, date of birth, weight and length as well as the normal visiting hours for baby & mum.

What was surprising though was the design of the card (as if it was the personal Facebook page of the newborn) and the addition of the baby's Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and personal website addresses. This is what I would call a early adopter! This kid isn't just launched into the world, it's launched into cyberspace (with a little help and moderation of his parents of course).

Now this got me thinking about my own baby card. My parents intended it to depict a silhouette picture of a baby walking, supported by one leg. The printer however got it wrong, printing the picture upside down. It didn't look as if the baby was supported, it looked as if the baby was unceremoniously hanging by one leg. Not the idyllic image my parents had in mind and it meant my parents had to do some explaining there, not in the least to me when I saw it in my birth photo book a couple of years later.

I wonder what the explanation will be to this kid in about ten to twelve years when he sees his baby card and starts asking: "Dad what is Facebook?!?"

 

My babycard.... 35yrs ago, no Facebook in sight then!

Holiday - Letting Go

So for the first time in years I managed to take a holiday. Not just a few days or week or two around christmas but a regular couple of weeks in July. I can't remember when I did that last.

Now it's not as if I couldn't take a normal holiday. Heck, my boss even told me during my evaluations more than once that he was worried I didn't take enough 'down time' for myself. So this year, after quite a hectic period I decided it was time.

The problem is that if I don't plan something to do during my holiday I tend to end up behind my laptop again. So to prevent myself from taking time off, only to use it on work again, I followed the advice of a colleague, and on a spur of a moment, decided to go to Spain to walk part of the Santiago de Compostella route or Way of St James. A pilgrims route that people have been walking since the middle ages. Not that I'm Catholic but as I needed to really wind down and de-stress, I figured it would be a great lesson in 'letting go'. And it was.

First step in learning to let go was that I didn't plan. I just bought a ticket to Bilbao and a a small guide book, packed a backpack with some essentials and got on the plane. Now normally 'essentials'  would incorporate my Blackberry, my laptop and my iPad. But as I was going to hike up to 25km a day carrying everything in my backpack and wanted 'to let go' I left the iPad and laptop behind. Ok, best would have been to leave the BB as well but that just was one step to far for this trip.

And so I started. 

The Santiago de Compostella route or Camino (as it is usually named) isn't just one route. You can start on routes all over Europe. Most (not all) confer at the Spanish border and continues as the Route de Frances running from St Jean Pied de Port (French side of the Pyrenees) to Santiago (North-East of Spain). About 800km of hiking. Untrained as I was I was not going to manage to walk all of that in just two weeks (the validity of my ticket). So I decided to start in Burgos and see where I'd end up before having to return to Bilbao for my flight.

Now this route is walked by hundreds of thousands of people a year and traditionally these people need to sleep somewhere so everywhere along the route there are so called 'Albergues'. Cheap hostels where the 'pellegrinos' (pilgrims) can rest for the night. They open around noon, offer a bed (in a mixed dormitory with up to 80 other people in bunk beds crammed together), a shower (usually cold), and sometimes a kitchen where you can cook some dinner. Check-out time is usually between 05:00 and 08:30 the next day, costs is between €4-€8 a night and you learn to sleep with people snoring around you. Dinner is either what you cook yourself or a simple pilgrims menu in the local bar. Very basic, very primitive but in fact everything you need.

Now I know for most people getting up before dawn, walking between 20-25km a day in the blazing heat of Spain in July, sleeping in dormitories, sharing bathing facilities, eating microwaved macaroni and having to hand wash your socks daily as you only carry two pair anyway isn't exactly the ideal holiday but for me it was. Right from the start all stress just evaporated. All I needed to do was put one foot in front of the other to get to that next town, that next bed and meeting lots of people along the way. Because that's another fact of the Camino, you're never alone for long and the beauty of a shared experience is that it creates in instant bond. You all suffer muscle aches and blisters, you share food and water and you talk.

I had conversations on everything from global politics, the American gun policy, gay marriage, religion and the best type of ice creams (that last conversation was during a really hot and barren stretch of Spanish Meseta). One moment you're talking to a guy from South Africa or a girl from the US, the next you're practicing your German on a couple from Austria.

I loved it. For me it felt like a warm bath. Even the sleeping in dormitories had a strangely relaxing effect on me. It forced me to live by the day and be relaxed and open to people and the situations you get into. Something I wish I could practice in my work more often.

It felt really strange when after 9 days and approximately 200km of walking I had to stop my Camino and return back because of public transport facilities.
I still had a few days before my return flight and spent those as a regular 'tourist', but not being on the Camino really felt strange. The drive of getting up early to start walking in the silence of the morning dawn, the heartfelt 'Buen Camino!' wishes from locals and fellow pellegrinos and the camaraderie that you shared....
This was definitely a holiday to remember, and who knows, maybe in the future I'll make time to do more of this. But I'm not going to fall back in my old pattern and start planning it all.

'Letting go'  was the adagio, so who knows what happens next year, all that matters is that this experience was great!!

 For more pictures of the trip check out my Picasaweb album

Social media frenzy and Obama's death

So the last few weeks we've been seeing somewhat of a Social Media frenzy among Social Media users. With Google+ going live (nicely hyping it by limiting access calling it a 'beta'), Facebook reacting with its new Video chat functionality and Twitter.... Well Twitter kept silent. The only news on that front: the hacking of a Fox News account starting to proclaim Obama's death.

Still that last titbit of information intrigues me... Not because a Verified twitter account was hacked or that twitter is staying remarkebly silent about Google+ but because the 'Obama news' generally didn't cause much of a stir at all. In fact, reading the different reactions I'd say people mostly just shrugged it off.

There used to be a time that when a renowned or at least well known media source or paper would publish something everybody would simply believe it. If the morning paper or the tv-presenter said so most people wouldn't doubt that. They had limited resources to verify and generally just trusted the journalists to have done their homework.
Ok, yes I know this was more then a decade ago but still you'd be surprised how many people still believe in the integrity of journalism and regard a well known news agency, network or newspaper name as an instant proof of validity.

So when the FOX account started spewing out messages about Obama's death I kind of expected a certain part of the internet population to start blindly retweeting this, like they retweet all kind of nonsense.... It didn't happen (or at least not as blindly as I would expect it)! In fact the tweets I saw about it all identified the fact the account was hacked.
I think that's great, it proves we're starting to mature into the new age of unlimited access of information. Instead of blindly believing and following what others say or write we try to verify. We take a more sceptical approach to news and news suppliers and check up on more sources before believing it. And... we're more aware about the dangers of hacking.

I know most of you won't see this as anything special but I really think it is. Not so long ago I tutored a group of senior citizens on using a computer. This was a challenge to say the least. For their age these people were advanced as they actually were interested in learning this new phenomonon. In all truth though some of them struggled to even grasp the simplest concept of mail or internet information. Teaching them to be vigilant with what they could and what they shouldn't believe (phising, hoaxes, spam, unvalidated information) really was a hell of a job. They were used to libraries with books that had been edited, scrutenized and categorized into nice definitive catogories like 'science' and 'fiction'. So all that unvalidated info confused them.
Similarily intriguing I think is the group of youngsters, that although generally pretty well aware of the lack of validation on certain internet information still choses to believe blindly sometimes. Is it stupidity or lazyness, I'm not sure but I do find it fascinating how easliy they sometimes just take the internet info as fact.

So the lack of response to the Obama news shows we're getting there. We are learning how to digest the info that is out there in cyberspace and when a supposedly verified Social Media account starts announcing the US president's death we are critical and don't get into a frenzy.

Now if we could only do the same when a major internet company announces the hottest new Social Media network....
;-)

Google+..... Searching for the plus....

After waiting impatiently for days to get into Google+ I got in. Excited to check out all the new features I started exploring. That took me about 10 minutes. "Is that it?".... Yep that was it. Than real life caught up with me along with a major workflow project going life and a bunch of support request that buried me up to my armpits. It just lost that 'WOW!' factor, that made me jump through hoops to get in, really rapidly.

The one thing I had really high expectations of was the idea of the circles but at the same time it makes me so conscious about what I'm posting to which circle that I find myself hardly posting at all.

The same seems to be going on on the other side and the posts that I do see from my most active Social media connections seem to be mostly on Google+ itself. Another effect is that from certain people I now get only their 'business' content. Ok yes, I'm not calling them friends, most not even acquaintances but by reading not just their business content but also their quirky, personal, sometimes funny, sometimes sad messages they become alive to me. Keeping me interested and keeping me reading. Someone that posts just a lot of technical stuff I tend to loose interest in real quickly. Call me a sucker but I just love the 'social' in social media.

So am I won for Google+ ? Not exactly yet. Am I going to use it? Definitely! Probably a bit more after it gets picked up by Social Media tools like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Yoono. Because for now I don't see myself being weaned of Twitter and/or Facebook any time soon and updating all those networks separately is just too much of a hassle.

Anyway, if you want to add me to your Google+ circles then please do (Profile) and let me know what your opinion is. I'd love to hear! Who knows. Maybe we can 'Hangout'. Haven't had a chance to test that feature out yet anyway :-)

Still no access to Google+.... Getting frustrated!

Grrr.... Everybody seems to be tweeting and blogging about Google+ and I'm still waiting for my invite to arrive (yes I finally got someone to send me one, it just hasn't arrived yet!). So I'm left waiting for Google+ to open up or the invite to arrive. And in the mean time all I can do is watch the demo..... Yeah nice.

Does give me the time to do some senseless scrutinizing of the site though... Which of course I did (love senseless scrutinizing!).

So on the demo site you can switch languages, not something I would normally do, prefer English over botched up Dutch anytime, but in this case I tried (for lack of better things to try). And the first thing I notice is that the "You" in the left upper corner is translated into "U" (formal form of 'you' in Dutch). But in the screen print on the screen itself it's called "Jij" (informal form of 'you' in Dutch).

So, what does this tell us?!?

1. Google isn't sure how to address their users in Dutch (formal or informal)

2. I desperately need to get into Google+ before I start writing even more of these idiotic blogs!

Social networking in RL

I got this link from a tweet someone sent and checked it out. Nice presentation clearly when linked to the whole Google+ hype at the moment. What I found most intriguing though was the creators little bio. It said "I find out what things people need and care about, and help other people design and build those things. Work @ Facebook. Ex-Google".

Ok! Now I expected a link with Google, wasn't expecting the link to Facebook though. So as I stated in my earlier blog I guess it won't take long for these new and exciting options in Google+ (that for me still remain to be seen due to lack of invitation!) to make their way into Facebook.
Still, this presentation really is worth checking out. Even if its over a year old!

The Real Life Social Network v2

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True colors

This has been a very strange week in many aspects. On the one hand there was this Lotus community call with the very provocative title "Is the Lotus Brand Going Away?" and on the other hand I had a very important personal engagement that absorbed about all of my spare time and therefore limiting my possibilities of following what was going on in the community.

Now I listened to the Community call as did about 200 others and more importantly I followed the chat because that was where the real discussion seemed to be going on. The reason for that was that with that title IBM stirred up a very fundamental topic about the future of Lotus as a brand that has been going on for a while in the community.  But the presentation that was given didn't even mention the word "Lotus". This brought on a storm of comments in the chat followed by blog posts and twitter remarks all week long. The 'yellow' community seemed on fire and it wasn't positive. Now I'll admit, I was disappointed by this community call as well but still the negativity in some of the remarks really surprised me. Ed Brill's explanatory blog yesterday hopefully calms things down a bit.

To be honest, I do not know what to make of it all. I mean IBM changing product and brand names isn't a new thing. I can still remember one of the first meetings we had with the Domino Document Manager Redbook team in which we actually discussed which, of the many names the product had during its life cycle, we would use in the Redbook.
And let's face it, the Lotus brand name is definitely loosing out with customers. After years of Lotus bashing by competitors and radio silence on the marketing side from IBM there's just too much negative spin around it. Even if the products themselves are great. And that makes it an easy target. It's becoming more and more about the name and less about the products. So maybe re-branding the Lotus products to benefit from the much stronger IBM brand is the best way to go.

Now of course there is the underlying question of what the future is of Notes and Domino. That's actually where the real pain is in all this. The fact that the Lotus name is so deeply ingrained in these products and the fear that with loosing the brand we will also loose these products is what really caused this stir in the first place. 
In his blog post Ed Brill took this question head on: "Some ask whether Notes/Domino have a place to fit in that story. The answer is yes". I choose believe him. These are great products and even if they wouldn't be under the Lotus brand name they definitely have a future. We just need to get out of the defensive position they've had in the last few years and concentrate on developing the radical and exciting new features that will take them into the next age. Re-branding them therefore could actually be a good thing, if done right.

Will that hurt? Definitely, especially within this lovely yellow community that has taken so much pride in promoting the Lotus brand for so long. And re-branding to Big Blue alone wouldn't be enough so I'm curious to see what is going to happen.

Change is always scary and it isn't always to the best but in this case I think it could the beginning of a new and exciting future and more importantly, I think it's needed. So bring it on, I'm sure we can handle it..!

Could I offer you; another social network?

I'll admit it, I'm really curious to see what the Google+ project is all about! No, I don't have an invitation and judging on this post I probably will have to wait a while before I get one. But when I do I will certainly give it a try!

Even though its not even fully accessible yet, opinions are already given on its merits and potential. And even though I've only seen the slick presentations and haven't had a chance to explore it myself. My first reaction is leaning towards the ones that don't really see a future for this new social platform here......

 The reason being that this market has already more or less been conquered by Facebook.
Why would a user move over to Google+ when almost everything they can do there is available (or will most likely be available shortly) on Facebook, twitter or LinkedIn? You don't want to start all over again after you spent months/years building your social network, do you?!?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Facebook and Twitter will remain dominant in this market forever but I do think that any replacement will have to offer a lot more then some shiny new features to wean their target audience of them.

So what would it take me to be convinced to really switch over to let say Google+?
Apart from new functionalities (Hangouts, Huddles and Circles definitely look interesting!) I guess the main feature that could win me over would be a possibility of using the functionality without loosing my already existing social network. So instead of having to convince all my friends of Google+ benefits to get them to move over I would like a system that allows me to invite my existing Twitter/Facebook contacts to the new functionalities like Hangouts, Huddles and Circles allowing them to log in with their existing Twitter/Facebook credentials.

Mmm... nice for the user but how would this benefit Google+? Well, simply allow users with a foreign (eg Twitter or Facebook) account to use the functionality when invited, but build in a catch like not allowing them to initiate new Huddles, Hangouts, etc. This limits them in their usage and at the same time shows them the benefits of moving over. Then as deal closer offer them an easy registration process that copies in all the relevant data, pictures and information from their Twitter/Facebook account. Effectively eliminating their need to manually recreate their social profile. That, I think would make it a really strong contender. As said before, I haven't seen the darn thing yet, so who knows, maybe some of this is already in it. 

But even if all this was possible there's one more reason why I think Google+ could struggle:..... Its commercial.

I mean there is no illusion what Google's main purpose in life is: To sell adds. So joining a network exposing all of my personal interests and contact information to a company who's using that info to sell me goods.....I don't know......
Then again, Facebook isn't that idealogic student startup either anymore and is there really anything Google doesn't know about us already?!?

Future will tell how this will all pan out. It'll either be another Google Wave or maybe the new Facebook. Whatever it's going to be, it'll certainly be a thing to keep an eye out for!