Stranded on an Information Island

Any company, from the largest multinational down to the smallest one-man band has lots of different sorts of information that it collects. These are often grouped around different business functions, such as sales, project planning, finance and so on. All these different sorts of information are qualitatively different, and although they may share certain characteristics (an invoice and a proposal will both have a client name, for example), they are in no way linked. The system for accessing each one might (or might not) be very efficient and streamlined in itself, but combining them can be a nightmare.
Information islands appear as a growing business adopts tactical solutions to fix individual problems. These separate clusters of information mean that trying to get an overview of a particular client, for instance, can feel like paddling against a current from island to island.

Imagine…

Your carpentry business specialises in custom-built fitted furniture for the home. A year ago, you did a project for Mr Jones. He was very pleased with your service and referred you to a lot of his friends and contacts. Now, he's started working from home and wants his office fitted out, and calls your company. You've recently hired a new assistant (let's call him Jimmy), who's never heard of Mr Jones. Jimmy takes the call. What does Jimmy say?

A. “Mr Jones, OK, have we done any work for you before? Ah, OK, I see. An office in a similar style you say? So what was it we did in your bedroom? Right, I'll need to talk to the boss about that, can I call you back this afternoon?”

or

B. “Mr Jones, let me just find you in our system... Yes, so we built a full length set of units in beech wasn't it? That's right I'm new, I've only been here a couple of months. Looks great from the photos, how are you finding it? That's great news. By the way thanks for the referrals, looks like we've done work for half your street! So, your office. I see we have some measurements here for your other rooms that the guys took because you said you might want a few things doing in future, is it the one on the ground floor that's about three metres square? Great, let me take some more details about what you want... OK, well obviously I'll need to get the boss to give you a call to finalise things and cost the job up, are you free this afternoon? I'll put a to-do in his diary then. Just looking at the schedule as well – we've got an opening in a couple of weeks time that we might be able to fit you into, shall I pencil you in, subject to agreement of course? Great, thanks, is there anything else I can help you with?”

Scenario A is a classic example of a business having information islands that it can't pull together to present a slick experience to the client, and to aid Jimmy, who through lack of information is unable to be of any real assistance. I think you'll agree that it probably won't leave Mr Jones feeling very special or particularly enthusiastic about your business. When you call him back that afternoon you'll probably make the sale, but he'll go away and tell people: “Those guys who did my bedroom, they do a great job but they're a bit disorganised and that new lad they've got in the office is useless”.

Scenario B shows a business that is information conscious. Jimmy has never heard of Mr Jones, but a quick check of the records tells him that this is a valuable customer and to treat him accordingly. Jimmy's able to utilise some information that you thought to collect last time you were there, to get a really good description of what Mr Jones wants. Because of this, you're now able to call the customer with a rough price in your head – and the call will be a lot quicker and more pleasant. The fact that Jimmy's able to pencil in the work helps close the sale and is also great for the customer, who will now tell his friends: “I called those guys who did my bedroom to have a look at my home office – they're growing, they've got a really bright lad in the office there now and they're a really slick operation.”
Which way would you rather be described? Which way would your staff rather be described?

To make things worse, in a Scenario A business many of the islands are only populated by certain individuals within the business who, sometimes through no fault of their own and sometimes out of a misplaced belief that it will protect their position, are the only ones capable or adept at making sense of their own information. I've even seen this happen in very small teams. For example, let's imagine a field service company with an office administrator called Emma. When Emma was hired there was a problem tracking time billed against actual time, so she built a spreadsheet that she's extended and extended as more needs came up and now she's the only one who really knows how it operates. That's obviously a massive risk to the business if anything happens to Emma, she leaves or goes on holiday. But it’s also a massive strain on the whole team who have to ask Emma (who's already got more to do than she has time for) whenever they need to know something about time billed. Multiply up from individuals to whole teams and departments in larger organisations and you can see the problems this can cause.

Information islands are one of the key operational problems that can prevent businesses growing. Clearly, one of our goals in becoming an information-conscious business is to build bridges between the islands, and ultimately get rid of the sea in between altogether. But to do that, we first need to understand what islands we have. Read the next article to find out how.

Progressive Web Apps - what they are and why you should care

Once upon a time there were computer programs (note the spelling is American, not ‘programme’), aka application software, that we used to install on our computers.

Then, two things happened in the 2000s. First, the web became more than just a bunch of dumb (and badly formatted) text pages with a few images in it. We started to see the emergence of “web-based software” - applications that ran on a server ‘somewhere’ and only needed a web browser to operate, no annoying and unreliable installation necessary. We know, we were there, building web applications way before anyone started talking about ‘The Cloud’.

Then, Apple released the iPhone. Now, there had been mobile devices before then (things like PalmPilots and XDAs) which you could install ‘programs’ on. But it was cumbersome, you had to plug the device into your PC and transfer it from there. But Apple made the whole process much easier, creating the App Store (‘app’ was already the Mac name for an application program), and the Android Marketplace (now Google Play) soon followed.

Meanwhile web apps had moved on from being simple forms and lists to have much more engaging and interactive user interfaces, with a lot of the ‘prettification’ happening within the browser rather than on the server.

Progressive web apps, or PWAs, are the convergence of these two paradigms. It is something being led and pushed by Google, which its approach of having an open, cross-platform ecosystem. Apple, who have much more of a ‘walled garden’ approach, are dragging their heels a little and there are still some features that their mobile devices don’t support, but they are catching up.

The concept is simple. Why should app developers have to build one version for the web, one for iOS, one for Android and potentially ones for Windows and MacOS as well? Microsoft OneNote is a great example of an app with versions for 5 different platforms. Since all devices have extremely powerful and capable web browsers, why not make sure all the features available to native apps are available to web apps. Then you only need to build once.

Installing a PWA is just a matter of opening a web link. On Android, the device will automatically spot that it fulfills the PWA requirements (mainly that it works offline and operates over a secure connection) and prompt the user to add it to the home screen, where it will work exactly like a native app. iOS requires the app to prompt the user to do this, but the effect is the same.

This represents a great opportunity both for businesses like us and our clients. Development costs are lower, as are maintenance costs and release cycles as we don’t need to go through the app stores. Clients can push their app out to whoever might need it just by sending a link.

We have developed a framework which takes advantage of the PWA concept to be able to build these cross-platform apps quickly and cost-effectively. It is possible to release these via the app stores, but in many cases, why would you bother?

Becoming Information Conscious - 1 Introduction

In the past 10-15 years, the way we do business has been revolutionised by easy access to information, enabling us to work and collaborate much more flexibly. As long as I can get internet access, I have access to everything I need to run my business. What amazing freedom! Remember the days when you had to go to the office to get work done, to raise an invoice, to look at the proposal your colleague's just drafted?

Computing has become commoditised, and the line between a computer and a mobile device has become blurred. More than that, we expect to be able to access everything we need instantly and on any device. It's always been the case that we and our businesses exist within a sea of information, from our dealings with customers, suppliers and associates, to knowledge about others in our industry and even competitors. Technology now allows us to manage our data and interactions, connect with our customers and give our staff the freedom to excel in ways previous generations could only dream of. This is about people and relationships. Improving information flow improves communication, and so makes our businesses better and more useful.

But we need to be information conscious, aware of the information we use and how it is flowing. 

An information-conscious business will:
have highly motivated staff who can use their skills fully and work in a way that suits them
have happier customers who get excellent service as you deliver what they expect
scale your business because better information leads to better processes
understand what is going on in your business because you have the tools to tell you.

This is the sea of information that your business exists in:



The inner field is your business. The middle one contains people and organisations that your business interacts with directly, and the outer one represents the wider community who may or may not be aware of your business.

In this series of posts we’ll look at how information about your organisation flows through all of these areas, and how you can make those flows work to your advantage. A series of exercises helps you methodically analyse your business, and you’ll find some case studies that illustrate the pros and cons.  By analysing what information your business contains, you’ll go from a general feeling that you need better systems to specific plans for what kinds of systems will solve what problems and how to go about putting them in place.

This series of articles will cover these key points:
It's natural for a business to develop information islands as it grows and finds solutions to day-to-day problems.
Information islands hinder your productivity and your ability to service your customers.
Information-conscious businesses are aware of where their islands are and work to remove and connect them.

Look out for the second post in the series next week.

Why have an app?

Lots of people think they should have an app because it’s the latest thing and everyone’s doing it. But like anything in business, you should only do it if there’s a solid reason. We can think of six possible reasons you might really want or need one.

1. You have field staff who need to log their jobs

If you’re some sort of service company, like a cleaning business, a floor fitting firm or you have remote engineers, a key thing in your business is that you have staff going out to customer sites, and you need to schedule and log jobs.

Often companies like this struggle, because they have shared calendars that don’t work properly, they use group chats and text messages, and even paper job sheets.

Putting an app in place not only allows you to schedule work better, but it also allows people to see quickly what they have to do, and get sign-off and close those jobs down. That might include a customer signature, photos and a checklist.

The great thing about this is that the data is uploaded in real time, you can see it instantly in the office and it can be reported on and give you management information so you can see what’s actually happening in your business.

2. You want to speed up your sales and quotation process

We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve had a salesman in our kitchen quoting for double glazing, heating or something. They’ve filled out a paper form in triplicate, used their calculator and got something wrong and had to check something with the office. Meanwhile you, the customer, has to sit and stare out of the window and wonder if you’re going to make the school run or that important conference call.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just open up a tablet, fill in a form really quickly, it would do all the calculations on the fly, and the quote is processed and can even be signed off right there and then on the device.

Then it’s already in the back office systems, ready to go and it just makes you as a business look so much slicker and the whole process is quicker.

If on the other hand you sit at your desk making quotes in Excel, and you have to copy and paste and it’s all a bit inaccurate and time-consuming because you have to remember which formula goes where, then we can put web apps in place that will help with that as well.

3. Coaches and consultants with a system

If you’d like to sell the system to clients and make it easier for them to implement it, an app can really help.

Most systems of this type have some sort of goal setting and tracking, some sort of to do list and also some kind of reflection. An app is in your clients’ hand and can remind them to do it and is easy to use when they have a few spare moments.

Not only is it a tool that you can sell to your clients (or include with their package) to allow you to help them better and for them to help themselves, but it’s also a ‘product for prospects’ which you can sell as a subscription service to people who are interested in what you do but aren’t yet ready to pay the full price.

Then, you’ll be top of their minds and they’ll be using your branded stuff every day so it’s a great way of raising brand awareness while also bringing in some revenue.

4. Niche manufacturers who want to have digital manuals and how-to guides
Paper manuals can be pretty horrible things - we all hate the manuals that come with our devices and often don’t read them and they languish in the bottom of a drawer.

If you’re making specialist equipment, clearly it’s important that your customers use it properly, and yet the kind of practical, hands on people who these are likely to be are probably not ones to sit down and read a paper manual.

You’re much more likely to get their engagement in an app on a phone, with pictures and video content that you can upload easily. Not only that but you can use the app to show latest updates, hints and tips.

5. You have small, repeat orders from the same customers

If your orders tend to be one-offs, then you’re probably better with a good shopping cart on your website, but if you sell a lot of small stuff that is basically repeat business to repeat customers, an app is going to speed up the process for everyone involved.

For example, if you run a cafe who does catering for local business, for meeting lunches or breakfasts, and you have an app where they can quickly order their sandwiches, vegan wraps, bacon rolls and croissants, that’s going to make it so easy for them to order and for you to fulfill those orders.

Another example would be a trades supplies business. If you supply consumables like glue, nails etc to tradesmen, again if they can re-order quickly from an app then the whole process will be easier and they are more likely to use you again and again, rather than popping in to whichever B&Q happens to be closest to their job.

6. You want a contact form that does a bit more

A lot of the time when people come to us, it turns out that all they really need is a contact form on their website with a good process behind it.

But, you can make a contact form that does a whole lot more because as well as collecting details it can install itself as an app on the customer’s desktop browser or phone. Then it can send notifications and reminders, tell you where a customer is and in general get them much more engaged with your business.

In summary

There are lots of reasons you might need an app, and these are just the ones we could come up with. If you think any of these scenarios apply to you, or they jog other ideas, please get in touch!

www.nuvola.co.uk

To Facebook or not to Facebook

I came across an article this morning on The Register arguing that it's time we 'divorced' Facebook as it's 'abusive'. So should we?

The core of the argument is that the cost of connecting easily with friends (and not-so-friends) is the amount Facebook knows about us, and this is too great. Facebook's experiments in emotional manipulation have been fairly well publicised. And we've heard plenty about the echo chamber effect, and the nefarious manipulation of social media for political ends. But, so far as we know, Facebook has to date been mostly interested in selling ads and has yet to do anything bad. The free-market, libertarian ideals of Silicon Valley, whether you agree with them or not, probably mean this is likely to continue in the medium term at least.

But how much do we trust an organisation that knows so much about us? What's interesting is that most people don't seem too bothered about how much information the likes of Facebook, Google and others hold on them, and this is even more true of the digital native generations. But it seems to me that the more people know about this stuff, the more they do seem to worry. I consider myself a techie, but not an extreme techie. I use StartPage as my search engine because it gives good results but doesn't track me, and even though I use Google for a lot of stuff (including this blog), I use Firefox as my main browser rather than Chrome because I figure Google already knows enough. I turn off Google location history on my phone. But a friend of mine who is a data analyst and really knows what companies can do with the data they gather doesn't put his real birthday on Facebook, doesn't have an email address with his real name in it and as far as I know is even more careful about his online privacy.

So, Facebook. Should we keep feeding the beast and hoping it doesn't bite us? It's hard not to, and there's no doubt about the social benefits. I am far more in touch with my cousin in New Zealand than I would be if it weren't for Facebook, and there are so many people from past bits of my life that I would certainly have completely lost touch with without it. I don't have their Messenger on my phone and don't really feel the need for it, although of course WhatsApp (which I do use) is now owned by Facebook.

I've always thought we (humanity) needs a social network run along the same lines as Wikipedia, not for profit and not ad driven. Others have tried to do this (e.g. Ello), but it will take a lot to gain the traction of a massive commercial operation. The author of the Register article says we should divorce Facebook. But we don't yet believe that we're in an abusive relationship.

Retro phones...

So the mobile phone industry has officially run out of ideas. While my 11-year old might like to tell me that the Samsung she inherited from her mum is better than my LG, the reality is that one smartphone is pretty much like another. Yes each generation has a slightly better screen, camera and processor. But they all take photos, play music, do messaging, access the internet and even make phone calls.

Yawn.

But now the company that bought the Nokia brand has relaunched the old 3310, and the whole consumer electronics world is massively excited about a phone that is, well, a phone. And that's about it.

Is it because of 40-somethings nostalgic about when smartphones didn't rule our lives? Or the novelty value for 20 years olds of a phone that can't connect to the internet?

Or is it that there is a real market for a simple device with a battery that lasts a month? Personally, I think if they added 4G connectivity and a wifi access point (but no actual internet enabled apps), they'd really be onto something. After all, internet and voice anywhere with a battery that would last (for example) a full two week camping holiday would have real value for me.

So, will be interested to see what's the next novelty retro gadget to come out. In the mean time I'll be scouring eBay for an old Nokia I can give to my kids when they use up all their credit and I need to just CALL them...

The trouble with Android...

So let me first start by saying that in terms of mobile phones, I was a convert from a (fairly early) iPhone to the world of Android. Why? Because I could set up my Android phone how I wanted, not how Apple thought I should. I could add widgets for weather, news and music to the home screen which you couldn't do on an iPhone then. And I could get my music and photos on and off it without using the monstrosity that is iTunes.

In short, Android appealed (and still does) to my sense of wanting to actually own and be in control of the device and what was on it. The iPhone felt like a prettified version of my 1999 Palm Pilot.

But here's the thing that concerns me now about Android: security. iPhones are now heavily encrypted by default (as the FBI famously found out in 2016). Most Android phones aren't, although you can turn it on if you like (newer ones will often be encrypted however).

There's also the question of apps stealing data. As I had to explain to my daughter, the keyboard in Android is just an app, and most of us use the one the phone came with. But she had installed a free one called 'Emoji Keyboard' or something like that. I had to point out to her that she had no way of telling whether the keyboard was sending everything she typed (including texts to her friends and passwords) to a central server, linking it to her Google ID.

So I'm beginning to wonder if the walled-garden, controlled world of Apple is actually better than the Wild West of Android.