She is a digital native. Digital immigrants use different language: “I have established a login with that Facebook.com web site everyone is talking about.” Or, “I have set up an on-line account with the Facebook application that all the kids are using to stay in touch.”  Sounds like they are going to the bank, opening a new savings account. Digital immigrants. They are on the outside, looking in at the latest circus freak.

Digital immigrants have too much context. They remember life before “the hot new thing.” They do not show comfort and familiarity with the new toys. They use comfortable metaphors from their world: bulletin boards, desktops, trash cans, accounts, passwords (”Welcome to the secret club, Bob!”), folders, documents, etc. They attempt to manifest the real in the virtual. They have TOO much context. They can always remember “the before.” They remember too much of the “old country.” They are immigrants. It’s what they do best.

Digital natives are not that much smarter than all the rest of us. In fact, they have less knowledge. They have less context. They don’t know anything about “the old country.” To them, there is only one way to do things: the new way. “Get a Facebook.” It’s that simple. Keep that perspective in context. And you Digital Natives: Your “day of context” is coming. One day, your kids will laugh at your archaic ways from 2009. “Dad used to type and ‘text’ all the time. Can you believe that?” That is so lame… they didn’t even have LifeStreamingME back then! LOL!

Oh…on that “LOL” part… I doubt that will be used much in 2025, but I’m just a poor immigrant. I don’t know any better yet.

Now, do I care? Not really! This is not a banking system playing with my account balance. It is not a medical records systems saying, “You’ve got cancer!… Wait… No…it’s a hang nail.” It’s not an on-line order entry system about to accidentally ship 1000 Barbie dolls to my house. Roy Schulte and I used to joke about that kind of process debacle, in those exact terms. No.. It’s not important. It’s just me, posting, “LOL! That was funny!” This system is not life-or-death.

This is the difference between Enterprise Class computing and Global Class computing. My buddy Daryl Plummer loves to talk about this. If you have not read his research on same, you really should. Bottom line: In the enterprise, we know you and we know you have expectations for quality of service. We also control you. Outside the enterprise…. we’ll, we don’t really know you and we certainly don’t control you. We also know that you will tolerate crappy performance in exchange for something important to you: access, information, collaboration, social interaction, etc.  Now, we don’t want to deliver crappy performance… but… well… stuff happens, eh? You Global Class participants will forgive us… you always do…

Global Class vs. Enterprise Class – A major design issue in 2009 and likely in 2020. Go figure.

Until then:

@DavidWMcCoy

Yep. It’s true. I Tweeted from 9/12 to 9/17 and found it to be of little value to me on a personal level. I cannot imagine that I want people reading 140 character rants about my trip to Athens Ga or my lunch with Dexter Weaver.  A 400 word humor column, yes. 140 character burps? No.

I found Twitter to be a good tool to get the word out on a new humor column (see http://bit.ly/New_Drum) but looking at my followers, I think most of you were looking for something a bit more BPMish. Even so, I just didn’t feel the love to Tweet.

So, I Tweet no more. I love Facebook to death. That is an app that is changing my life (sadly?). Twitter is not changing my life. 

TO ME: Facebook is the bazaar, the agora, the rock venue.

TO ME: Twitter is the refrigerator white board, the scribbled note on the cork board, the post-it note from Narcissus.

TO YOU: Twitter might be the best tool since the ginzu knife. That’s what makes a market. These are – of course – my personal opinions and have not a blinking thing to do with Gartner research position. I just wanted to explain why I am going dark on Twitter.  Old dog, new tricks… you get it.

To all who followed me, thanks. Now, delete me. The account is dead.

cheers!

Imagine mashing up Facebook, LinkedIn, and Second Life into an application that lets you recreate neighborhoods from your past.

Go back to 1978. Recreate your small town neighborhood in Second Life. For each of your neighbors, you link the avatar representing their house to Facebook, or LinkedIn. You virtually walk down the street and recreate the neighborhood you had at any time in the past. Walk up to the door, ring the bell and you get taken to their blog, picture, Facebook page, etc. Get the old gang together and go play baseball at the elementary school. Ride your bikes, play tag, or play bridge. Just have fun. It’s all virtual

You can walk next door and say hello to the Jones. You can zoom over to your friend’s house and talk to his nutty neighbor. Wouldn’t this be cool? And since we are doing this on a time-based model, you could create amazing views of neighborhoods in years past. I want to go to 1967 Lake Harbin Road. I want to see Miami the day I was born. I want to find my friends, at any time and any place. Some of my friends are no longer alive. Their houses would be empty.

I may talk to my friend Chris Klaus about this one. He runs Kaneva. Maybe he has already seen something like this.

Closing note: You would be forbidden from creating a representation of your current neighborhood. That neighborhood already exists. Get off your butts and get out and meet those neighbors face to face while you still can.

Stay tuned and I will confirm the opening and link to the particulars.

If you know European BPM gurus – the very best – I would like to hear from you.  You can send me a heads-up using the following:

——————————————————————————————–

TO: david.mccoy at sign gartner.com (you know how to insert “@” and so do the bots, but we pretend)

SUBJECT: Research Director for BPM (European position)

——————————————————————————————–

Caveats:  The position is based in Europe and there is no relo package.  This is not intended to be a direct solicitation, just a heads-up to a network of really smart people who have really good connections.  This entire notice is subject to change.

There. 

This framework with its related set of research notes is not a step-by-step cookbook.  What we offer is a set of best practices on governance, selecting and prioritizing cost optimization opportunities, hot spots to examine for cost savings, how IT should “clean its own house first,” and numerous other points that help you frame your intervention. 

The lead piece in a spotlight is known as the Article Top View (ATV).  That’s what Barb and I wrote to tie all the other research together into a cohesive unit.  The ATV is called Method to the Madness:  Applying a Methodological Approach to Cost Optimization and can be found here.  Note, you will not automatically see the document unless you are logged-in as a Gartner client.  Our research on this topic does require a fee or subscription.  It’s my humor that comes without cost… unless you count the psychic toll that results from reading too much.

If you have costs to cut, don’t.  Optimize them instead.  There is a huge difference between cost cutting and cost optimization.  You need to know the difference and then apply a methodological framework to your activities.  To that end, I suggest you start out with our research.

cheers!

I will talk more about this, but here is a link to the program.  Also, I believe this will be webcast a bit later.

http://www.computing-margins.org/

Feeling altruistic?  Good.  And by the way.  This conference spawned from work going on in a hot bed of computer scientists.  Remember them?  They once did compiler design, fractals and artificial intelligence.  They still do, but their mandate has taken on a much wider meaning over the past years.  Just like most everything else, they have seen a shift from theoretical to applied research.  Just keep the proper balance, as they do.

Disclaimer: I am on the board of advisors for this particular college of computing.  My pride is not without vested interest.

It’s been getting warm in Atlanta, but it was especially cold last night.  In the middle of a shivering night, I grabbed the nearest comforter and went from cold to burning hot in about 10 minutes.  This particular comforter is filled with some miracle fiber and unless the temperature is down near 10 degrees Kelvin, it just makes everything too hot.  Can you image that: A comforter that works too well?  Every time I use this comforter – even in the dead of winter – I get so hot I have nightmares.  Every time.

It’s about this time that you should be asking, “Ok… how’s he going to tie this to BPM?  I mean, last week he tied a grave crypt and processes.  What more heinous analogy awaits?”  Well, here it is…

The comforter is like a lot of enterprise processes when they are applied to the web.  The processes were designed for a captive audience of employees who you have some degree of control over – your “enterprise” participants.  But when you take those same processes and open them to web participants such as your customers and suppliers, it’s like taking a comforter designed for frigid Arctic nights and using it when the temperature hits 65.  It’s just a bad fit.

Gartner makes a pointed distinction between Enterprise class applications and what we call Global class.  What works for the enterprise often does not work for the general masses of the Internet – the so-called “Global class.”  Daryl Plummer has been researching these nuances for years.  If you haven’t read his research, it’s high time to start.  Just as my comforter has a specific use case (use only in frigid weather), when it is used in a less-exacting, more general-purpose application (a mildly chilly night), the use-case falls apart and the comforter becomes a source of nightmares.  Enterprise applications masquerading as Global class applications will likewise give you nightmares.  If you don’t yet know the distinction between these two design centers, Daryl has a rather good presentation that lists about 20 key differences.

So, there’s another analogy. There are more to come.  I can’t help myself.

It’s a picture…

You click it…

That’s all.

But, once you click it? That’s when the fun starts.