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Would you pay for empty calories?

August 19, 2008

Empty calories is defined in Wikipedia as:

…calories present in high-energy foods with poor nutritional profiles, typically from processed carbohydrates or fats.

In software, empty calories represents the cost of maintaining business applications that delivers little or no value. Today, I believe the industry is feeding us a diet that inflates the vendors’ bottom line but keeps business starved of innovation. How long can this continue?

Larry Dignan believes the time is right for disruption in the marketplace. If it happens then it will send shockwaves thorughout the industry. All the way down to Sage.

Vinnie Mirchandani outlines a conversation we had with SAP yesterday. It gets us part way down the track but we need justifications based on solid metrics. Usually, the ones we hear are those where the softeare vendor crows about the renewal rate. We’re now questioning the value proposition. Hard.

I offer an alternative model that could release resources for innovation in what I see as a win-win-win. But - it will requires the industry to get a grip on reality and solve its deep rooted problems. We’re in the 21st century. The models we see come from the early 1990s. They simply don’t work anymore - at least not for customers.

As professionals advising clients about implementations, this should be top of agenda in your thinking about the value you can deliver.

Written by Dennis Howlett · Filed Under General | 3 Comments 

Excessive internal linking is narcissistic

August 19, 2008

One of the problems I see with professionals is the extent to which they navel gaze in the deluded belief they are the fount of all accounting wisdom. It simply isn’t true. There’s always someone smarter than you and they probably work somewhere else. So it was with some sadness that I read Tim O’Reilly’s Is Linking to Yourself the Future of the Web? Pointing to examples from TechCrunch and the New York Times, Tim believes that:

When this trend spreads (and I say “when”, not “if”), this will be a tax on the utility of the web that must be counterbalanced by the utility of the intervening pages. If they are really good, with lots of useful, curated data that you wouldn’t easily find elsewhere, this may be an acceptable tax. In fact, they may even be beneficial, and a real way to increase the value of the site to its readers. If they are purely designed to capture additional clicks, they will be a degradation of the web’s fundamental currency, much like the black hat search engine pages that construct link farms out of search engine results.

He is right. In some cases there is ample justification for internal linking. Among the people I follow regularly, Francine McKenna, Richard Murphy and Vinnie Mirchandani often link to other pieces they’ve written as a way of providing additional proof points for the arguments they make. That fits in with Tim’s view of ‘useful, curated data’ and allows them to continue to develop arguments over time. That’s perfectly reasonable and adds value ot what the reader sees.

I on the other hand have found that much of my inspiration to parse technology issues for professionals comes from elsewhere. A review here, an issue there, a discussion about the way tools are being used in another context. They all demand that I link to those other sources. Readers are grateful for that. I can’t count the number of times that readers have said: “Hey thanks for that link.” It has led me to realize that even though I may at times have a strong position, it has a context that is not always defined by myself. And neither should it be. It also means that one of the main functions of this blog remains that of acting as a ‘connector’ to other things of value. That’s why I add bookmarks.That’s why the content widget to the top right exists in lieu of crappy banner ads. The people who take the time to write blog posts for their audiences add value here as well. It’s part of the essential attention economy in which we all participate and without which we’d all be a lot poorer.

I probably would have kept quiet on this topics if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve been reading a lot of CIO.com material in recent times. It’s fine, it’s good stuff but they only seem to link internally even though I know there is other corroborating information that would add value to the content they produce.

If we want to be good citizens in a society that values the achievements of others rather than continue to be seen as elitists then linking out to quality content is an absolute must. Anything else is narcissistic.

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Written by Dennis Howlett · Filed Under General, Tax and Ethics | 5 Comments 

Might Diigo be your research tool?

August 19, 2008

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All professionals do research. It’s an integral part of our daily lives. Until recently, attempting to research, collate and then possibly re-use material has been pretty darned difficult. Even with things like searchable tax libraries, there’s still the problem of marshaling resources, especially in team situations, unless you are prepared to pay a significant premium. Enter Diigo.

I’ve been using Diigo for the last couple of months - initially as a replacement for the delicious bookmarking service. Bookmarks allow me to pass on more content with short comments, effectively inviting the reader to read for themselves by clicking on third party links.

Delicious is perfectly all right but even in its most recent incarnation, it hasn’t been substantially improved over the last three years. Diigo provides much the same capability but a whole lot more. Like delicious, Diigo allow me to share bookmarks with others who count me as ‘friends’ or with ‘groups’ but it also allows me to highlight stories and organize them for public or private consumption or with named people.
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My ability to not only collate but also distribute content in a flexible manner gives me a much better experience within a single application. It also more useful in a social context. I can for instance tag posts that could be distributed to another blog. This means that if I’m a small practitioner partner or manager working on say tax, M&A and business advice, I can easily organize content that could be useful for a multitude of purposes.

I’m not usually a fan of browser sidebars but ever since I discovered Diigo, I keep its sidebar open. Why? Because I have a private list of logins for all the sites to which I contribute or to which I need access in a private list that I can access with a single click. That’s a huge convenience for me.

Is Diigo perfect? Of course not. Last weekend, its scheduled maintenance lasted a good 8 hours (for me) during which time I could do nothing. But then I see regular upgrades, bug fixes and an active community piling in with suggestions. That all speaks to a service that is going places. It may not have the early mover advantage of delicious, but it is a whole lot better.

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Written by Dennis Howlett · Filed Under General, Innovation | 1 Comment 

ICAEW site revamp scores well

August 18, 2008

While I have had no direct involvement in the ICAEW site revamp I draw some satisfaction in knowing the person who came up with the design. I’m saying no more to save said person’s blushes. The redesign works really well. Clean lines, logical layout, well thought out colour coordination and solid navigation. All things that were missing from the old version.

While this may not seem a big deal, years of struggling with the old site and listening to members complain left and right tells me this is a welcome and refreshing change. Now I’d like to see integration to the ion community. As I understand it, that comes in the next few weeks (but don’t hold me to it.)

Written by Dennis Howlett · Filed Under General, Innovation | 2 Comments 

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