Category Archives: Miscellaneous

I Still Can’t Find My Marbles … But I’m Sure I Know Who Hid Them!

Twitter Bird A few years ago:

Follow Me! Follow Me!
Who are you?
I’m the Twitter Bird!
What’s a Twitter Bird?
It doesn’t matter. Follow me! Follow me!
Whatever. Have a nice day.

A couple of years ago:

Follow Me! Follow Me!
Back again little bird?
Follow Me! Follow Me!
You’re persistent, aren’t you. But I’m not much of a ornithologist.
Who cares? Follow Me! Follow me! Everyone else is!
I find it hard to believe everyone is following a little thrush. You’re cute, but not worth much more than a passing glance.
Follow me! Follow me! Join millions of people around the world.
Millions of people? I think you flew into a patio glass door a little too hard.
Celebrities. Scientists. CEOs. They all follow me. Twitter.com Follow me! Follow me!
Okay, I’ll check you out.

…

Let’s see. A centralized website for sending 140-character blurbs to hundreds, and even thousands, of friends and “followers”. Mass SMS, or, for those of us who are UNIX, a web-based write command that has been around in UNIX operating systems in one form or another since at least 1969! Potentially useful for getting quick messages out, but so is e-mail and SMS. Possibly useful for consumer goods companies wanting to send quick product announcements or, more likely, quick “special of the day” announcements to consumers (if they will actually follow the company) and for gossip-mongers. (I can’t wait for Perez Hilton to tell me what Lady Gaga is thinking right this second! I need to know now!) But for the rest of us? Those of us in the enterprise market? Those of us who don’t give a damn about celebrity rantings? Those of us who actually want to have a real conversation? Doubtful.

Sorry little bird. You’re not my style.
You will follow me! Everyone will follow me! I’m the Twitter Bird! And even the fail whale can’t stop me!
Maybe you should see a veterinarian. Obviously you never quite recovered from that encounter with the patio door. Goodbye

A few months ago:

Follow me! Follow me!
Back again little Twitter bird? You certainly are persistent.
Time to Follow me! Time to Follow me! Four score and twenty million users sending more tweets per day than there are people in the U.S.A can’t be wrong!
That’s a lot of followers. Not Facebook level, but a lot of followers.
So follow me! Follow me! Popularity awaits!
I’m about knowledge. Knowledge isn’t about popularity. It’s about truth. And those who seek shall find.
They’ll find it faster if you follow me! Follow me!
Knowledge isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. And journeys take time, like the acquisition of knowledge.
Follow me! Follow me! I’ll lead you down the yellow brick road!
I’m not looking for courage, a heart, or a brain, as I already possess all three, and I don’t believe in a magical wizard who will solve all my problems. I think I’ll keep going down the road I’m on. I’m joined by thousands of readers making well over a hundred thousand visits per month in their mutual quest for knowledge.
But it’s not millions! Follow me! Follow me!
I’m writing about Supply Management. You could count every practitioner on the planet and you wouldn’t reach a million. And if only 1.5% of people on the planet are on your network, that’s not many more readers for me.
They will follow me! You’ll see. Follow me! Follow me!
You never did see that veterinarian, did you?
Follow me! Follow me!
I’ve tried to be patient and polite with you, little bird, but enough is enough. I swear that as long as I have my marbles, I’ll never follow you!
See you in a few months! Then you’ll follow me! Follow me too!

About a week and a half ago.

My marbles! Where are my marbles! I’ve lost my marbles! I don’t know what to do! How can I make sense of this crazy world without my marbles?

This is an automated e-mail message from the Facebook borg. Resistance is futile. You will join us. You cannot resist.

I … cannot … resist. Friend me.

Look at all the pretty pin boards you can make! Web works of art. It will change the way you bookmark.

I have no idea what a pinboard is or how to make one. But the borg say I can’t resist. So why not? Pin with me.

I’m back! Now you will follow me! Follow me!
I know I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t. But without my marbles to connect my logic centre to my action centre, I can’t stop myself. I … must … follow … you! Follow me!.

And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to:
Card Me,
Circle Me, and
Link With Me*.

Damn you! Damn you to hell Twitter Bird!
I know you hid my marbles. I don’t know how you got them, but I know it was you! Someday I’ll get you for this! Someday!

*Assuming I know who you are. Otherwise, Friend Me first. I believe in keeping my LinkedIn Network limited to those people I have actually interacted with at some point.

Some Takeaways from the E2Open sponsored SCM World Collaborative Execution Study

SCM World recently released a study on “Collaborative Execution” (defined as two or more parties working together to improve supply chain performance by continuously solving real problems with better information), focussed on Speed, Innovation and Profitability, overseen by Kevin O’Marah, and sponsored by E2Open that had some rather interesting, and in a few cases, surprising results. First off:

For suppliers, collaboration is primarily a means by which their customers share demand information, with 73% strongly agreeing this is a key aspect of collaboration.

For buyers, an overwhelming 83% believe collaboration revolves around the supplier sharing availability information (e.g. capacity, lead times, etc.).

In other words, both sides agree that collaboration centres on information sharing and, furthermore, the study also found that,
both sides need visibility and want a dedicated problem solver.

This means that the primary barrier to collaboration between most supply chain partners is the fact that companies struggle to share information effectively, with 54% seeing lack of data visibility across trading partners as a perennial problem. Furthermore, the next biggest barrier was speed of issue resolution, with almost 50% agreeing that this was a barrier to effective collaboration. (In addition, 92% agree that quick problem resolution is part of good collaboration.)

But the most surprising result of the survey was that trust, governance, and benefit sharing were not the biggest barriers to collaboration, as commonly suggested, but the ability to connect trading partner information flow, insure quality of information, and synchronize that information for quick problem solving. (For example, almost one half of respondents felt granularity of data was a problem, speaking to the quality issue, and almost one half of respondents saw timeliness of information as a problem.) This says that, for the most part, it is not lack of desire, trust, or willingness to collaborate that is the problem, but a lack of technology to enable collaboration. (And this is a shame, considering that such technology has existed in more than adequate form for at least five years now for even the largest of multi-nationals with the most complex supply networks. It may take some effort to get used to some of the technology, which is only now maturing on the usability front in some cases, but how much of a barrier is it really to spend a few days learning a technology that is going to cut your issue resolution time in half and decrease your risk substantially?)

Given that:

  • collaborative relationships were more cost effective,
    55% of respondents agree
  • good collaboration minimizes risk, and
    75% of respondents agree
  • learning is faster in a collaborative environment
    70% of respondents conclude that the rate of leaning increases by at least one-and-a-half times

Acquiring the technology that your organization needs to take collaboration with your trading partners to the next level should be a no-brainer. (Especially since the last finding means that any operational metric targeted such as inventory days, total landed cost, cash to cash cycle time can be expected to improve one and a half times as quickly as would be the case without collaborative execution. Thus, any appropriate technology acquisition is going to give you a very quick ROI.)

The only other point of interest was the not-so-surprising result that management by exception it seems is still not part of a “truly collaborative” trading partner relationship for a substantial number of companies. This would indicate that collaboration, even among market leaders, is still not very mature. In a mature relationship, each party trusts the other to do what they do best and only gets involved when a deviation is detected or an idea is devised to improve the process or product. But still, it’s nice to know that both buyers and sellers do not see trust as a barrier to collaborating for mutual gain.

I’ve Lost My Marbles!

Last time I saw them, three days ago, I was playing a rousing game of Ringo (not to be confused with Rango, who is one heck of a lizard may I add) with my developer colleagues (who are very easily amused, and even more easily distracted by giant rubber bands — but that’s a story for another day). I know this because I distinctly remember sticking seven marbles in a row and trouncing my competition in the final game. But that’s not important. What’s important is that they’re gone! Gone! GONE!

Like your average genius, I’m a few cards short of a full deck, and they were probably the only things keeping my eccentricities and insanity in check. (All geniuses are insane. We don’t all reach the depths that von Neumann or Tesla reached, but other than my marbles, and the tires on my car, I think all things should be square. Because it’s Hip to Be Square.) I’m already losing it. Since that time, I’ve joined every social network known to me. I’m fully aware that Tweets are NOT conversations, that Twitter will likely make me stoopid, and that, with the Facebook double-whammy (where one can spend his days poking, prodding, and writing grafitti on infinite walls), I’ll have no time to be social. I know I should remain faceless, spaceless, and twitter free but there’s a big disconnect between logic and action. I know it would be more productive to try and resolve P vs. NP, capture a Higgs Boson, or to try to answer why Hulk Hogan is still in show business … but all I can say is Game On!.

I’m now linked-in, plaxo’d (which I guess, these days, is for the old and plastered), Google-plussed (but given that, as a degreed mathematician, I actually know what a googol is, I’m not sure how that is physically possible), slide-shared (even though playgrounds don’t exist outside of schoolyards anymore), pinned (but not pinned down, thanks to wireless and the power of the Macbook pro), living in twitter-space (and hoping I don’t get flattened by the fail whale — although it might be cool to get eaten by it if it’s anything like Möbius Dick), and facebook’d (even though I haven’t been arrested — what’s up with that)? And now I’m zanier than the Sourcing Maniacs after a month in the boardroom! (And fondly remembering the days of the APE Circus.)

All I can say is that I hope I find my marbles soon! I don’t think I’ll last as long as Tootles if I don’t. (But if it takes them that long to be returned to me, I hope they are returned covered in pixel dust. I’m gonna need it to fly through the ever expanding social media space.) In the interim, feel free to link to, contact, circle, share, pin, follow, and friend me as appropriate — and be sure to join the Sourcing Innovation groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

And join me in a rousing verse of the zany socialites! (Sung to the tune of the maniac’s theme song.)

It’s time for social-maniacs
And we’re zany to the max
So just sit back and relax
You’ll tweet ’til you collapse
We’re social-maniacs!

Come join us on the Facebook
And the Twitter Channel too
Just for fun we poke around … and see who’s keeping tabs
You’ll find us in the Starbucks on our laptops and our pads
Reading mail and timeline trails
And tweeting off the rails

‘Cuz we’re social-maniacs
Who take pride in Twitter-yak
We’ll pack away the bits
While the servers store our twits
We’re social-maniacs!

Now someone raise me a picture of Wil Wheaton collating paper!

Has the Best been Bought from Best Buy?

StorefrontBacktalk recently ran a couple of pieces on Best Buy that followed up their recent pieces on “Best Buy’s Black Friday Fiasco” and “Best Buy’s Wifi Porn”, which was expanded upon by SI in its recent posts on how if you wanted a best buy experience, you weren’t going to get it at Best Buy (Part I and Part II). In its first piece on “Best Buy’s Last Hope”, the author says that Best Buy has one shot — an expensive, painful, highly disruptive shot — to truly turn itself around. It must embrace customer service in-sore to an extent that would make Nordstrom, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods blush. That means store associates who are true experts in the electronics they are selling.

Frankly, I don’t think this is going to happen. The mentality would have to change from “who will work for us for minimum wage and pretend they know enough about this product to actually sell it” to “where can we find someone who knows what they are talking about, is passionate about the products they sell, and will actually work for us as a sales rep” and “what is it going to take to get that kind of people”. Right now, the type of service I’m used to is “this isn’t my department, you’ll have to find someone that is working in this department” to queries as simple as “can you tell me if you still have any of this product in stock” (which any associate can do simply by logging into one of their terminals and doing a query) or, my favourite, in response to “I’d like that” (pointing to something in a cage). Get the key, open the damn cage, give it to me and/or walk it to the cashier. An untrained monkey could do it! (And monkeys are smarter than you think. Pete the Monkey taught himself to do dishes.)

Plus, as the author notes, they would probably have to fire most of their staff and replace them with Apple-store caliber employees. And any employee of that caliber is probably going to go work for Apple or, if they prefer Windows, Sony where knowledgeable associates are preferred.

After all, as the author notes, they currently think they can win a price war with Amazon. A company with massively deep pockets, minimal physical overhead (compared to a retail store chain), and a willingness to go eight years without turning a profit just to conquer a market. Winning a price war against Amazon in the electronics space is not going to happen. Amazon can, and will, win on margin every time if that’s what it takes to be the next major electronics retailer and put Best Buy and its competitors out of business. (And it won’t be hard when it’s customer service reps often give better service over the phone than Best Buy associates in store!)

The other piece that got my attention was that “Best Buy Planned Outages Due to Its Move to the Cloud”. If you believe the hype (and the doctor does not), the whole point of moving to the cloud is so that you don’t have outages. But the most ironic aspect to this story is that Best Buy is cutting Amazon a check for its cloud efforts. They might as well just sell to Amazon.com now and become Amazon’s mobile presence. One little glitch and a propagated purge command and — voila! — no more Best Buy online. (Not that it would make a huge difference anyway. What good is a web store that a growing portion of your market can only order one item from at a time anyway? [See Best Buy Experience? Not at Best Buy! Part II.] the doctor is now ordering more electronics from the local office supply depot because their web site actually works! And if you send them an e-mail, customer support actually responds! On the other hand, it seems that Best Buy’s method of dealing with problems is just to ignore them. It’s not a problem if you don’t recognize it, right?)

The nostalgic part of me would like to say that Best Buy still has a Bright Future, but, in the doctor‘s view, the only chance of Best Buy lighting up the sky is if the same thing happens to it as happened to the Buy More in the season three finale of Chuck. The way things are going, it’s going to be closing 50 stores on a regular basis. And I don’t think China’s going to save it. If Best Buy truly takes off in China, there’ll likely be so many indistinguishable clones in three months that it will just be hastening its demise.