Technology for Breakfast

SharePoint Governance – A CSPUG Meeting with Joel Oleson

Michael Cattanach — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:13:00 +0000

Today I attended a session for the CSPUG (Chicago SharePoint User Group) hosted in the AON Center with Guest Speaker Joel Oleson.

Topic: SharePoint Governance

Key Takeaways: 10 Things, and these are paraphrased from Joel’s presentation. For all the details, slides and his notes, visit his blog here

Steps to Success in SharePoint

1. Confront Reality

How does SharePoint fit into our business?
Internal IT Road map
- How is SharePoint the answer, or not
  - If not why?
  - If it is the answer, we need a mission or directive as to why

2. Create a Governance Plan

Define a Service, SharePoint is a “service” based offering
- Service: Defined as, something you offer your users
Define a team
- You will need a core group to tackle management of SharePoint and its policies
Create ability to scale
- Don’t lock yourself small. Think big. It has to have the ability to breathe over time.
Need a plan
- Without a plan, failure is eminent
- Use your team to create a governance plan and policies and stand behind them.
Can help avoid SCOPE CREEP

3. Get an executive sponsor

Budget, your sponsor will be your biggest advocate and often dictates this number.
Success, they stand behind you and some times in front to help pave the way.
High-level advocate and voice for you, can garner additional “C” level support

4. Create the “Dream Team”

Stakeholder (Business Team, Executive Sponsor, etc)
Project Management Team
IT/Systems Group
Business Rep’s from Firm, your test case group, etc

5. Build Services, not “Stuff”

You are an ISP
- You are hosting “something” Intranet or Internet
Don’t let the business run YOU, YOU need to run the business by delivering your services
- Also, you must be able to scale your services

6. Clear Policies & Standards

7. Invest in Scalable Information Architecture

Figure out limits
Find pitfalls with large scale
Example
- i.Site v. Site Collection
- Understand all objects and make proper decision process for scale

8. Don’t forget about Change/Risk management!

Take Hot fixes seriously
In single box environment. Use images to do all testing before applying to production!!!
In a multi-box or large scale farm, you BETTER have a replicated development environment.

9. Adoption is what COUNTS

10.Keep it Simple Stupid!! KISS

There are my takeaways and comments! BE sure to visit Joel’s blog for the full deck and if you have questions, hit me up on twitter @IntranetBuilder

Cheers

Wired Next Fest Press Day 2008

Michael Cattanach — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:08:00 +0000

Another year at the Future!

This years Wired Next Fest event took place in the Windy City, Chicago, IL.

I scored “Press Pass” access this year and was in attendance Friday morning for the kick-off and opening chat with Chris Anderson, Editor and Chief of Wired Magazine.

I am sure you can read a slew of reviews on the event all over the web, but here are my thoughts.

Breakfast: Great Spread, good time to mingle with Chicago locals from Chicago Magazine, The Trib and numerous bloggers.

Opening Chat with Chris Anderson: WOW. In 50 minutes I was excited and formulating new ways to not only be free but understand free and harness its power. His talk was invigorating as well as technologically infused for the business minded, green and tech at heart.

So let me explain. Chris discussed his upcoming book “Free” and the power of what free is. You will have to pick up Wired to learn more, but I can boil his four points down

Energy is getting closer to free
Processing power of computers is near free
Storage capacity is becoming practically free
TBD

The while argument hinges on the fact that services that are core; energy, computers, etc are becoming so ubiquitous that they are near free in cost and function so, why not price them as free and make profit elsewhere.

Example for energy:

If energy can get so cheap that you cant measure it, you could:

Purify all the salt-water you need in order to grow crops.

Then, if you had the nearly free water to grow cops, your crops would be near free, example, corn, so know that your corn is nearly free, you could

Produce ethanol at a highly discounted cost making it also closer to free which would alleviate the oil crisis and move towards being more green.

OK. So Chris leaves some some big holes in this example, but the point still stands. As processing power, storage, energy and other aspects of society: music, business applications, etc move closer to free, price them as free and make up for profit on the services.

Services example:

Today, the music industry is already experiencing this. People do NOT and try not to pay for music. Even if they do, i.e iTunes they are buying only what they like, not albums, so. Today artists are using their services to earn direct revenue and sustaining their following fans on nearly free resources, i.e. their music.

What would a service be in the music industry?

Charity Events
Concerts
Endorsements
Any MTV “Reality TV” crap
Children’s birthday parties (or adults for that matter)

The services in any case are the bread and butter. They are limited to a persons day and life. However, the music is on demand and has no degree of scarcity, therefore no one will pay a premium for it.

Walk Around: The event, seemingly small in grandeur, packed a big punch fr the brain. The exhibits were mainly conceptual based on that though that each booth had a way of revolutionizing the world through its business model. Yes, as expected, some things were gimmicky, but overall i felt smarter for having attended as well as a sense of comfort that people are developing some really cool things out there that will be not only practical but affordable.

To see a quick snap of my pictures at the event, click here: LINK

Battle of the ultimate "Search"

Michael Cattanach — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:33:00 +0000

Dear Microsoft,

You know you have lost the battle when you agree to PAY people to use your search!

See this article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6168028-7.html

Granted, this is occurring at a corporate level and not the general public, i.e. you, right now, reading my blog.

Whats wring with this model? Why is it not OK to pay people?

In looking at the search companies out there: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, only ONE of these three is such a contender that it has millions of people doing the hard work for free.

Google has people tied in and what their recipe?

Simple
Accurate
Easy to use
Effective

Simple test. Go to www.google.com and go to www.live.com

What are some key differences?

The only thing on Googles site is a logo and search box, you can probably visualize it right now in your head! What is on live.com? Too much “stuff”, ancillary data that does not HELP your search in any way. Typical large corporation, right?

So if American companies cant get it right and no one else can, right?

Wrong! Baidu, the Google type search firm of the east has it down too and it share price reflects it! www.baidu.com

So, take a look around Microsoft and ask yourself, “why”, why can others do it and be so successful?

People want a simple, fast accurate image. WHITE SCREEN. Follow the lead, stop trying to integrate everything you have into a mish-mosh of a screen and deliver a simple to use search. People will follow.

Lets make the battle about results and not about Image. Until Microsoft can fix its image, results of their searches are irrelevant.

End: Microsoft, tailor it back to simple. Google, keep up what your doing, keep improving the algorithm and Microsoft may never catch you.

We will see.

Technology focus, stop producing crap

Michael Cattanach — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:48:00 +0000

Today you can get a gadget for any imaginable object. Gadgets to turn the lights on or off by remote, gadgets to tell you the temperature outside and inside, gadgets to start your car remotely, gadgets to rake your cats litter box automatically.

But, at the end of the day, do we need more gadgets, or more devices of quality?

I can think of one prime example, cell phones. Currently there are hundreds of models to choose from, and in Asia, hundreds more! But, answer me this, Do you still drop calls? Does your voice still sound like crap on the other end?

How can such a lucrative industry go for so long and keep producing NEW devices without upholding a better network, better protocols and more effective and clear communications channels!

Or, lets pick on another industry, Energy. For ages we have relied on Coal, Oil and other fossil fuels to power our electrical sockets, run our cars and light our homes.

How is it that none of these devices harness the energy they produce? Suggestion: A car, constant propulsion when under load. meaning, once you hit the accelerator and are rolling down the road, your vehicle has motion. This motion, meaning all four-wheels, the wind, and sun, are at no point harnessed and reused.

Imagine if we could and would harness the rolling motion of the wheels and store it. you could plug your car in at home to power your kitchen for the night, or you could turn off the gas and reserve it, running on stored energy, that, in turn could produce more energy once moving!

So again I ask, do we need more gadgets? Or, should we take the time to pick some critical components and make them better? (Sounds like the BASF commercial, we don’t make the things you buy, we make the things you buy BETTER).

I offer up a few necessities for enhancement:
- Cell Phones and the cellular network
- The automotive industry and propelled vehicles in general
- laptops, they are plenty fast for everyday use, make them light and
economical (OLPC, you still suck for NORMAL people)
- Traffic lights. Can we finally develop smarter lights? Why should one
car sit at a red light when there are NO cars anywhere within a mile?

There are some of my thoughts. list to be amended in the future.

What do you think?

Cheers.

Fill in the gap

Michael Cattanach — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:25:00 +0000

As I sit here in the airport, ready to travel again, I wonder:

Everyone has a mobile device. Many of which are smart-phone “type” devices

What do we need in a phone? What key feature(s) are missing that could enable life to be easier and more efficient?

Things I think are missing and/or important:
1) Auto-Dial and login to conference calling services via a meeting request
2) Life integration for Notes, email, text via calendar
– Note: I would like to be able to pull up a calendar day on my device and see calls
made/received, text messages sent/received, notes written and a link to todays email.

So, what do you think todays mobiles need???

Code Three: Lock Down

Michael Cattanach — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:57:00 +0000

Security is an often expected technological attribute, yet lightly talked about. For the average consumer, we accept the general password protection of our computers OS, for others, they may take the next step and purchase some 3rd party security software. Still, other methods have been provided in the past, but todays methods are as numerous as stars in the sky. A few off the top of my head are; fingerprint, retina, palm, face recognition, SmartCard, RFID, USB tokens, the list goes on. Unfortunately, any method of security alone is not fool proof.

Lets look at this in 2 forms; traditional Home users and Business users.

For many home based users, security may be as simple as the password security provided by the OS, whether that me Mac or PC, which is fine. It will protect your general operating system and files from access limiting family and friends from touching files and accessing general properties based on role configurations. It should be noted for general home users that protecting the physical machine is only one aspect of security, if you are connected to the web, there is a whole new layer of security concerns we can tackle in another snip it.

For business users, general OS password authentication is generally NOT enough. Most (if not all) users carry, at some level, mission critical data, whether that be client files, business data, mission statements, financial spreadsheets, government documents, etc. Fortunately, there are multiple levels of security that we can implement rather easily and protect the aforementioned data and ensure, in the case of theft, that data will not be taken easily, if at all.

Tactical Methods for business:

- Fingerprint readers: A standard feature on some laptops, can act as a good and “flashy” method or protection, but should be used in conjunction with other methods including a physical password.

- USB key’s: Can act as a great method for physical system protection as they require the user to not only know the password for the machine, but for the password to even be entered will require a USB key that is assigned to the machine to be entered.

The advice is generally the same for other methods that are biometric and physical, it is generally a best practice to use them in conjunction with an actual password.

The feature I am really excited about today is Vista bit Locker. Assuming you have made the jump from XP to Vista, you can pick up a this great, Enterprise level security feature.

Key features of Bit Locker:

- Data and OS are on separate partitions

- Enterprise wide standardized security model

- Can have the Enterprise store your key, in case of emergency, can restore access
- Protects data and OS from hacking
- Can disable system if Master boot record (MBR) or BIOS is tampered with

Overall this is a great tool to implement if you have purchased Vista Ultimate or Enterprise. If you are a corporation deploying Vista machines, I strongly urge you to deploy with Bit Locker to protect your virtual assets!

For more detailed information, check out: http://blogs.technet.com/bitlocker/

Also check; http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/3/7/3084

Amazon Kindle

Michael Cattanach — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:50:00 +0000

How appropriate. Jeff Bezos finally releases the kindle into the public! So. Isn’t it fitting I was just writing about the Sony PRS-505 now the Kindle is available! What does it all mean? Where does this fit in the market?

The product itself is no doubt revolutionary. EV-DO, online bookstore, no software, SD expansion (not revolutionary but necessary) e-ink, etc. This device will no doubt steal some users from other ereaders, it will also steal some potential buyers from the iLiad reader by iRex as the price point is in between.

Winning Features:
- EV-DO for free
- Keyboard? Wikipedia access sounds enticing, but the layout and size of the device are unbecoming

Drawbacks:
- Overall styling
- Blogs will cost $.99
- DRM on all purchased music

So, with Bezos and Amazon pushing the market in an Apple fashion, what do we require in future devices to really make them splash?

Next generation?
- Wi-Fi or EV-DO
- Sexy styling (take a note from Sony!)
- NO DRM
- Book Sharing (Look to the Microsoft Zune)
- PDF capability

To me, that’s the short list of requirements, there are no doubt plenty of “Nice to Haves”, on screen touch screen keyboard, ability to highlight and write on the screen, wireless printing, etc. But, the device to be truly successful will have to fly below $300 to ever catch on!

What do you think?

Image reference

Cellular future…

Michael Cattanach — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:50:00 +0000

I was browsing the pages over at Engadget and came across this link. I t reminded me of my Nokia store experience. Over the past weekend, I visited the Nokia store on Michigan Ave. here in Chicago, IL. Well, what a store it was! Exciting, sexy, trendy handsets, mediocre OS and did I mention there were only maybe 6 models in the entire store! (The store was covered in about a dozen of each handset. The two that really caught my eye were the: Nokia E62 and the Nokia E90 Communicator

STOP

OK, so. Cellular devices today are moving at a fast paced clip. In Asia. The US is light years behind Europe and Asia both, but, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND determined that these two devices even keep par with the market? Large, bulky devices and a proprietary OS which meets no standard system currently in place.

If they don’t meet standards, who is setting the bar? Blackberry and Microsoft (and potentially soon to be “Android” from Google). Why are these devices and their OS successful? Interoperability? Sex appeal? Easy to use?

None of the above. Blackberry and MS are successful because of systems integration. They have both made it semi-seamless for, two-way data communication and the ability to sync that data from either end. This at first was enough to ease consumers and allow for high price tags. Today the market has changed. Consumers NOW expect that same level of integration for under $300 on a sexy, chic device which can play music, have an integrated camera, browse the web, get business and personal e-mail as well as act as a solid phone.

Recap:
What does the market currently have? 2-way data sync via Exchange or BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server)

What will the market need to press forward? Sexier handsets, more intuitive OS’s, better media capability (which is coming with the dawn of the iPhone) and finally, a solid, exceptionally sounding phone.

So what should the market dawn upon consumers for continued success and innovation?
(in my opinion, here are the make/break factors)

Most importantly, act as a solid phone. Networks need to invest in voice quality and call stability.
Touch based or intuitive interfaces which utilize gestures, surrounding devices and are interactive will be critical to engage users
Life integration: Camera, music, e-mail, home automation control, virtual credit card capability, automotive key, etc

With that I have said enough. The sky is the limit for the cellular future and the people can DEMAND the features they desire and phone companies are (or should be) here to listen if they want to be the biggest and the best.

Turn me on

Michael Cattanach — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:41:00 +0000

Turn on the PRS-505 Sony Reader that is. About 3-weeks ago I purchased a Sony reader from the local Borders book store here in Chicago.

I was so excited after reading about the device, I ripped the box apart on the el and began to read the included books while on my way home. The sexy, chic casing and weight/size ratio made this device a pleasure to hold. The screen was captivating, small yet expressive with a depth of contrast allowing reading to be quite easy.

I purchased the device to become a PDF reader for technology books and other materials. i quickly discovered this is NOT a PDF reader. The PDF’s are squeezed onto the small screen and have a large lag time between page turns. This the device, in my opinion is useless for PDF’s.

But, as many before I have not returned it. I have faith that development will eventually bring a better PDF functionality and I do enjoy using it for casual reading while traveling, working or just in general as its form factor allows it to go everywhere I do.

Consensus: If you are looking for a way to carry several books with you that will have functionality, great battery life and sex appeal, this reader is priced right for you.