12 for 2012

So here are my 12 reads for this last calendar year. I wonder whether I should step this up to 13 for 2013 and so forth - it has certainly been an enjoyable New Year Resolution to keep. So here they are on all their glory:

 

 

 

The first way of describing this year's picks is - eclectic. There's some old, some new, some Booker and some for pure enjoyment.

 

 

Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel

Better than Wolf Hall? Surely not! Of course with 2 works as huge as these comparisons are pretty worthless, but Bodies benefitted from a smaller cast of characters than Wolf and a condensed period of time. This made the whole thing easier for my brain to manage. On the downside, I learned less about Cromwell, who has become someting of an obsession. I now work a few hundred yards from Austen Friars so am reminded on an almost daily basis that there will be a long wait for part 3. Should I cheat and read a biography? Would this be disloyal to Hillary? Should I wait for her?

 

Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter

Nights is quite an extraordinary book. From chapter 1 you are hit with the feeling that this story cannot be at all true, and that the author will be taking a huge risk if she sticks with the main premise to the end. Surely our main character must be found out in chapter 2 and then we can have something more conventional. But no, not in 2 or 3 or 10 or until maybe the last page, and then maybe not even there. Each plot and subplot seem to want to outdo each other for incredulity and as one bizarre character exists stage left so an even stranger  one emerges from a trapdoor, or floats to earth with no visible means of support. And so is the author - she walks a tightrope from first to last (trapeze would be more fitting, perhaps) always risking that the reader will judge her dashed on the rocks. But then you realise that you have been amazed, deighted and, at the very end, wishing deeply that there was a sequel - sadly this will never be. 

 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce

Now I know this has reached Richard and Judy's list, but bear with me. This book is also a delight, but a sad one. The suspense is beautifully judged and the denoument done with the soft touch that seems fitting of Harold himself - this superhero in plimsoles. I often rant about books with stupid endings - this has the very best, in the very sad circumstances. Call me a softy or a romantic, but this book shows how much there is left to cherish in a long and ordinary life.

 

The jouney in Julian Barnes  The Sense of an Ending I had less sympathy with. My initial reaction to the opening, set in an English public school, was that this was going to be yet  another study of the emotional depth that only the upper classes truly possess. But, swallowing the chip on my shoulder (it had been there a long time and was cold and rotten) and ignoring the pretentious nature of the two main 'characters' I really liked the plot. And then, bingo! another great ending. Someone should really re-write this basing it in a Milton Keynes comprehensive (that chip grew back pretty quick).

 

So far all the books have been written in the last 30 years, and I promised you eclectic, so here you go Candide, by Voltaire. This is all Melvyn Bragg's fault - he talked about it on Start the Week and I was intrigued. Candide is incredibly fast-paced, often a little crude and almost comic-book. Without understanding the political and cultiural references of the day it can't read as the satire it was intended to be. That said, what a romp!

 

Next up came Kate Atkinson and Case Histories. I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum a while ago and it was great, but frankly I was a little snobby about this one which is the first of her oddball, dysfunctional, brooding Detective Brodie stories. The problem was seeing it n TV where it was a cross between Morse and Rebus. In the book the story is grimmer and funnier at the same time and, like Museum, there is plenty of coincidence and a wholeness that hangs the thing together. Indeed, the way the different Cases are tied up with one ball of detective string is highly ingeneous. So, again, I read a book with a great ending this year. This, and a conversation with an Atkinsonite on the tube led me to do something I haven't done since college: I went straight on and read another book by the same author.

 

Atkinson's Emotionally Weird is a very different kettle of the proverbial. Now, I was told that this wasn't as good, and sure there are some dodgey plot moments and the structure is "challenging", but I loved it. This is quirky and original and deeply charming. Some of the characters (especially the University lecturers) are superbly funny and outrageous and I loved the 1970's attitude to student work; fading when I was "up" and has probably completely vanished now.

 

C by Tom McCarthy seems to be a novel chiefly about mourning, loss and sadness yet is wrapped in the clothes of technology, travel, altruism, control and misogyny which keeps the whole from being unbearably heartrending. The huge shifts of direction in Serge's life are maybe the only things not handled with supreme skill. We do not exist in episodes, but are blends of all our pasts and sometimes I felt that this was handled too infrequently or awkwardly. That said, this book has had a lot of critical praise and I will be seeking out Remainder for one of 2013's reads. Where are you taking me next Tom?

 

C was the first book I read in 2012 and the last was The Lighthouse by Alison Moore. Although the ending is ambiguous that doesn't make it bad, indeed you could hardly think of a better way of bringing this to an end. While reading The Lighthouse I kept thinking of L'Entranger and that of all the outsider-type characters this year (Harold Fry, Serge, Brodie, Stevens, Ned Kelly) Futh was by far the strangest, misunderstood and prone to mishap. There is a problem when so many unfortunate things happen to the central character - is it believeable any more, or is it just falling into farce? I am really undecided about whether she pulls it off, but any book that explains the human condition through such a light touch works for me.  

 

And that brings me neatly to Stevens, the central and only fully explored character in Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I was told it was hard work and I was even told that it was boring. It was neither. This is a book that I consumed in a week and was so sad that it ever had to end. The book shows immense craft in the writing and the lightest possible touch in explaining the emotions and motivations of Stevens. We know him by the careful explantion of what he does, how he moves and serves, converses and even how he drives. We feel his deep embarrassment at trying to perfect "banter" and the obligations he feels to those who rescue him when he runs out of petrol. Life's imperfections and unpredictability seem almost unbearable to him and we feel this pain. But there is no shouting and screaming, nothing explodes and nobody even dies. Indeed, virtually nothing at all happens in Remains. The author doesn't need events. As such, and unlike many of the other novels of the year, time is not condensed, but can play out in all its nuances. We are left with some thoughts from Steven's mind (sometimes charmingly inconsistent and confused, like our thoughts all are), a short drive, some recollections about a former (perhaps misunderstood)  employer and a conversation with an unrequited love. And it is this stilited, inconclusive conversation that is the most important part of the story. The day has little left by way of remainder and perhaps any hope of happiness is dashed. Brilliant.

 

Lots and lots happens in Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. Quite why this remarkabel story only amounted to a bad film with Mick Jagger in the past is beyond me. The story itself is one of injustice, and hope, the latter always dashed at the last second. Carey books are invariably an event in themselves and this may not be his greatest, but it nonetheless makes you feel that this has been a grand undertaking, dilligently pursued and not without a huge amount of craft. In the past Rafeael and Michaelangelo painted huge scenes in life-like detail and told the big stories. To me Carey's novels are Michaelangelos.

 

And so, lastly, to a daub. A wee splatter of paint that amuses a little, but leaves little lasting impression. To say that the most memorable thing about Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday is its title may be a little cruel. But not a lot. (anyone remember Across the Andes by Frog?) It's about trying to fish for salmon in the Yemen, and er... Well, the story is told as a series of diary entries and frankly unbelievable emails (people don't write emails like that). Most of the characters are thin and unbeliveable and the plot is poorly executed. The whole idea of this was to take something "impossible" and show how it wasn't - but that never really happened. That said, I'm sure Mr Torday has made a fortunte out of the film rights and, as such, if I could have written any of the books on this I wish this was the one.

 

Happy reading in 2013 all. I've started with a real belter - Doris Lessing'sThe Good Terrorist.

 

 

  

 



The Service Dominant Logic and The Cloud, or why you should learn to love the Cloud and sympathise with Microsoft

I like to go back a little. So let me take you to back to 1934 and a chap called John Commons. John wondered how you might isolate each and every aspect of a firm such that you could identify which activites and attributes created competitive advantage and which detracted from it. Every transaction should be analysed - from procurement, through contract terms, delivery, premises and discounts, etc etc. Commons was way ahead of his time, and it took another 35 years before this found common (pun unintended) acceptance in Michael Porter's now famous five forces.  

So what has all this to do with the cloud? Bear with me...

The reason I bring up Commons is that it takes us back to the bean-counting side of realising competive advantage and value. Once we got all of Porter's fancy diagrams, some of the meaning got lost - it was just something you had to put in the marketing plan.

Now fast forward to Vargo and Lusch - a couple of guys that decided to give the startegy hegemony a good shake. They argue that the concentration of marketing on "goods" and transactional exchanges of tangible items was based on a now out-dated economic model dating back to colonial times. This paradigm needs to be updated to reflect a more service-oriented economy where value is derived not chiefly from the producers of goods, but from the owners of knowledge, expertise and skills. VAR's - that's you.

Sorry, I'll say that again - VAR's that's you, you, you, you YOUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!! Its the very V and the very A of VAR.

So why do you now learn to love the Cloud?

Because the Cloud takes away a lot of the confusion caused by ISV's, hardware companies, hosters etc. claiming that they provide the value. They don't - they ship lumps of tin and bits and bytes. They may be very clever bits and bytes and the tin may have an inordinate number of slots in the back and flashing lights on the front - but in the hands of a customer they are about as useful as the proverbial bicycle to a fish.

Until you come in. You make it work. You make it real. You may even claim to make it dance and sing - you certainly should make sure it 'performs' (punny again!). You know how it should work for the industry of your customer, and what value it will afford them in saved man-hours, improved efficiency and savings from bottom, top and all lines in between.

And you do all of this becuase you provide the Service, and Mr Vargo and Mr Lusch say that service is dominant. Ipso facto you are dominant - and the dominant player gets to monetise the most. Unless, of course you are hung up on those ever-decreasing margins given out by the ISV's.

So, next time you are told by an ISV such as Microsoft or SAP that you have to love the Cloud, tell them that you do - and then tell them that you sympathise with the terrible position they will find themselves in.  For there's only one thing worse than not being dominant, and that's having once been dominant.

Getting the hang of Fridays

I vaguely remember someone saying "I never could get the hang of Thursdays" - was it Arthur Dent?

In any case, I've been wondering if there is anything inherenly special about Friday. With very  little empirical evidence at all I do seem to have noticed over the last few years that:

1) If there is a big customer issue it tends to come to a head on a Friday after lunch.

2) Deals get done on a Friday. That's why I am in a happy mood today :)

3) Meetings for next week get organised

4) Recruitment consultants call you

Now, if it hasn't happened already I would like to call on the marketing guru's from Harvard and Henley and all points elsewhere, to set up a study. There's something in this, I'm sure. We could all guess at the practical reasons why very practical things happen on a Friday (the "finishing up" impulse perhaps, or even a deeper seated psychological feeling that the week has been pretty awful, so let's panic-buy a better next week.

Perhaps...

... but if there is something in it, there's a great marketing angle here. Along with "never do a breakfast breifing on a Monday" and don't do webinars on any morning, there could be some great insights here on how we manage and plan our commnications.

Finally, at my last employer there was a trend of "working from home" on a Friday. A trend I usually bucked. Sure the roads were bad on the way home, but what a great day to get things done - and in a nice quiet office too. Oh, and there was fish and chips for lunch ... may that was the real reason.

Happy Friday all.

Product Positioning Pitfall

I was reading an article yesterday about the relative positioning of Dynamics AX, GP and NAV - yes, that old chestnut. The reviewer from dynamicsuser.net remarked on how much easier it was for the competition because they mostly only had one product.

My hackles were raised - Sage, Infor, SAP, Oracle? If anything their lives are much more complicated than that of any Dynamics product marketer. But the issue remains: why is this such a bugbear for Microsoft.

In Microsoft Dynamics (and this goes back to the acquisitions and Project Green) there has been an obsession with trying to get product positioning between AX, GP and NAV correct: or at least as correct as the market and the analysts can be content with. Various "solutions" have been offered from the ridiculous (let's give them each a colour), to the downright dangerous (the infamous product assessment tool that, when all else was even, recommended based on alphabetical order).

And there have been other, more noble and valiant attempts in between, but I am increasingly of the opinion that it was all a waste of time. The problem is one of depth.

In order to be successful, relative product positioning (that is to say the positioning of one product against stable mate) must apply at the level of the buying criteria of the consumer and be delivered by the creator of both products. This sounds both obvious (all marketing is) and easy to apply.

The problem with ERP solutions is that the buying criteria are often given artificial tags in order to make them comprehensible: company size, multi-national or local/ vertical, industry etc. The truth (we all know) should lie at a level of complexity far deeper than this. Unfortunately, though, sometimes it doesn't.

These days I increasingly work with organisations who are in the throes of implementation. And they have got lost. The product they bought is not the one which will cure their ills and deliver the much-vaunted promise of greater efficiency and ROI. The product is a square peg in a round hole, and in one case, far from delivering ROI, the company now needs more staff than to run their old system and orders are now out of the door two days later. They are looking for rescue, yes, and this can be achieved with time and money. But they are also looking or reason. 'Why was I told to go down route A, when route B (or indeed G or N:)) is clearly better for me?'

Well, the phrase 'caveat emptor' could be applied - it’s your own stupid fault for not looking hard enough, or in enough detail. But that's hard on the buying organisation - their job is to describe their business - as it is and how they want it to be - not to tral through feature and function. Or maybe it’s the Microsoft Partner - their job is to sell what they have though. If they don't represent GP, they are hardly likely to sing its praises: ask a blind man the way...

And so we come back to Microsoft. Customers get angry, questions are asked and the product teams take another shot at positioning. It’s a thankless task, most staff and partners will be dissatisfied with the results and it will help customer snot one jot. So, is there another way?

Yes, the relative product positioning of Dynamics ERP must apply at the level of the buyng criteria of the consumer and be delivered by Microsoft. The corollary of this statement is that Microsoft must deliver more depth and here lies the rub. There are a number of reasons they don't feel able to do so:

1. There are very few people in Microsoft commercial positions (sales, marketing) who understand the depth of these products, or can talk knowledgably about more than one of them. This leads to "default" behaviours, ie. bland positioning, talk to a partner for more, or, my product is best. These default behaviours reinforce the marketing positioning of the products and further mislead potential customers. Caveat emptor has replaced officium curae.
2. Microsoft will not give depth because it could compromise a partner. All partners are not equal, especially when a partner brings a nice juicy lead to MS. I'm sure you can imagine the conversations that take place, but the mantra - nice lead, wrong partner, nothing we can do - is a common one. 6 months down the line, of course, there is work for me and others sorting out the mess.
3. Microsoft is not really that used to having multiple similar products which compete. Once they had Word, they didn't bother acquiring WordPerfect or DisplayWrite, and the same is true for the whole of the Office Suite, Windows and Server/Tools. It’s very easy to keep your eye on the ball when there is only one ball. Moreover, providing positioning is about positioning with regards to the competition - and that's easy to provide a load of depth on.

So the cures for Microsoft are not easy, and not cheap. They could take on a whole bunch of product experts and risk the wrath of annoyed partners, they could get rid of a couple of ERP's and finally anoint "the chosen one", or they could go back to Project Green. Now there's a thought... what was it that was so wrong about Green? So long ago I can hardly remember.

The 12 Books of 2011

I am truly rubbish at New Year's resolutions, and for many years have simply not bothered. But last year was different for some reason - I made 2 resolutions and felt determined to follow them.

The first resolution was to read at least one work of literary fiction each month. 12 books in a year doesn't seem too much but my reading had slipped so much over the years, what with a) work and family commitments and b) not spending time on aircraft, as my job has been predominantly UK-based the last 7 years or so.

So here are the books as they sit on the bookshelf:

Highlghts are definitely The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - my kind of book and The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal. The former appealed to my love of  the magical and mysterious with a modern history background set as it is in Germany during WW11. The latter also appeals to my love of history as it charts the history of a Jewish family from around 1870 to the present day. The obvious interregnum of WW11 is of course important, but I found myself liking the earlier parts of the book as they were more educational. Paris in the time of impressionists and Proust, the building of imperial Vienna, were subjects I knew little of. While reading this book you need access to the Web as you are always wanting to find out more about the detail. In particular you will want to look at the paintings that play such an important part in Charles's story.

What of the other 10? Well the first admission is that there are only 9  - the year isn't out yet and Doris Lessing's the Fifth Child is working out very nicely.

The second admission is that Bill Bryson appears with a work of non-fiction. It is very long however (and took much longer than the allotted month to read) and is sumptuously frabjous - so no apologies. At Home is a brilliant return to form.

Most disturbing has to be a two horse race between the Mc's: John McGregor's Even The Dogs and Ian McEwan's Cement Garden. I'm afraid to say that McEwan won by a country (or distopian urban) mile. A great shame as I had enjoyed McGregor's previous with constant wonder at how he had pulled it off (do seek out If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things). The Dogs though taught me nothing and McEwan reminds us that it is far more disturbng what is left to the imagination. Has nobody tried to film Cement Garden?

On the 'curate's egg' list go When God Was a Rabbit and A Week in December. Sarah Winman's first novel is brilliant for 2/3 of the way, and then gets horribly lost in a 911 plot that is neither relevant nor credible. Truly loved the first part though (there are some mgical elements that are really subtly played: the way I like them). Seb Faulks left me a bit cold with A Week. This is clearly a very clever book with masses of detail, but I'm just not clever enough to understand the whole message. Also, I was left wondering whether everyone he writes about has to be such a psycho.

The big disappointment was Jonathan Coe's The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim. Nearly good, but not quite and, again, a dumb ending. I was quite hoping that Maxwell would die and we could hear more about his father's story: now there is a sub plot crying out for elaboration. And the whole yacht race piece - a true story and a huge tradegdy on at least 3 facets - Coe could just retell this and end up with a better book. All that said I will probably buy the next Jonathan Coe just as I have bought all the others - and hope that the next is another Carve Up or Rotters Club.

That leaves just Mark Haddon's masterpiece and The Finkler Question. To be perfectly honest I read the Curious Incident to make up time after Mr Bryson sidelined me for 7 weeks or so. The reason it leapt off the shelf was that it was short. Short, and brilliant too - there is nothing I can say that hasn't already. And so on to Finkler.

This was the book that started off the whole resolution 12 months ago, and is the one that has stayed in my brain the most. I find myself thinking about the characters in the wee small hours, or while reading something else. I know that a lot has been said about it being Jacobson's turn to win the Booker, and that other works of his are superior, but for me this is a book where you start to care: about the chracters, yes, but more about the issues that are raised and the consequences these have for all of us living in the UK. There is s strong political and social message here, but it isn't blasted from the brass section, but is a counterpoint offered by bassoons and oboes and cellos. It gives the whole piece extraordinary depth and I wonder whether others may have read Finkler too fast and only heard the high notes. My plodding style was maybe more suited.

So, if that resolution was 11/12ths complete, what of the other. Well, it is 12/12ths, but I'm not going to tell you what it was.

2012? More Howard Jacobson certainly. 12 books? Definitely, you need the rigour! However, if Hilary Mantel finally gets round to finishing off Wolf Hall it will be a vast undertaking, so I claim now that it counts as 2 of my 12.

Happy Resolutions.

Fried Pickles

An odd choice of title I'm sure you'll agree. Fried Pickles appear on the menu at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Fargo, ND and eating there last week our server Jamie urged the party that they really had to be tried. Mmm, we wondered.... fried pickles?

Jamie explained how they were made - dill pickles were sliced into rounds, dipped in a spicy tempura batter and then deep fried.

We still weren't convinced.

And then Jamie clinched the deal by explaining that they were "like nothing you've tried before". Temptation got the better of us, and who could resist such a sales pitch for the risking of no more that $3.99.

The Fried Pickles duly arrived, we sampled them, and they were pretty horrid. But never mind, we had tried, Jamie was happy and no falsehoods had been exchanged in marketing a truly disgusting product. They were indeed like nothing I had tried before, and, to go further, they were exactly like a whole range of things I will never want to try in the future!

The power of marketing will never cease to amaze me. Especially when it is done with such elan as that showed by our server at the Texas Roadhouse. It does though beg the question as to what idiot decided to make Fried Pickles an integral part of that establishment's menu?

I hope, I pray, that is goes somethng like this. Owing to an admin error in procurement (Dave swears he will now finally get his galsses changed) the Texas Roadhouse get a truckload of pickles delivered last month instead of the usual two cases. What to do? Implore the vendor to take them back, or try to make the most out of an unusal windfall. A hasty staff meeting is called and it is there that out plucky hero Jamie suggests deep frying the little critters. "How d'ya suppose selling those?" comes that obvious question from owner "Houston" Hal Stetson III.

"Well, with a degree in marketing from University ND, I see this challenge as a mere bagatele", says Jamie "leave everything to me. I may be just a server to you, but in real life I'm a product strategist without parallel". Over the next 36 hours Jamie racks his brains for the killer strap line, the one that will make him rich perhaps....

...and perhaps not, because I will certainly not be going back to a restaurant that serves me such food and I imagine that others in Fargo will make a similar choice. Fried Pickles were a blip and Jamie was a shrewd tactician, not a cunning strategist. In the long term the truth will out and good products will beat bad ones.

Now I must go as my daughter is imploring me to come and watch X-Factor with her. "It's fun" she tells me, and I guess I can risk an hour of my life for a little fun.

Old friends and old ideas

Met an old colleague today to talk about VAR's in the IT industry. All vendors want to tie VAR's to their products - an understandable instinct. If they can get loyalty then the sales will follow. But often the sales don't follow. Why?

I think this is because VAR's and vendors mistake software for solutions. Bits of software, from individual apps to whole technology stacks get called "solutions" too easily and too readily. They simply are not.

And so the role of the VAR get's confused. The "V" in VAR just means the implementation and support of the software they are selling - but that is very limited and not at all what customers want. They want solutions to their problems - not "software solutions" but real solutions.

So I ended up thinking about something I had been talking to TES about. Ie the immortal words of David James at Henley MC. Try turning the phrase:

"Finding customers for products"

into

"Finding products for customers"

Just turning that phrase around gives you a totally different perspective on what the V could be in VAR. Get it right and you will avoid the competition over day rates and make yourself your customer's trusted advisor.

Now, and only now can you start thinking about CLV with any hope of exploiting the opportunity to the full.

Steve