Hands-on Workshop at Decade User Training Conference

The Decade Software Training Conference 2009 will be one for the record books.

In addition to providing training based on a user-prioritized list, we'll host a hands-on lab throughout the conference—no appointment necessary. If you have questions or just want to test a part of EnvisionConnect you've never used before, this open lab is the place for you. What's more, if you have questions the lab team can't answer, you're not likely to hear, "We'll get back to you on that." or "Can you call tech support after the conference?" Instead, a Conference Concierge will be on call to track down whomever on our staff has the answers you need.

There will also be sneak peeks at the future of EnvisionConnect and the Environmental Health industry from a technology perspective. We'll be presenting awards for best user-authored reports, page layouts, and SQL scripts, and we'll be introducing you to our online and interactive support tools. Our goal in the year ahead is to ensure that you never have to ask why and if you ask how, you'll get answers ASAP.

Want to know more? Join us at the Decade Software 2009 Training Conference, October 19th and 20th.

Collaborate, support teamwork, or go home!

In an interview this week with John Chambers, CEO of CISCO, they asked him what has changed in business in the last few years. His answer was dead on…

“Big time, the importance of collaboration. Big time, people who have teamwork skills, and their use of technology.

Today’s world requires a different leadership style — more collaboration and teamwork, including using Web 2.0 technologies. If you had told me I’d be video blogging and blogging, I would have said, no way. And yet our 20-something's in the company really pushed me to use that more.

If they’re not collaborative, if they aren’t naturally inclined toward collaboration and teamwork, if they are uncomfortable with using technology to make that happen both within our company and in their own life, they’re probably not going to fit in here.”

That is exactly how I feel about my team.

Bing! And thanks for saying so.

Just back from vacation, I decided to try Bing!, the new search engine everyone’s been raving about. And like everyone who tests a new search engine, I entered my own name.  Doing so, I discovered a PDF from the Center for Aggression Management entitled, Addressing the Loss of Teamwork: Identifying, Measuring and Minimizing Trust-Destructive Behaviors.

The following is a quote from that essay…

“HL Arledge, a leadership expert defines leadership with four “Ts”: trust, truth, team and transparency. He says Trust is a cornerstone to leadership, the development of loyalty and teamwork.”

Real Nice.

BTW, I also found my name on a page entitled “Words about the Dalai-Lama”, but that’s a different story.

Now, that’s a real team!

Friday night, Joey, one of the leaders on my team got married.

Mike, another on our team played guitar, and Dave, a friend of ours, conducted the ceremony. My wife, Janna, said it was a beautiful reception, but men only attend such events for the reception—so I’ll skip ahead.

Mike, Janna, and I sat at a table with folks from Joey’s father-in-law’s old neighborhood. They still keep in touch, meeting annually for a combination golf tournament and old neighborhood reunion.

We were the only ones at the table not from the old neighborhood. We didn’t mean to crash their party, but all of the other seats were taken. More people had shown than had originally RSVP’ed.

“Who are you?” One of them asked.

“I work with Joey.” I replied.

“What does HL stand for?”

“Hard Luck.”

“Really? That should be my name.”

And this conversation repeated every time another from the old neighborhood joined us. However, over the music, one of the wives missed my introduction, and asked Mike, “Who is he?”

“He’s mine and Joey’s manager.” Mike said.

Her husband heard and said—loud enough for the whole table to hear, “Hey! HL is Joey’s boss. He said he just worked with the guy.”

And someone else said, “Now, that’s a real team.”

Indeed, it is.

Building a better Vulcan

Outside of the office, I love nostalgia, but inside, I am the first to promote change. Keep the things that work. Build on those things, and throw out the bad.

However, when Paramount Pictures took this approach with Star Trek, I was afraid of the change. I did not trust that JJ Abrams would be able to handle the job.

This was because I was not Paramount’s Product Owner, and their team did not ask me for buy-in, when they gathered requirements to fix something that I didn’t think was broken.

I was wrong. The movie was great, and I learned a lesson I have been preaching to others for years…

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

–Mr. Spock, Wrath of Khan”

This became clear today, as I was reading new words of wisdom this week from Joel “on software” Spolsky…

“Typically, the product owner wants something simple and easy to understand for the users, featuring a telepathic user interface and a 30" screen that nonetheless fits in your pocket, while the developer wants something that is trivial to implement in code.

Lacking a product owner, your garden-variety super-smart programmer is going to come up with a completely baffling user interface that makes perfect sense if you’re a Vulcan. The best programmers are notoriously brilliant, and …have a tendency to get attached to their first ideas, especially when they’ve already written the code.

One of the best things a program manager can add to the software design process is a second opinion as to how things should be designed…

….ideas for how the UI should work, which might be better, or worse, than the developer’s idea. And then there’s a long debate.”

For those of you that speak Scrum, I have substituted Joel’s use of the label “Program Manager” for “Product Owner” to point out that our objectives are the same—the common techniques that work from one software process to the next are essentially the same. Common sense is universal.

Software Engineers know the “how” better than anyone, but the “what” must be defined by those that interact with the customer—or better, by the customer themselves. However, we can’t forget that ancient Decade proverb “everyone doesn’t know what they don’t know”. That’s where the give-and-take and “happy mediums” of good design come from.

Despite what you were taught, compromise is not a bad thing.

In fact, its what makes good teams great. Meeting in the middle has nothing to do with losing ground. It is about everyone coming together to see the big picture and finding the optimal solution for all involved.

Code long and prosper.

It’s really not Swine Flu

Folks, I’ve been out a few days with the flu.

I suppose it was one of the regular flu’s and not the super-came-out-of-the-blue-hard-to-treat flu’s, as I am back at the office today. I feel a little stuffed up, and my limbs still ache, but otherwise I’m back to normal.

Believe me, you don’t want to hear descriptions of my symptoms when I was not “back to normal”.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to point out something you may not have realized. This so-called “Swine Flu” is really not the traditional Swine Flu we’ve had for hundreds of years.

This thing is a morphing of one of the traditional Swine Flu strains, a strain of one of the common strains of human flu, and the ever-popular newsmaker, bird flu.

If I were a conspiracy theorist—which of course I am not—I’d think someone was cooking this stuff up in a lab somewhere.

Is your software safe from covert secret agents?

I mentioned the other day how Microsoft was working with the CIA to monitor US computer networks.

Apparently, this Big Brother partnership was just in time. The major news networks and publications reported yesterday that some countries are using computers to steal your electricity.

Didn’t we read this in a George Orwell book, or see it in some Tom Cruise movie?

Bill Gates joins the CIA

Do you remember back in ‘98 when the United States Department of Justice filed the antitrust case against Microsoft? The media speculated that the software monopoly would be broken-up like Ma Bell was in the ‘70s, but in the end, Microsoft got off with a slap on the wrist—and everyone wondered why.

Perhaps, an article in the New York Times last week can offer some clues…

“The electronic spy game has had some real-world impact, they said. For example, they said, after an e-mail invitation was sent by the Dalai Lama’s office to a foreign diplomat, the Chinese government made a call to the diplomat discouraging a visit. And a woman working for a group making Internet contacts between Tibetan exiles and Chinese citizens was stopped by Chinese intelligence officers on her way back to Tibet, shown transcripts of her online conversations and warned to stop her political activities.”

The article went on to quote intelligence analysts who said that many governments and some business organizations use sophisticated computer programs to covertly gather information. This group of 103 countries, they said, includes China, Russia and the United States of America.

The antitrust suit was settled in 2001, shortly after the attacks of 911, when much of our government’s errors were blamed on the Department of Justice’s “antiquated computer systems”.

Happy Teams will weather the crisis storms

Alex Kjerulf calls himself a CHO—Chief Happiness Officer, and he is one of my favorite bloggers.

He has a new book in the works that explores the economic crisis and it’s effect on happy teams.

The book has three central claims:

1: Most of what companies traditionally do in a crisis doesn’t work.
The way many organizations typically handle crises is by cutting back on all expenses and doing mass layoffs. While this can be necessary, studies actually show companies who choose this approach recover more slowly.

2: It is possible to be happy at work even in a workplace in trouble.
Of course it’s easier to be happy when everything is going swimmingly, but people can still be happy at work in a crisis. It takes determination and focus, but it can be done. Surprisingly, a crisis can make people happy at work, provided that it becomes a reason for people to focus and pull together—rather than an excuse to give up.

3: Happy workplaces get out of a crisis faster.
Especially in a crisis, an organization needs to get the best out of its people—and when we’re happy at work we are more motivated, creative and productive.

I can’t wait until the book comes out. I predict it will be a worthy read.

It’s not really Friday, is it?

This has been a busy week, but its the start of one of our best sprints ever.

We are overhauling sections of our flagship software that will knock our users’ socks off, and my team is focused tighter than they have been in a long while.

In the meantime, teams from various departments are working more closely to increase transparency and provide customers with solutions faster.

—and we’re growing! We added two team members in the last 30 days, and we are still interviewing.

More and more potential customers are getting excited about EnvisionConnect, and our newly established Customer Communications Task Force is getting off to a great start.

Great week, but I’m exhausted from all of the excitement, and I’m still happy to see Friday.

[For you youngsters out there, the photo is Sergeant Joe Friday.]

I'm sorry I ever suggested changing the Decade logo

The Decade logo has been in use since Kevin started the company. It looks no more dated now than logos of other start-ups of the day. In fact, Microsoft's 1976 disco letters will make you dizzy if you stare at them long enough.

When Decade made plans to retire Envision—likely the most well-known software in the United States for regulating environmental health—and launched EnvisionConnect, we worked hard to be cutting-edge, partnering with Microsoft and leveraging the latest and greatest of their tools.

When we began building our new web presence, Kevin and I discussed the same goal. We wanted the site to be sanctioned by our customers, while reflecting the intuitive, forward-thinking philosophy that guided EnvisionConnect.

Unfortunately, any design I considered using clashed with the company logo.

No problem, I thought, I have graphics training. I'll just grab some books and find out what goes into a good logo design.

I discovered that a great logo should:

• Look as good in black and white as in color.
• Look as good small as large.
• Hint at what you want people to feel about your brand or brand values.
• Make people think of your company without reading the words.
• Be simple, yet memorable and describable.

It seemed to me that our current logo looked:

• Rough around the edges.
• Inconsistent in different incarnations.
• Unpolished by today's standards.

None of these three phrases describe EnvisionConnect, and none describe what we want customers to think of Decade Software Company, LLC.

I went to work, experimenting with various ideas, using the rules above, until I found a look that I felt was presentable to the Decade user community.

In the design, I still wanted to use a shade of teal, and I wanted some form of blocks in a "D" based emblem—thinking nostalgia would trigger memories in those who knew the old logo.

At the same time, I wanted a logo that looked as good in solid colors as in modern "Web 2.0 style" 3D.

Since staff and customers rarely say "Decade Software" and never say "Decade Software Company" or "Decade Software Company, LLC," I believed that "Decade"—how everyone actually refers to us—should stand-out more than the rest of our legal name.

And finally, I wanted the logo to "say" software symbolically, so I subtly overlaid the universal mouse cursor. This works as the professionals say brands with common names should always use a unique symbol and/or distinctive typography to bring the name to life.

Most who commented on the logo loved it, but some just thought any change was bad, and at least one thought that the logo should change but not to the one I designed...and so the debate continues months later.

Sometimes, I wish Kevin had left me to oiling my flywheel. Growing a team is less stressful than growing a company.

Angry customers tell 3,000 friends

A teammate said to me yesterday—referring to my entry entitled It's the Customer's, Stupid!...

"That's not really your job is it? I mean, you're a software development manager. There's a whole department working with customers. Don't you have more important things to do?"

Of course, I responded as you might expect...

"Taking care of the customers is everyone's job."

And then, I told the real story.

Last Fall, Kevin came to me and said...

"It seems like your team is really self-managed now. You still have to turn the flywheel occasionally, but generally your team can tackle anything you throw at them..."

Since Kevin is my manager, I had a suspicion as to where this was going.

"...So, I'm thinking that maybe you have some bandwidth you're not using, and I could use your help with some things. I would like you to take over as Conference Coordinator for our annual training conference."

Kevin knows I love event planning, and he knew I would dive in head first.

I worked for months assisting cross-functional teams from all departments. My goal was for them to present as never before. I wanted customers to learn more than ever before, but I also wanted them to enjoy the event more than any conference prior.

And—to some extent—we met the goal. The teams shined, and customers did say repeatedly that the 2008 Decade Training Conference was the best ever.

However, I wasn't all that satisfied.

We can easily teach customers how to use the software. It is intuitive and versatile enough to meet any need, and when it's not, we make it so, but how a customer needs to use the software is different from customer to customer and situation to situation. Those things you only learn in the real world—not in a conference class or a software testing lab.

In class after class, customers would ask questions that only other customers could answer. We thought that our staff knew our industry, but we were fooling ourselves.

No one knows our customers business better than our customers.

I left the conference asking myself...

"What can we do to help customers more easily help each other?"

Shortly after the conference was over, Kevin was back in my office. We were discussing another problem related to the conference. I wanted a way to make it easier to plan next year's conference. I wanted customers to be able to more easily register and provide information on how to make the conference better for them.

Kevin said...

"So you're thinking of creating a web site just for the conference?"

I said...

"Uh, hmm, uh... Yes, Kevin, that was exactly the idea that I had."

Of course, we both knew that was not the case. It was just Kevin's way of suggesting solutions without telling me exactly what to do, but it truly was a great idea!

I went forth and prospered, but...

....the more I worked on the site, the sooner I realized...

...how extremely easy it would be to allow customers to help themselves.

We increase the transparency. We give them better tools to freely communicate with each other year round!

I picked up a book—as I always do when I need to learn something fast. It was called Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000, and reading it, I was off to the races.

That, of course, was when all hell broke loose.

It's the customers, Stupid!

Firstly, I don't want to get into any political debates. To allow me to make my point, if you are a conservative, please suspend your disbelief in the legend I am about to recount.

Legend has it that Bill Clinton entered the White House inheriting a 300 billion dollar deficit. His predecessors had told him...

"You'll see how it is. You think you'll fix the economy, but something more important will always come up. You will get caught up in the crisis of the moment, and you will take your eye off the ball."

Like most of us, Bill was getting older and had to make notes to keep from forgetting. On his first day in the White House, he brought in a sign from his election campaign with writing on the backside in large print permanent marker.

The sign read:

"It's the economy, Stupid!"

He looked at the sign every time he entered the Oval Office—as did everyone who worked with him—and when Bill Clinton left office, the large deficit had morphed into a 200 billion dollar surplus.

[Again, I am just recounting the legend, and I have conducted no independent investigation. Please focus on the story or you will miss an important point.]

 Sometimes, Decade staff—the management team especially, with myself included—forget that the crisis of the day is only a small brush stroke in the big picture. If one customer calls with a problem, everyone's on it, until the customer is happy.

This is not entirely a bad thing, but sometimes we become so focused on a single client that we delay tasks that will benefit the entire customer base.

We forget that ancient Vulcan axiom...

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one."

So—to help everyone focus—today, I will hang a sign on my office wall.

The sign will say...

All together now...

"It's the customers, Stupid!"

It is time to be transparent again

I’ve gotten several notes and phone calls. Readers want to know what happened to the avid blogger they had developed a love-hate relationship with.

Someone wrote…

“I know you were out awhile when your blog host had technical problems. Now that those are resolved, I’m guessing you’re just out of the habit. We miss the craziness. Please come back.”

Now, that was sweet……………but they got it all wrong.

For years, I’ve touted the virtues of transparency. I believe that trust is the key to growing a company, just as it is key to growing a successful team. Without transparency, there can be no trust.

The e-mail got me asking the tough question: Why have I not been blogging very much?

I tell myself that I’m too busy, but I’m at work at 6:30 or earlier every day, so I must be lying to myself.

The truth is: I felt I could no longer be transparent, and if I cannot be transparent, I would rather be silent.

Some folks were telling me…

“Stop bragging on your team’s accomplishments. It makes other teams look bad and feel jealous, and it makes what your saying difficult to believe. No team could be that successful. Talk about your future goals, and let your past achievements speak for themselves.”

While others said the opposite…

“Our company should never talk about what we are going to do. It makes us sound like our competition, full of empty promises. Don’t talk about any of our goals until after we have achieved them.”

That’s why I had a loss for words. I simply did not know what I could say.

Then, I remembered that honesty is still the best policy. When in doubt, just tell the truth.

So…………we're back!

Starting tomorrow, truth, trust, and transparency return.

The President has a blog

I have said for years that transparency is the secret to solving problems and that one really good component of transparency is blogging.

President Barack Obama has said that transparency is what our government needs to expose corruption and to keep politics at bay.

To prove his point, he has started a blog.

But…

Lately, he has been too busy to update his blog, so he’s delegated the tasks.

Hmm… That could work!

Sites undergoing operations

Busy week, but I wanted to touch base.

I’ve gotten several a-mails asking about my personal websites, hardedge.com and leadfolloworgetfired.com. The timing for those questions are perfect. I have taken both sites down temporarily. They will launch with entirely new faces before the end of the month, and I am very excited about them.

I’ll keep you posted.

My Decade Software?

I promised yesterday to give you a sneak-peek at our new web presence…

In addition to the sleek appearance, the site is a game-changer for Decade Software. It is being designed from the ground up as a collaborative community where customers and staff can exchange opinions and ideas—with a section we’re calling “My Decade Software”.

Among other features, it will provide…

• User Community Forums

In addition to being the home of several EnvisionConnect User Groups, a networking and information exchange tool for clients, and a hang-out for Decade staff, our community forums offer areas of discussion on all Decade products and services and the industries we serve, and—best of all—registered users can subscribe to any forum or topic by e-mail.

• Surveys and Polls

Decade knows that user feedback is essential to making a good product great. That's why residents of the My Decade Software community are routinely polled. For example, you may be invited to participate in an in depth survey asking which classes should be presented at the user conference, or you may be invited to answer a single poll question regarding a product's design.

• Project Central

At Project Central, registered users look under the hood at Decade Software Company. In real-time, clients monitor what work is being done, by whom, and when the work is expected to be completed. They also can report defects or submit feature requests and monitor progress of those requests in real-time.

• Answers

Imagine a knowledge base that housed everything a user wanted to know about Decade's product and services, including information on how other agencies leveraged these products and services. Further, imagine a knowledge base where users could ask or answer questions and where they could tell Decade support what information was actually helpful and what was not. Registered users need not imagine. This knowledgebase awaits them in My Decade Software's Answers section.

• "Did You Know..." Articles

"Did You Know..." Articles have been a key tool of the Decade support team for nearly ten years. These tried and true "tips and tricks" newsletters for Decade products are available and searchable within our Answers knowledgebase.

• Product Downloads

Product installations and documentation are available to registered users, based on the security regulations of each agency. An agency may wish to make these items available to all members of the user community, or they may wish to limit downloads only to network administration. The option is theirs.

• Decade Exchange

Decade Exchange is a popular subset of our Downloads section that allows customers to share various resources, including reports, user-defined forms, page-layouts, SQL scripts, and workflow documents.

• Learning Management Center

Imagine an online school, where you could review lessons and take tests related to Decade products anytime your staff needed a refresher course. That "school" is our Learning Management Center, and it is available right now to all registered users.

• Agency News Authoring Tools

Not an hour goes by today when the media isn't discussing Environmental Health issues and concerns. Now more than ever, it is imperative that Environment Health regulators share information and learn from each other. Our Agency News is authored by any registered user with stories to share.

• Private Messaging

When forums and news posts are not personal enough, My Decade Software users have access to private one-on-one instant messaging with any registered user, including Decade Software staff.

Finally, something to rant about

I love blogging.

I love talking about my teams and their accomplishments. I love talking about the improvements this company has seen in these last few years. To me, that is what blogs do best—allow us to share successes and failures, so that we may learn from one another.

Unlike many in the blogosphere, I never use my blog for ranting.

Never—until now!

Our blog host (I almost said “of choice”) is Typepad. They were great until late October of last year, when they upgraded their product—and destroyed my way of life!

Their update broke my ability to post using Windows Live Writer, essentially forcing me to use their web interface to update my blog.

Despite my reputation, I do have more to do at the office than just blog. I seldom have time to toy with a kludge web application.

Sound petty? Of course, it does. Maybe I was really just standing on principal. Being a stubborn Southerner, I do that sometimes.

I started this post talking about how businesses can use blogging to learn from each other. I learned much from this experience.

Even the most minor of software changes can wreak havoc on your customers lives—and make them bitter towards you, your product, and your company.

The customer is still always right.

Sometimes we forget.

Disruption

I haven't posted lately due to technically difficulties. I hope to get these worked out ASAP.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks,
HL

A poor man's (or woman's) antibiotic...

I’ve had several of my teammates leave sick already this week.

As the weather changes, the flu and cold season nears. With this in mind, I thought I would pass on this tip.

An old Louisiana country doctor once told me…

“If you’re too busy or too cheap to call me for antibiotics, take 3 vitamin C tablets and one B complex every four hours. This will help build up your immune system. If you do this early when you first think you’re getting sick, it may ward off the illness.”

Of course, that’s just food for thought.

I am not a practicing physician—nor do I play one on TV, so please don’t sue me if this doesn’t help you.