The CIO Assistant's Blog

A few days ago, I was looking for some books to read this mid-summer week-end. I ended up picking Travels, a book from Michael Crichton. Crichton, of Jurassic Park fame, was a highly readable author with many techno-thrillers on the best-seller list. I particularly like Timeline, a science-fiction novel about parallel worlds, so I thought Travels would be similar. It turns out that the book is a cross between an autobiography and a travelogue of exotic locations that he has visited as well as more common places that enticed him to make his “inner travels”. For Crichton, there was little distinction between inner and outer travels and they complement each other. He often felt that “I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am.”

Anyway, I read through his accounts of trips to Shangri-La, Virunga, Kilimanjaro … and at the very end of the book, I found an interesting piece that is relevant to the subject of this post: Knowledge, or to be more specific, the peril of Scientific Knowledge. In the Postcripts, Crichton reproduced the text that he has prepared for the speech to the Pasadena chapter of CSICOP (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims Of the Paranormal) at Cal Tech. He talked about the narrow view of Science and the fanatical attitude of many scientists against anything non-rational.

“This, in essence, is the problem with the scientific view of reality. Science is a kind of glorified tailoring enterprise, a method for taking measurements that describe something – reality – that may not be understood at all.”

“This” is the scientific way to interpret and understand life, not unlike the measuring approach of the tailor to a fictitious person named George. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The story was about the challenge of describing George as a person. Through Crichton, we found that it was not easy to describe George accurately in a statement. For example, consider a simple statement borne out of some casual observation:
“George is an even-tempered man.”
In closer look, we found that he sometimes lost his temper. So we modified the statement to read:
“George is often an even-tempered man.”
But the word “often” is vague, because it didn’t tell when and why he lost his temper. To be more explicit, we would then say something like:
“George is usually an even-tempered man, except on Mondays when his favorite football team lost the day before, or when his wife had a fight with him, or when … or when …”

We could go on and on for pages and still not being able to completely describe George in an accurate manner. But his tailor could, in a way. He could describe George in exact terms:
“George is a forty-four long”
because he has measured George and the suits that he cut for George fit him perfectly. So armed with this confidence, the tailor claimed that he could describe exactly who George is.

If we replace Science by Information Technology (IT), Business Intelligence (BI) or any data-driven disciplines (in the same way that Crichton substituted Science for the tailor), we would find ourselves on similar ground. Automated data that are systematically captured, processed, measured and “mined” give way to Information (connected Data) and Knowledge (a collection of useful Information). When presented as Knowledge, it represents the truth of the Past. Knowledge is thus looked upon as the penultimate goal, just a short step away from Wisdom which is described as the truth of the Future (1). And just like the scientists at CSICOP, some IT or BI practitioners believe in the absolute truth of their Knowledge and in the power of using the past to predict the future.

But what sort of Knowledge is acquired in such a way? The least useful, according to Crichton when he wrote about the measuring exercise of the tailor:

“… statements [about George] that are most securely held are also the least interesting.”

Similarly, there are too many performance measurements that inundate the executive dashboards today without providing any insight about how these pieces of Data/Information/Knowledge may help the business moving forward. They are known as the lag indicators by the initiated (2), the least interesting pieces of Knowledge. So the next time that you hear someone expounds the virtue of Knowledge, ask yourself whether or not that kind of Knowledge is relevant to the business at hand or just a bunch of gobbledygooks to impress people.

Postcripts.- Crichton was never invited to speak at CSICOP. Maybe the scientists there have known all along about his heretic view of Science. If you are interested, go pick up the book and spend a lazy afternoon. It will be worth your time.

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(1) Known by its acronym DIKW, the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom relationship (also known as the Information or Knowledge Hierarchy) was ubiquitous in IT literature. Although not universally endorsed, it is widely used to purportedly demonstrate the added value of the next layer in the hierarchy. Thus, Information is more valuable than Data, Knowledge is better than Information, etc. The model also implies that beyond Knowledge, there is nothing else but Wisdom, the ultimate prize to acquire in both business and life.

(2) There are many write-ups on the subject but one of my favorites is a 2006 article Lead vs. lag indicators in an Australian HR publication.

I started this Blog on April 3, 2009. Not quite on an impulse but also not based on any rational reasoning (except perhaps for some fleeting thought that it should not be on April’s Fool day). According to my 100-day plan, I should conclude my Better Blog project on July 11, 2009, with April 15 and June 26 being the end dates for Stage 1 (Initiation) and Stage 2 (Execution) respectively. That April 15 date has come and gone 2 weeks ago, but I am OK with that since I did reflect upon intents, expectations, goals, objectives and success factors; I just didn’t think to put them down as I would for a serious project. This action (or inaction) will be the subject of Lessons Learned in Stage 3 (Conclusion).

As mentioned earlier in the Introductory post, I would have to perform the following 2 steps in the Initiation stage:

1. Clarify intents and expectations
2. Set goals, objectives and success factors

Step 1 – Clarify intents and expectations

All projects started with good intents and high expectations. Many of them however gradually strayed from the original intents and never quite met the expectations despite all the care and effort invested in the projects. The main reason for this is that intents and expectations were seldom documented, especially when the project delivery party and the intended beneficiary were one and the same. It wouldn’t be so bad if intents and expectations stayed pretty much the same throughout the project or if the project manager had a way to stay intimately in tune with the client. Otherwise, the project became risky because intents and expectations, especially the latter one, did change over time. For most cases, the 2 parties are separate entities, thus a clarification of intents and expectations at the outset would ensure a meeting of the minds before plans are plotted and actions are taken.

• Intent is defined as having the mind and will focused on a specific purpose. Its Latin root is intendere, meaning to direct attention. It is the stronger form of Intention which is defined as a course of action that one proposes to follow.
• Goal is defined as the end, the destination, the finish line. It suggests an idealistic or long-term purpose.
• Objective is defined by [Ref. 2] as: 1) the clearly defined, decisive, and attainable goals towards which every military operation should be directed; and 2) the specific target of the action taken.

So you can see that even before I set my goals and objectives for the project, somehow I have already the mind and will to do it, and more relevant to the issue of potentially misreading the original intents, I have already sketched a rough course of action to follow.

1.  To learn about this aspect of social media (blogging) – for my professional needs
2.  To share my experiences with others who have a need to learn – for my social needs
3.  To leverage and benefit from this new (to me) marketing channel – for my personal needs

In other words, I planned (my intention was) to invest a certain amount of my time – say 2-4 hours a day to build up a presence on the Web, to take part in the Social Networking trend, first as a follower then as a leader in certain fields or subjects where my points of view may be of help to others, namely the IT field and the Leadership experiences in that field (a proposed course of action). For more details on this, please take a look at the About page.

However, having acquired more market intelligence since, I have toned down my expectations. First of all, my time horizon for this to happen now stretches out to 2 years, and the means to achieve them is not by a single and sustained drive but through a series of project with their incremental objectives.

As you can see, intents and expectations once articulated can be easily translated into goals and objectives. But expectations do change, especially when perception of reality demonstrates a potential gap against such expectations. Without being aware of such change, the project runs the risk of attaining the presumed goals and objectives without satisfying the expected needs. This phenomenon explains why some successfully completed projects were never implemented (Note: I have no number to substantiate this claim. Input is appreciated).

Step 2 – Set goals, objectives and success factors

Because Intents and Expectations are soft, hard-to-pin-down types of measure, we usually translate them into Goals (long-range purpose) and Objectives (specific targets).

The Objectives (or short-term Goal) of this project is to achieve 50 post submissions and receive 100 comments from 10 frequent readers.

Why 50 posts? The first measure of success for me is how can I produce quality posts in a sustained fashion. That means at least 3 per week for 14.3 weeks (100 days), with some odd ones thrown in here and there. I have written so far an average of 2 posts per week, so there is some catch-up to do.

Why 100 comments? The second measure is the feedback received from the readers. I read somewhere that the average rate of comment is about 2% of the page views, so 100 comments are the equivalent of 5,000 page views that I need to reach in 100 days. But to me, page views are indicative of the traffic while comments are indicative of the interest. I elect to measure the latter (I am not sure how exactly, but I will investigate). Again, I have received just a handful of them thus far (so few that I can count them all by hand), so there is a steep curve to climb for the remaining 72 days.

Why 10 regular readers? The third measure is the number of readers themselves. I recognize that many do/will have an interest in my blog but are/will be hesitant to write back. It seems that a simple “Great/interesting post!” comment wouldn’t sound good enough to send. So while the number of comments is indicative of the interest, I need a measure of the number of readers and that would be the RSS Feed number. If you read this post so far, please click on the RSS Feed button to receive fresh posts. Now why 10? I arrive at this number by making an assumption that my readers are keener that the average visitor, in fact 10 times keener to the tune of 20% instead of 2% making comments. It would take then 10 readers to make the targeted 2 comments per post.

What are other success factors, if any?
Let’s say that by the end of this 100-day project (July 11), I have written 52 posts, received 86 comments and counted 12 regular readers. Would I declare then a success (mind you, with a small asterisk next to the less-than-100 comments)? It depends. What if I can honestly say that only 45 of those 52 posts are real quality ones (i.e. insightful, provocative, critical, beyond-the-obvious) and the rest were just fillers to make the number? What if I know of 10 additional readers-friends who swear that they visited the Blog regularly without leaving any trace? What if 2 of those registered readers are the “movers and shakers” of blogsphere such as ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse (nice dream!)? So beyond the target numbers, there are also the intangible factors of Quality, Strategic Impact and so on.

I will leave you with that thought and would like to solicit your comments. What are other success factors that count for you?

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In a previous post, I have shared with you my participation in ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB) project and how I have had a belated awakening that this is also MY Better Blog project and I should take control of it and execute it the way that I know, i.e. via a 100-day mission-style project. This post is the introduction piece to a 3-part series that will document my activities and thought process through this short journey. Part 1 will be posted tomorrow since I am already past the due date, Part 2 will start soon and of course, you will need to wait for the end of the project for Part 3.

There is nothing magic or fanciful about breaking the project into 3 parts. That’s my habit (see The Rule of 3), but it also fits the natural 3 stages of Initiation – Execution and Conclusion. Viewed through the lens of a 3-stage project, the 100 days would then be broken down into a 15-70-15 ratio.

In the Initiation stage, I would have performed 2 steps:

1. Clarify intents and expectations

2. Set goals, objectives and success factors

followed by 6 more in the Execution stage:

3. Collect data and intelligence

4. Assess situations and gaps

5. Build the team

6. Form a coalition

7. Secure early wins

8. Align and adjust

and wrapped up in the Conclusion phase with 2 more steps:

9. Consolidate successes

10. Make it stick

As a sneak preview of what’s in stock, I would suggest that you picture these 10 steps as those of a ballroom dance performance where the couple would make a flourishing entrance with Steps 1 and 2, then repeat Steps 3 through 8 in a defined pattern yet with increasing intensity and intricacies before the finale.