Enterprise hits and misses - holiday highs and lows edition
- Summary:
- Jon's cheeky weekly review of which articles hit (or didn’t) - in a special "best of" and holiday whiffs format.
This is a special Holiday Edition of hits and misses, with some "best of" blog picks and a few holiday whiffs.
diginomica pick: best of 2014 selections by "The team"
quotage: "When I first became self-employed – back in the days of quill pens and candles, naturally – I found it relatively easy to earn more than I had as a staff writer on magazines and papers. The reason was simple: it meant that I could write for more than one `employer’, generating more opportunities for work. Is that now the model for all employees?" - Martin Banks
myPOV: For the holiday week at diginomica, we're featuring a series of "besties" where each of us selects our top ten articles we penned this year, each compiled in our own style. To date, we have:
Martin's choice - which includes ruminations on the enterprise implications of each pick.
Jessica's choice - presented in an awards-style format, each one a use case where the customer pushed the right digital envelope - and got a result.
Derek's choice - with quotage and rationale for why he picked each one, all with Derek's style and conviction, from thoughtful rants to digital governance keepers.
Jon's choice - same format as Derek's, different stomping grounds, though our digital/cloudy themes have a way of connecting the dots between us all.
And hold on to your collective britches - Stuart, Phil and Den's picks are coming...watch this space.
Best of the rest
Before I start handing out "best of the year" type trophies for the holiday mantle, here's a few quick picks of new articles:- The Enterprise In 2015 - Hey, a piece on the enterprise on Tech Crunch that doesn't suck!
- The Ten Biggest Hacks of 2014 - "Chances are your personal information was hacked this year—even if you didn’t realize it." - Ugh.
- When Blood is Sikka than Water: Vishal’s Infy Honeymoon has some Legs - Checking in with Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka at the six month mark. Cheesy headline granted - but good interview.
- How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition - A November 2014 HBR think piece I just discovered on Twitter, via Naomi Bloom.
- Sony's 'The Interview' to be key streaming, security, cloud moment - The hackers had the upper hand for quite a while, but now their asses are kicked by transparency and digital distribution. But like so many digital media "victories," not sure if I see a business model there - at least not for Sony or Hollywood.
And now for some year-end awards, full of the prestige such random categories bring:
- The "master of the I-don't-give-a-sh#t about the length of my blog titles, as long as they are bloody interesting" award - Nobody affords themselves the space to go to town on a blog post title like Phil Fersht - one recent dandy: Why we need to stop boring ourselves to death and focus on what really matters: building TRUST. Or: "Time for the HfS summer chillax movie… go on, you know you want to see it." Fortunately Fersht's article content is usually as original as his titles.
- The "article I still have open in my browser six months later" award - I'm not sure if this is the article of the year, but six months after publication, Brian Sommer's As IT's industrial age ends, the humanist era begins is still open in my browser window - that must mean something.
- The "least afraid of big data hype" award - Big data/analytics/Internet-of-kitchen-sink is one of the most important - but absurdly oversold - enterprise trends of all time. No one has boldly ventured into territory fraught with buzzwords as successfully as Doug Henschen, who breaks down tool options, surfaces project realities, and doesn't shy from his own takes.
- The "best at staying human in the machine" award - Naomi Bloom's HR expertise doesn't prevent her from bringing plenty of gusty personal stories and conviction into her writing. Transparent living for the win.
- The "dude writing for a big analyst firm who gets the whole blogging/interacting thing" award - Look, I don't like blogs from big analyst firms very much. Seems to me they are always holding back on IP or pimping stuff that lives behind paywalls. But one guy who has stepped up is Gartner's Hank Barnes, who gets into it with me on Twitter, comments on our pieces, and writes readable stuff about informed buyers and the treacherous topics of vendor marketing. His latest - Ignore our web site, it needs work. And before I get pinged, yes, I'm sure there is more than one out there. Hank's my pick - dokie?
- The "most likely to take their fellow analysts to task" award - In a profession where "pay to play" is still the persistent weed we must all eradicate, epic rants about the integrity of the analyst profession are always welcome, and we get them most often from Phil Fersht and Ray Wang - stay cranky guys.
- The "best enterprise blogger who writes only via his iPhone" award - Folks, it's Vijay Vijayasankar by a landslide. Yes, when you write only via an iPhone, there may be a typo here and there. But I have plenty of typos and no such excuse. Vijayasankar found a way to blog even on a ridiculous travel schedule, and we have his phone to thank.
- And, drumroll: the "most likely to appear in hits and misses" awards - Based on an unscientific count, this year's winners are: Brian Sommer, Frank Scavo, Luke Marson, Lora Cecere, Doug Henschen, Phil Fersht, Holger Mueller, and Larry Dignan. And no, I didn't count appearances in the "whiffs" section...your certificates are coming, I'm quite sure of it.
Whiffs
Yeah, it's more than a little predictable to give Facebook the whiffs podium again, but hey, they earned it with their careless flogging of the "Your Year In Review" app/feature. Which in turned garnered mucho negative PR, e.g. Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty, by a blogger who was not super thrilled to see his (deceased) daughter featured in his "year in review."
This brouhaha exposes a personal beef, which is how we vastly overestimate technology's ability to alleviate pure human suffering. This is also the problem of "mass faux personalization," where we serve up brutally clunky "one size fits all" personalization that lacks the configurability to make it personal. Fact is Facebook was much more customizable five years ago, but that evidently couldn't scale, so now we have hot shot designers making nifty apps that are tone deaf from launch.
As is the custom with these gaffes, the apology was worse than the original offense, with Facebook's rep not being able to get over the awesomeness of this shitty app (I'm sure the "engagement" was through the roof, whoopee!), when he said, after apologizing, "[The app] was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy, “It’s valuable feedback." Sorry pal, but rubbing people's faces in their hardships completely negates the "awesomeness" you are trying to mix into this cocktail of fail. And: the fact you need feedback to figure this out exposes a very deep flaw in either design, technology, or culture. Have fun.
Officially off-topic
OK, that felt good. And if you're in the mood for a few more whiffs, you'll enjoy hearing Sepinwall and Feinbest take down the "Worst TV of 2014," including their skewering of the impossibly bad "Homeland" finale. And don't forget the gift of smiles - brought to us by these kids who are deeply unhappy with Santa Claus - specifically, sitting on his knee.
I feel somewhat of an obligation to watch "The Interview" now that digital distribution (and independent cinemas) have spanked the hackers, but I am a little worried the movie is going to be kinda awful. Apple has now joined the many places you can stream the movie, so I have no excuses now. If only this movie about Stephen Hawking's life was out...but the backstory is cool nonetheless.
And on that note, a final congrats to the award winners and those who blogs made the enterprise a more readable place last year - thanks. I may have a few more honors to hand out next week. See you then...
Which #ensw pieces of merit did I miss? Let us know in the comments.
Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed. “myPOV” is borrowed with reluctant permission from the ubiquitous Ray Wang.
Image credits: Cheerful Chubby Man © RA Studio, Happy Children © Anna Omelchenko, Waiter Suggesting Bottle © Minerva Studiom, Overworked Businessman © Bloomua, Businessmen with business trophy. Cheerful young businessman © BlueSkyImages - Fotolia.com - all from Fotolia.com
Disclosure: