Pat’s Point of View

Over recent weeks I’ve been in Adelaide (see my photos) consulting with a large government agency regarding their intranet. It occurred to me that this work, as well as a lot of IA and user experience consulting, is much like being Super Nanny; much of your effort is directed towards changing the attitude of the ‘head of the family’.

Within any organisation that has an intranet there is usually someone who has control (although lack of ownership of it is often a major hurdle in delivering a successful intranet). This may be the IT department, or a dedicated intranet team. Combined with senior management these people are like the parents, with staff as the children.

Most of the time Super Nanny (Jo Frost, to be more precise) is involved, the parents are running around like mad idiots, screaming at the children trying to get them to behave. They’re so caught up in the day-to-day madness of it all, they don’t even know where to begin. The children just won’t do what they’re suppose to! But what you see time and time again is that it’s the parents that need work—the attitude and behaviour adjustment.

Super Nanny has to point out what’s going wrong, often to the discomfort and embarrassment of the parents. She needs to explain that it’s not the kids fault, it’s your fault. You can’t make the kids do what you want (especially whilst quite often acting contrary to your own rules…but that’s a whole other story). You need to work out what the problem is and find ways to solve it.

Do you see the parallels? Staff aren’t misbehaving when they don’t use the intranet. They’re not “breaking the rules” because they are disrespectful or out of control. Often the systems that have been put in place are simply not meeting their needs. Not only are intranets and procedures difficult for staff to use, often they’re completely irrelevant. Is it any wonder they don’t play nicely?

That’s why ‘needs analysis’ is the most crucial task in (re)designing an intranet. When consultants perform intranet needs analysis we aim to understand how staff work, then look at how the intranet is helping, hindering or simply not involved. Then we show this to those strategising, designing and administering the intranet (and related systems) so they too understand exactly what’s going on. This is the “Oh…that’s really what they do?” moment. Like videoing the parents before Super Nanny arrives, this holds a mirror up to themselves as much as anything else and usually illustrates the stark contrast between the reality of work life for staff and the vision acquired by implementers and management.

Many of the key techniques Super Nanny uses take the parents on a journey; from their current perspective through to one of understanding how things actually are and the effects on family life. Unless they tread that path they will not change and things will continue as they were, if not worse. Often the process might be given a name (such as the ‘naughty corner’) but these are age-old techniques which in the back of their minds the parents probably already know. Repackaging it as something new can cut-through like nothing else. Perhaps doing this reduces the dent on their pride? eg this new technique is the answer, so it wasn’t really my fault that I couldn’t solve it before.

Compared to this, the kids are a breeze. Once their environment and the expectations of the ‘powers that be’ are adjusted, they start behaving. They’re just happy that mum and dad are happy. And they’re happy that someone is taking some notice of them (the analogy in the intranet world is that staff are often happy that someone listens to them rather than just prescribing solutions on them without asking what they need).

Now, I’m not a parent (yet) nor am I an intranet manager, so I’m not saying either job is easy. They both require strong people skills and an ability to think outside your own box; what about me might not be right for this family/company? It’s also about being brave enough to admit the brutal truth and then go about making the necessary changes.

And with any luck, like most families Super Nanny visits, organisations wishing to improve their intranet will come out of the process with a renewed relationship with their colleagues and enthusiasm for continued progress. Preferably without the tears.

ps: A great deal of restraint was needed to not use the phrase “unceptable” in this post. Oops, there it is.

See what people are blogging about: intranet, IA, Super Nanny, Adelaide

Popularity: 12% [?]

During my present trip to Adelaide, I’ve been catching the Glenelg tram to and from work. Other than the quaint gimmick of catching a tram (Sydney has no trams any more…except the “blue slug”) the most interesting thing is that on the old trams passengers can hear all radio communications by the operators.

Now there are some things you just don’t want to hear when travelling on public transport, such as a driver announcing I’d like to be relieved since I’ve received a blow to the head (local youths causing some fuss apparently). I think customer satisfaction is directly linked to the perception of safety and the competence of the service provider, which kinda goes down the drain when you can hear what they’re saying ‘behind the scenes’.

For example when one female tram driver spent at least half an hour trying to reach a button (presumably mounted too high) that would allow her to fix a problem and get underway. Hmmm

Anyway, the other thing I noticed is how the tram ventures rather unobtrusively through quiet suburban areas. Unlike train lines in Sydney, which are usually the focal point of a suburb and consequently the most built-up with shops etc, the Glenelg tram runs through quiet streets, often with little more than a simple wire fence between the tracks and [rather nice] houses. And there was very little ’scumbag factor’ surrounding the tram (other than the troublesome youths you heard about on the radio). Again this is unlike Sydney, where on and around trains you’ll find quite a nasty environment…the last place you’d want to spend any time, especially after dark.

See what people are blogging about: tram, Adelaide, Glenelg, public transport

Popularity: 14% [?]

The old Toyworld marketing jingle went “I don’t want to grow up I’m a Toyworld kid”. Very true for the guy who built a Lego aircraft carrier. Or perhaps he’s just got too much time of his hands.

See what people are blogging about: lego

Popularity: 7% [?]

Annoyingly, I share my name with a fair few people.

For example I said:

We don’t go in uninvited

Yep that’s right, all of us PK’s have a rule, similar to the vampire rule but less threatening. Seriously though, the guy who did say that is the [notorious] US Congressman Patrick Kennedy, nephew of JFK. He obliterates my ranking in Google, not that I search the intenet for my own name. No really.

But even he’s named after someone else, his great-great-grandfather who immigrated from Ireland in the 19th century.

Some of my other “famous” name-sakes include the guitar designer, the film editor (there’s some classy films in that lot), and the Anglo-Irish folk writer.

Searching Google, you will come across me eventually, notably my bio on the Step Two website (ooh, the power of that massive page rank!). But also my online portfolio, my LinkedIn profile, but not this blog. Hmmm.

Popularity: 8% [?]

What were you doing a decade ago? I was programming in C evidently. I can’t remember what I was working on but I had some problem with strings and integers.

By the way that post may be the earliest surviving evidence of my presence on the internet.

Popularity: 10% [?]

On saturday afternoon I plonked myself on the couch in eager anticipation of viewing a TV show that had just started, The Car Show on Channel 9.

What a disappointment. First things first, they rip off not only the Top Gear format but also the theme music (and even that’s a pale imitation of the original). The show is complete rubbish. When will they produce a decent motoring program for Australian TV?

I reckon the young guy presenting doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. Glenn Ridge (former host of The Sale of the Century) is a nice enough guy and has made a few appearances in pro-am touring car racing from what I remember, but he doesn’t seem to add much to the show.

One benefit of the show was it’s brevity, which allowed me to view the next of 9’s afternoon program The Snow Show. I may have the order wrong but the pattern was obvious; a good few hours of ‘advertainment’ drivel. Thinly veiled advertisements in between ads, followed by a few plugs for sponsors products.

How appropriate then, that the theme for this week was the ‘pony car’—all show, no go…just like this program.

I really miss Clarkson and co and their antics.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I was sorting through some old CDs and found my uni thesis, from my Bachelor of Computer Systems Engineering at UTS. I guess I was already on my career path by that stage (Spring 1998).

Continue reading ‘Dynamic Hypermedia Authoring Systems’

Popularity: 9% [?]

Man sells faulty laptop on eBay. Buyer tries to get refund. Seller refuses. Buyer discovers hard disk in laptop contains buyer’s personal information. Buyer creates website exposing the weird and scary information. Seller attempts to debunk buyer with a series of ridiculous false personas. Seller becomes the butt of one humongous joke, not to mention the subject of a media storm (Daily Mail to name but one). Buyer receives so much attention he ceases action and calls a truce. Other interested parties continue the campaign against Seller.

And so it goes to show you can’t get away with anything these days. This whole saga is quite amusing, and altogether justified. The half-wit who sold the laptop in the first place should be named and shamed, but I can understand the buyer’s reluctance to continue as it blew out of proportion. The seller seems pretty dodgey and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did something even worse in retaliation. Scumbags like this wouldn’t think twice about trashing your house or getting their friends to give you a good beating. I mean he’s already made some pretty serious [false] accusations against the buyer.

And to think all this because the idiot doesn’t know how to format a hard disk.

See what people are blogging about: laptopguy

Popularity: 11% [?]