Pat’s Point of View

My last few projects have included a fair bit of interviewing staff working for a variety of large organisations. As a rule of thumb for intranet work, I focus on the lower ranks rather than management types. And in talking to these people I’ve noticed something about my own career: I’ve never had an actual manager.

I’ve worked with great colleagues, I’ve had people I report to and I’ve had mentors, but never anyone managing my time or workload. This is no fault of my ‘boss’ throughout the years, and of course is probably indicative of the profession I have chosen, but it’s quite an eye-opener when you hear people telling you about their jobs and how their manager does just that; manages them. Their work load is managed, their time, their career progress, the information they receive. All in a very active way, not in a reactive “hey boss I need your help to manage this” kind of way.

In some ways it must be quite comforting to know you can just concentrate on the job at hand and someone else will worry about the rest, yet there also seems to be a lack of control and choice over what happens. I don’t know if I could work in that situation now, after living it up as I seem to have been doing, being autonomous and all that.

That’s a benefit of getting out there and talking with other people, you reveal your own perspective and prejudices.

See what people are blogging about: managers, work

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The dirty side of Ethnography. That’s my take-away from my morning bus ride this morning.

It started as per normal, I got on and took a seat next to a fellow passenger. It soon became apparent that this passenger was a rather disheveled elderly gentleman (I estimate 80 years) who had evidently gone a while between washes. Too late, no other spare seats. Not a problem I thought, not long till my stop.

After a few minutes he decided to have a chat. Oh, he’s going to ask me what day it was or where the bus was going (my preconceptions now feel embarrassing). But no, out of the blue he hits me with “Why do you suppose that 60 to 70 percent of people going to work in the city resist shift work?”.

I was rather stunned, but that didn’t phase him as he recounted story after story of how corporations “just don’t care” and “don’t seem to be worried about doing the right thing”. And the people working for “the big commercials” inherit the same attitude. “Why do so many people live the rat race and trundle to work at 8am, wasting petrol and clogging up the roads, and then do the exact same thing at 5pm?” he thought out loud (and I mean loud). “There are thousands of cars with just one person in them” he correctly observed. “And these buses, they might be full now, but by ten o’clock they’re sitting in the depot rusting. Then they’re back out at 3.” If more people worked shift work there would be no peak hour and things would be more efficient, he insisted.

He worked for fifty years in the building maintenance trade—shift work of course—and the big corporations he worked for “didn’t care how much was on the invoice, as long as we didn’t disturb the [day-time] workers”. Several times he mentioned that “at night these big office towers are ablaze with lights, with nobody in there”.

Seeing as we were on a bus, it was a logical subject to discuss: “so much time is wasted by bus drivers dealing with tickets, money and passengers”…”if you use your watch you’ll see that they spend more time at each stop than they do getting to the next one” and “these guys work their guts out, with people breathing, blowing [sneezing?] and yelling on them all day, I wouldn’t do that job for 1000 bucks a day!”.

Then came his solution for Sydney’s public transport: “In America the bus drivers don’t sell tickets, there’s no change and no sections. There’s a tin at the front of the bus and you pay one dollar to get on the bus and can ride as far as the bus goes; it’s much faster. The security people who have trucks, that just sit there otherwise, go out to depots and collect the full tins and replace then with empty ones. The money is counted by machine and deposited into the bus company’s bank account and they get a computerised statement saying how much money came from each bus. The system actually makes a profit.”

Apparently he has tried to convince the Transport Minister that this is a better system than we have and that it would save money and time. But public servants are “only concerned with building it up bigger and bigger to keep they’re jobs and supervisors go up a grade because they have more people under them”.

From this he went back to those evil corporations. “If you go to a shareholders meeting, it’s like the Last Supper, you have the long table up the front with the Lord in the middle”…”what you’ll see is that the only people there are little old ladies, they go there because they’re made to feel important and they get a bickie and cup of tea. When it’s time for a vote, they look around and see if other people are voting and they put their hands up, they wouldn’t know what they’re voting for, they just go with the mob. The directors know this and they set it up that way to get what they want.” Fascinating.

The ideas kept on flowing right until I got off the bus, I’ve written as much as I can remember. The outside might be lagging, but his mind is in high gear.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Oh dear. Today I found myself talking to my computer. This isn’t uncommon behavior but it was the way I was talking to it. I was actually telling off my web browser: “You’re only a browser!” I contested, after several minutes of staring at a stubbornly dormant Firefox window. I swear it was trying to aggravate me…getting all uppity and precious.

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You’re given one mouth and two ears for a reason; use them proportionately.

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Today I presented a session on Needs based IA at the first Sydney workshop of the Intranet Leadership Forum. I got to talk about my two favourite subjects of the moment, ethnography and user-centered design!

I went through some basics of performing needs analysis to build a rich understanding of an organisation’s culture, work practices, work environment and staff’s information needs. I then broke down an intranet redesign project I performed last year, showing how the detailed research I did on the company and it’s staff made it possible to deliver a much more valuable information architecture (something more than a site map).

It was fairly successful but next time I do this I want to cut down the scope and focus the session more–the subject really was too broad for the time allowed. I’ll also make it more interactive, perhaps with workshop activities designed to get the group involved in using ethnographic techniques. And I’ll definitely devote more time to sharing some of the stories that I’ve come across during past projects. These are the juicy bits that get people excited about doing the work!

Wow, I’m definitely in presenter mode now, I’m even thinking of more topics (like Intranets for Advertising and New Media, that could be a good one).

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Surely this is the bestest title for a paper:

"What a f-ing system! Send ’em all to the same place and then expect us to stop ’em hitting": Making Technology Work in Air Traffic Control

Sounds like one of those juicy quotes you get from staff interviews :)

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I’ve just added an album of panoramas to my photo gallery. Since panorama shots are quite trendy at the moment, I thought I’d show off some of ours. The shots are from our various travel adventures over the years, from such places as Paris, Malta, Egypt and the US. They’re all 1200 pixels wide in order to capture the panoramic effect, so they might be a bit slow to download.

Most of these shots were taken using our trusty old Canon IXUSv (in panorama mode) and stitched together using Canon’s PhotoStitch software. The results are fairly decent although there are some obvious flaws in most of the shots. Unfortunately the original shots have mostly been disposed of, in the interests of saving disk space, so it’s not possible to clean them up and re-stitch them.

I’ve recently been playing around with more modern stitching techniques, such Calico and Hugin for OSX (which produced the above shot of Stonehenge). It certainly gives our little Mac Mini a workout. And this is still using old shots, mostly 1600×1200 pixels, I can’t wait until I take some new ones with our new 350D!

See what people are blogging about: photos, panorama, stitch, PhotoStitch, Hugin, Panorama Tools, Canon IXUSv, Canon EOS 350D

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I’ve been checking out the Hilltop Hoods website, it’s really pretty cool. Of course let’s not look under the hood or worry about accessibility, web standards or available bandwidth. All those things aside I think it’s a great design, and most suitable for the subject.

And the subject is the most successful Australian hip-hop group ever. I remember getting teased for having a Resin Dogs CD many years ago (yes, you scarred me Ots!) but it seems like times have changed and the local sound has come of age.

I think it’s good that urban music and culture is escaping it’s American roots and that groups such as the Hoods can gain popularity (and more importantly in their own society) without having to fake an American accent. Just look at the urban music scene in the UK, it’s massive now, and places like Leeds and Birmingham are dripping with talented artists making a name and a career for themselves.

Whilst at the moment it still seems that the success of UK urban music stops at the border, there are a few pioneers breaking into Europe and the US. So I’m sure it won’t be long before you here rapping in proper loiner or cockney accents as much as those of D-town and the LBC. Some day some Aussie accents should join the party.

See what people are blogging about: Hilltop Hoods, urban music, hip-hop, UK urban music

Popularity: 24% [?]