Upcoming Webinar Series on Service Management

I'll be hosting a webinar series on service management coming up in October if you're interested in ways to make your technology act more businesslike.  The series is a prequel to IBM's big annual Pulse event at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas next quarter.  The three webinar presentations will come from experts at generationE and IBM and will cover automating service management, service quality management, and the service desk of the future.  The first call is on October 8. For a full description and the registration page, see the link here.

More on the OODA Loop (and Presidential Candidates)

Here's an interesting piece by Charlie Martin in The American Thinker related to my last post on the OODA Loop.  That's right, McCain was a fighter pilot too... and evidently one with a tight combat envelope.

Judgment, Leadership, and the OODA Loop

Heard a great presentation this week at the Technology Executives Network from Major Matt Tracy, USMC, a decorated officer with some recent combat experience, notably in Haditha.  One of his main points had to do with the OODA Loop popularized by fighter pilot (Col) John Boyd in the 80's.  

Tracy is by current MOS (profession in civilian-speak) a recruiter, but his premise was that this kind of fast, ultra-dynamic, guerilla-warfare mindset is highly valuable in the corporate marketplace as well.  I also appreciated his emphasis on character in both worlds, which you would expect from an officer in the corps of course.

Making good decisions involves exceptional judgment and a willingness to take responsibility for them (as opposed to being hired as an axe-man to carry out a RIF and then skating off with a big cash bonus from Houston). Good judgment is not leadership though. Great leadership inspires ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And it is much more rare.

And because of that unfortunate paucity, (have you noticed?) people are sometimes put in management positions who have more judgment than leadership. Let's avoid that when we can.

Miraculous (or just remarkable)?

What's miraculous is hard to define and it's certainly subjective, but a lot of miracles and personal sacrifices seem to go largely unnoticed.  Which should make them all the more remarkable to us when we do recognize them - and let someone know we appreciate their work to make something extraordinary happen.  It doesn't take much folks, and it's part of good leadership.  

(OK, I'm jumping down from my soapbox now, but I do think this is important - and too easy to pass up.)

What's that snazzy new icon?

I understand some people are just going to be loyal to one browser.  For better or worse, I'm finding things that work better on each of three or four now.  The new Google browser has some easy-to-appreciate smoothness and seems to be at least as fast as Safari - and it comes with its own nifty (if a bit lengthy) cartoon...

I like the idea of rolling this out and having a mammoth userbase for a more thorough beta.  Possibly an idea to be adopted with the release of the Android phone.  There's a great article by Ed Catmull in the September Harvard Business Review about how Pixar realized that operating different areas of its business with differing standards was "bad for its soul."