30 years of success behind us; looking forward to more exciting changes ahead

It’s hard to believe that 2010 marks SWC’s 30th year in business. Technology is constantly evolving, so we’ve seen many changes over the years. But some things never change—like our commitment to delivering technology solutions that drive value for our clients in any economy.

Our industry changes so quickly that it becomes more challenging every day for organizations to keep up—today’s best practice or solution evolves almost as quickly as the technology.  That’s why we’re more committed than ever to hiring the best IT professionals in the industry, providing our customers with deep expertise across solutions.

We have a tremendous amount of gratitude toward our customers for choosing SWC—we are honored to celebrate these 30 years of success with you. We also appreciate our employees, who make our business successful from the inside out. We’re glad to have every one of you on our team.

We look forward to the next 30+ years.

 A little while back I told my marketing team that I wanted to launch a video series. Something unique and clever, I said. Something more than just the predictable, infomercial dribble that seems to ooze from every pore of our industry, I said. Something more down to earth, in the weeds, that sort of thing, like a talk show.  And I could be the host.

They had questions. 

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

“Camera adds ten pounds…”

“I’ve got good bone structure,” I replied.

“Do you have a topic in mind?” they asked.

“Not yet….But it needs to be something big….but real.”  I squared my forefingers and thumbs and held them over my right eye like a viewfinder.

“Can you dig it?”

Crickets…

“OK, we can talk about show topics later,” I said.  “Who wants bubble water?”

And there you have it. The story of how SWC’s new video series “Out of the Box” was born. Join us for our first installment as we discuss today’s crazy economy, technical innovation and entrepreneurial guts with MVTRAC President Scott Jackson. Watch it and let us know what you think!

Software developers are a unique breed. We love to think in abstract terms. Many of us are more comfortable communicating in Java than in English. It’s a sign of a truly advanced civilization that software developers have been put to meaningful work rather than sequestered from the rest of society.

If you read my previous post, you know that I am passionate about writing software on a human scale. This means writing software that serves the user, rather than forcing the user to conform to the software. There are lots of hurdles that developers must navigate to achieve this ideal. The first is probably obvious: how to get started.

Let’s follow Maria Von Trapp’s advice in “The Sound of Music” and start at the very beginning. Before we write a single line of code, we need to have clear answers to some very basic questions. A good way to approach those basic questions is to use the classic “Five W’s” that we all learned in school: Who, What, Where, Why, When and How. Here is a quick primer on how this applies to initiating software projects:

Functional Requirements:
WHAT must the software do?
These are the “Must Haves.” Come up with a list of 5 – 10 bullet points that enumerate what the software must do to be successful. If the list gets longer than this, the project should probably be broken into smaller iterations.

WHY is it important?
These are the “Must NOT Haves.” Summarize 3 – 5 problems (as reported by the users) that will be addressed by this software. Are there things they can’t do that they need to accomplish?  Are there things that are harder than they should be?  Are their customers complaining about issues or missing functionality?

Resource requirements:
WHO is required to be successful?

• Developers and other technical experts
• Project managers
• Business domain experts 
• End users  and customers

WHERE will the project work be done?
Do not make assumptions about the geographic location of any resources (human or technical). Cultural differences abound across environments, organizations and people on the development and implementation side. Assumptions about any of these differences can often make or break a project.

WHEN will the software be ready for the user?
This will likely be a moving target as information changes. Start somewhere with your best guess. It’s much easier to alter project timelines as you go than to shoot for vague or unspecified targets.

Experience requirements
HOW will all these other questions and answers be integrated?
This is the last question you should ask yourself. As you review the Five W’s, you should have a clear enough view of the significant details that you can say with confidence, “This is how we should approach this problem.”

Over the next few posts, I’ll unpack these a bit and discuss how we can use basic journalistic techniques to learn what we need to know to get started. In the meantime, what questions would you add to this list? How is my approach similar (or not) to your approach?

Are you old enough to remember when Disney World handed out ticket books for the rides? Each ticket had a letter–A, B, C, D or E–and was valid for one ride. ”A” tickets were for the least interesting rides, while ”E” tickets were for the best, most exciting rides like Space Mountain. Of course each booklet had way more ”A” tickets than “E” tickets. 

I can still picture my parents flipping through our ticket books, counting how may E’s we had left.  Should we ride Space Mountain again? Or wait to see if the line for Pirates of the Caribbean would go down? At the end of the day, we would ride the horse-drawn streetcar up and down Main Street several times. We always had B tickets to burn.

They got rid of those tickets a long time ago (1982 according to Wikipedia), but I still remember what it felt like the first time I realized I could ride Space Mountain as many times as I wanted. As a roller coaster-loving 11-year-old, it was pure joy.  I remember standing in line with my brother for our umpteenth blast-off and talking about what a great idea it was to get rid of tickets. “Why didn’t they do this sooner?” I wondered aloud. “It makes so much sense to let people ride the rides they want to ride when they want to ride them.”

I was a real philosopher, huh?

What I couldn’t have understood at the time was that keeping tens of thousands of visitors fairly evenly disbursed across a park of that size is a logistical nightmare. The simplest solution is to give people limited access to the best rides. In other words, force the guests to use the park in a way that works best for Disney.

The lettered ticket system was replaced by an intricate system of electronic passes and limited-availability tickets.  I can’t begin to imagine how complex the system was to develop. But it works; it’s fairly amazing, actually. And I still get to ride Space Mountain as much as I want.

In my experience with software projects, I too often find myself tempted to take the B-Ticket approach. I want to avoid the complexities of giving a user the experience they want. At times, it’s a budget concern. Other times, there are technical issues. 

The more I design software, the more I find myself wanting to create systems that operate on a human scale. Ultimately, software must work for people; not the other way around! To create a useful tool, the user’s desires must be the primary concern whenever possible. In the real world, technical hurdles and budget constraints sometimes force us to compromise. If the user’s ideal solution isn’t viable, the compromise must be just that–a compromise.

A solution should be crafted that finds the closest fit to the user’s ideal rather than the easiest for the developer. People want to ride Space Mountain, not the Mike Fink Keel Boats. Herding people where they don’t want to go may address overcrowding.  But the rides exist for the riders, not the other way around.

In this blog, I’ll be tossing out thoughts about how to write software that operates on a human scale. Please post your own thoughts and comments. There are as many ways to solve software problems as there are users. The more conversation we get going, the more we’ll all benefit. And the more our users will benefit.

Incidentally, if you happen to be a great lover of Mike Fink Keel Boats, please accept my apology for my flippant disregard.  Ride them to your heart’s content. That means one less person in front of me at Space Mountain.

I have four kids. Four strong-willed children that relentlessly pursue my attention at the risk of any ramification it may have on my sanity or their freedom. Typically the exchange involves me focusing on a very important task that requires my full attention. It is then, when I am completely consumed in whatever I am doing, perhaps repairing the broken pipes underneath the bathroom sink, when I will be politely interrupted by my daughter asking me when my wife and I got married. Not the date, mind you. The exact time.

“I don’t remember,” I say, lying on my back, cramped under the sink with a thin spray of water dancing over my face.

“How can you not remember?” she says. ” It was when you got married.”

“I just don’t remember,” I say.

“We’ll that’s unacceptable.  I’m telling Mommy.”

At times like this, it occurs to me that my children need attention in much the same way as today’s mid-market business.

Wait for it.

The truth is that garnering publicity (a.k.a. attention) can be a relatively elusive challenge for today’s mid-market business. At times, getting the eye of a reporter can be largely dependent on who you know as much as what you have to say. This challenge has only gotten harder as the Internet has all but eviscerated the newspaper industry. Large publications have had to make significant cutbacks to staff, which has left the remaining writers with little time to explore new angles.  The result is a predictable dribble of content, which is largely cast by the usual suspects and in grossly unimaginative form.  I mean, seriously, do the vast majority of Chicagoland’s business leaders really care about constant reporting of the most inane dysfunctions at Motorola?

As a local business person, I am interested in learning about those companies in Chicago that are driving new markets through innovation or creative action.  I want to know how other companies are using technology to help them survive or even thrive in what is being called the “Great Recession.”

A perfect example of leveraging technology to create a market (let alone market share) comes from my friends (and client) over at MVTrac.  At the moment, MVTrac is turning the auto-repossession industry upside down using high-speed digital cameras. In essence, MVTrac equips today’s “repo-men” with electronic plate-reading systems so that the recovery of wanted cars can happen at efficiency levels that are exponential to the past. There is so much more to the MVTrac story and unlike so many mid-sized businesses, they have actually found some press.  Read this article from the New York Times to learn more.

Every week I meet with organizations like MVTrac that have a great technology story. Unfortunately for so many of them, the press remains elusive.  I hope that things change. I hope that our local media will look past the “usual suspects” and highlight the truly great technology stories that are all around us.

A little more than two years ago, I moved my family into an old farm house. At the time there were a whole bunch of reasons for the move but at the top of the list was simply the fact that the old home had character. From the iron wind gauge on the top of the roof to the rustic tire swing that hung from the front yard apple tree, there was simply a whole bunch of little things that collectively made me feel as if the place had a lot to share. Of course, the house–constructed shortly after the Civil War–has had a lot of time to collect its possessions.

I have always been smitten with the home’s origins, which in short is about a carpenter who returns home from war and builds his wife and daughters a home. Every once in a while, if my kids catch me at the wrong moment, they can end up bearing the brunt of my fascination. The other day my youngest son found me in the basement staring at our stone foundation.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Did you know that these stones were put here right after the Civil War,” I said dramatically, as if the stones had actually fought in the war itself.

He sort of shook his head and went back upstairs.

Typically speaking, my children fail to appreciate the novelty of our home and even today wonder why they gave up the modern conveniences of 20th century architecture. But, for me, there is something that is simply awesome about the old house. I can’t help feeling that it represents so much of what is missing in today’s fast paced, over-stimulated world. The care, detail and sheer thoroughness of how the home was built is meant to be examined and respected. Just the fact that the home stands as solidly today as it has for nearly a century and a half is a testimony to the individuals that were part of its construction. It does not seem hard to imagine the pride and commitment these tradesmen had for their craft, business and community. I am certain that for these folks there was a clear understanding of the correlation between reputation and success.

Every week I get the chance to meet with a host of companies. It is without a doubt one of the most interesting elements to my job. Like fingerprints or zebra stripes, no two companies are exactly the same but in some ways what is common among successful companies is easily identified. Certainly, among all of them is a solid foundation. Strong building blocks that everything else can rest upon. In business, a foundation is not built on stones but on principles that provide a clear understanding that there is no substitute for hard work, pride and commitment.

There’s always more to success, but it has to start somewhere. For me, the basics seem like a good beginning.

I wear many hats in my career at SWC.  The two that I’m most comfortable with are the Database Administrator (DBA) and Business Intelligence hats.  Today, however, I learned a valuable lesson about flexibility and points of view–and that sometimes you have to take off the DBA hat when analyzing a problem.

Here’s the lowdown on the situation: one of my new DBA Services customers had an issue with their primary ERP database.  We discovered that the database had some data corruption issues. My kneejerk  reaction was to take the 24/7 system offline for a few hours and fix the corruption with a repair operation that required all user connections to be dropped.  It’s a valid, logical solution to this technical problem: the database has corruption and the corruption could get worse or perhaps even become un-recoverable if nothing was done.  But the situation was not that simple: taking the system down for emergency maintenance would disrupt the company’s delivery service to thousands of customers nationwide. So on the one hand, we have a system at risk; on the other, we have many people dependent on the uptime and availabilty of that system.  What to do?

After more than 13 years in this industry, I know that good consultants don’t make recommendations without having the maximum amount of details on the problems as well as analyzing the risks and rewards of all the potential solutions. So I set my DBA knowledge and best practices aside and went back to the database to dig for more information.  How bad was the corruption?  Was it in many tables?  Was it bigger than table corruption?  What specifically was bad?  After additional research, I discovered that the corruption was affecting two tables and the tables were not mission critical, so an alternative solution was to fix the two tables and do the repair while online.  By taking a step back and analyzing the problem in more detail, I found a solution that resolved the issue with no downtime.

It was a great reminder that applying technical solutions to technical problems also requires thinking through the impact of potential solutions on my customer’s operations. Tech smart and business smart are two different hats.  Good consultants need a firm grasp of both to be successful!

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans was particularly rewarding for SWC this year, because we just received the Microsoft Central Region Partner Marketing Excellence Award for fiscal year 2009. This is a significant honor… SWC was selected as the winner from a field that encompasses approximately 6,000 partner firms in the 18-state Central Region.

The Marketing Excellence Award honors the Microsoft partner that consistently improves its practices and processes, and that builds on Microsoft’s initiatives to deliver outstanding value in reaching customers and helping them solve their business challenges using Microsoft technology.

We place tremendous value on our partnership with Microsoft, and it’s great to be recognized for our work. Our team has accomplished some stellar results in 2009, and it is most definitely noticed… by Microsoft, by us at SWC and by our customers. Thanks, everyone, for making this honor possible.