It’s like working in an Encyclopaedia

Posted on 2013/05/11 by markjowen

Everyday I am truly in awe.

I work in an open-plan office where there are developers, designers, hardware people, project managers, business analysts and a few who I am not sure what they do.

It’s a great work environment, and one that I have found to be incredibly educational.

Because it is open-plan,and because all the developers, designers, hardware people, project managers, and business analysts are so passionate and enthusiastic about what they do, I get to sit in on some very interesting discussions (Hell, sometimes I’m almost able to contribute something useful to the conversations.)

A great example is the other day. In that one day I was able to listen to two designers talk with passion about design techniques, as well as some of the new technology available. Then I was involved with a group of business analysts discussing a successful project that had taken place. Later that day I was able to follow another passionate discussion related to UI design, and usability. And then I had a chance to sit in on a debate between two developers on the benefits, and downsides, of Scrum and Kanban.

I always left these discussions feeling like i had just been watching a TED talk, or had been reading through an Encyclopaedia.

The Tragic Circle

Posted on 2013/02/20 by markjowen

Word of the day…

filiopietism

- The Lesson of the Monkeys

The Power of Comic Books!!

Posted on 2013/02/17 by markjowen

Wow!

Comic Books are fun!

They are a great visual medium. And they are a great way to tell a story.

One of Jorge Cham’s latest editions in his PhD comic series is on an interview that was held with Keegan Lannon at Comic-Con. Keegan is a PhD student and is studying “the narrative of comic books“. (Yep – it seems that Comic-Con has an intellectual side.)

This edition struck me on many levels:

The Content

Keegan describes his study. It’s on how comic books tell stories. “What does the mind do as it scans across the page and sees all the words, and put something together. What can we learn about information and communicative process by the way narratives tell stories.”

Keegan has even created a Taxonomy of Word Functions in Comics:

Neurolingustic Text – Speech/Thought bubbles
Sound Effects – Motivated/Unmotivated
Narrative Text – Intra/Extradiegetic
Printed Text - Consequential/Incidental

Keegan provides an interesting description of the difference between films, books and comics.

One fascinating thing that resonated with me was the observation that Keegan made about the power of a graphic. People can write many, many words to describe something, when a good graphic and a caption can be just as powerful.

The Presentation

The way that Jorge put this edition together is amazing. Instead of just having a film of the interview, he made amazing use of various ways to present the information.

Jorge uses different ways of capturing various topics into panels. He also emphasises main points by adding speech bubbles, as well as extra drawings.

What could of been a mildly interesting way of capturing information from a PhD student is turned into something very, very captivating!

It’s a well spent 4 minutes and 43 seconds!

What should I do now? A bedtime story about dialogue mapping

Posted on 2013/01/20 by markjowen

Reblogged from Eight to Late:

It was about half past eight in the evening a couple of weeks ago; I was sitting at my computer at home, writing up some notes for a blog post on issue mapping.

“What are you drawing?” asked my eight year old, Rohan. I hadn’t noticed him. He had snuck up behind me quietly, and was watching me draw an IBIS map.

Carl’s obstacles revisited

Posted on 2013/01/17 by markjowen

In one of my earlier posts I talked about my friend Carl. If you recall that earlier post, Carl was full of great ideas, and had passion and enthusiasm. This passion and enthusiasm, however, was just not harnessed in the right way. End result…Carl was despondent and feeling depressed. He ended up leaving his employer, which was a pity.

Forbes have published an article that lists 10 mistakes big companies make when it comes to keeping their talented staff. Looking at these, most of them seemed to apply to Carl. Namely:

1. You Failed To Unleash Their Passions: Carl was passionate about what he was doing. This was not recognised.

2. You Failed To Challenge Their Intellect: Carl was given a slap on the wrist for “doing the wrong thing”, and was relegated to mundane tasks that did not stimulate his intellect at all.

3. You Failed To Engage Their Creativity: Carl was looking for new ways of doing things. He was trying to be innovative. He was told to stop “thinking outside the box.”

4. You Failed To Develop Their Skills: Not getting any support from his managers, Carl was attempting to develop his skills himself. This was perceived as “wasting time”.

5. You Failed To Give Them A Voice: Carl had ideas. No-one listened to them though.

6. You Failed To Care: At one stage, Carl really enjoyed his job. He worked hard, and often (at least in his eyes) went “above and beyond”. He knew that it was about ‘give and take’. He didn’t expect to be rewarded, but was hoping to get a little bit of respect.

7. You Failed to Lead:Carl was not getting the leadership that he needed. In the end – he tried to use his initiative to find his own way.

8. You Failed To Recognize Their Contributions:

9. You Failed To Increase Their Responsibility: In Carl’s situation, his responsibilities actually decreased. This had a big impact of Carl’s morale.

10. You Failed To Keep Your Commitments:

The above-mentioned “mistakes” are the ones that really capture the frustration that Carl was experiencing. Also read the original Forbes article for an extended explanation.

10 Reasons Your Top Talent Will Leave You (forbes.com)
Courage, Failure, & Leadership (intagreat.wordpress.com)
15 Ways To Identify Bad Leaders (forbes.com)

PMBOK or PRINCE2 ... which one is better?

Posted on 2012/07/24 by markjowen

Reblogged from Project Management in Practice:

I often see debates on project management forums on LinkedIn, blogs and even at the water cooler around the office regarding what project management methodology is best. I have often wondered about the wisdom of such discussions. The two that are always compared are PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) and PRINCE2 (Projects in Controlled Environments…

The Confessions of a Linguist

Posted on 2012/07/24 by markjowen

People! Lets try and keep it correct…

The Confessions of a Linguist.

How do I influence to get the desired behaviour?

Posted on 2012/05/03 by markjowen

Reblogged from Project Management in Practice:

I attended a training by an industrial psychologist Keith McGregor covering topics on why people behave the way they do and how to use strategies to get the outcome that you desire. For the first few hours, I was thinking this is a total waste of time. By the end of the second day, I had changed my mind. While I am still not convinced about the entire content of what was presented, I did take away some strategies to help me get the outcomes I want from my project team members.

Promise #11 – FirstDoc and D2

Posted on 2012/03/28 by markjowen

Refer: 14 Unfulfilled Promises

Background

In my post “FirstDoc & D2″ I told you all (breathlessly) that there was going to be a webinar where CSC were going to discuss their plans regarding EMC’s D2 interface.

Verdict

Unable to Fulfil Due to a family commitment I was unable to attend this webinar. I had contacted with some people at CSC beforehand to to see if it would be recorded. The answer I got was “Yes”, but since then I have been advised that, because of the commercially sensitive nature of the webinar, it wasn’t. I certainly understand that that decision has been made. As such, though, I am not able to actually deliver on this promise.