I have seen quite a bit of debate on what is the cloud?  Does it exist? etc.  I choose not to delve into this discussion for this post as there is no clear way to articulate the definition of the cloud that won’t cause disagreements from most everyone I know.  Instead, I am simply going to suggest a book

Cloud by Timothy Chou.  I had a chance to see him present.  He gets it.  He can explain it.  If you don’t get it but need to articulate it by his book and you will be kilometers ahead of those around you.

In the meantime . . .

As mentioned, in an earlier post,  I was going to offer to write some definitions for http://www.interaction-design.org.  Well, they kindly agreed to let me write a definition on chunking.  Read it here

(http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/chunking.html)

 Up next . . . an entry on Information Architecture.

I have been working steadily on customer driven content architectures; you know the information systems that allow people to choose the what, where, and when of how content is delivered to them. 

I wonder if the ever popular user-centric content model is a good or bad thing.  On the one hand,  I really like the ability to customize my Google homepage, bloglines, etc to deliver the exact content that I want to read and see.  On the other hand, I am beginning to realize that I have created a myopic community of information that supports my delusions of grandeur.   Subconsciously, I choose the information I want to see and hear.  There are fewer opportunities for me to come across those random and often divergent opinions presented in a less interactive medium such as television.

This is definitley a problem orginating between the chair and the keyboard and not a problem caused by customer driven content models.  But it still makes me wonder if others are unwittingly encircling themselves in agrreable communities rather than venturing into the unkown where they will be truly challenged.

• Reduce cost
• Increase revenue
• Increase profit (reduce cost and increase revenue)

Also, I stated that my preference is to work with customers where the end architecture meets the third criteria.  Some would argue that this is a career limiting statement.   Many projects that require architecture either reduce cost or increase revenue but rarely both.  So why would I give up potential business in order to meet the third criteria. 
Well in defense of my position, let’s consider who is happy when you reduce cost, who is happy when you increase revenue, and who is happy when you increase profit.

Who is happy when you reduce cost?
The lines of business, the CFO, and to a certain extent wise investors are happy when a company reduces operating expenses (opex). For most people in these types of positions success is measured in how much money they save the company.  So logic would follow that if you reduce opex; then you improve the overall health of the organization.

While the above is true my experience has taught me that cost reduction is not sexy and investors (and therefore the CEO) like sexy.  When you reduce cost you improve the bottom line but you do not grow the company.  Growth is sexy.  When an investor looks at an organization’s scorecard they want to see  growth.     Of course a reduction in cost is important but many investors are willing to accept a short period of increasing cost if it leads to growth.  Indeed, consider how many successful dot com companies spent a decade in the red.  But because they showed consistent growth, they continued to woo investors. 
Here are the issues you will face if your IA project only focuses on reducing opex:

• The budgets are smaller often too small for the expected end results.  
• Projects are subject to cancellation.  As budget runs out or priorities shift these
• projects are often shelved. 
• These projects take second place to projects that promise growth.  As a result, you will always be second in line when trying to gain access to resources.

Who is happy when you increase revenue?
No one is arguing that cost savings are not important but it is just not as sexy as double digit growth.  Growth encourages investors to buy stock and to a certain extent motivates customers to buy more product or services lest they be left behind the newest/greatest trend.  

That said there are still some real challenges when dealing with projects that focus on revenue.  Ironically, one of the biggest issues I face is cost control.  Revenue generating projects often come out of sales or marketing and there are some real mavericks in these areas.  They have the skill and spin to justify almost any expenditure.  However, the promised outcomes are often unrealistic and when the project fails to meet expectations, they will blame the architecture/solution. 
Also, revenue generating projects are often pushed from the top down.  They are “forced” on the lines of business (LOB) without regards to resource availability or cost to the LOB .  This can lead to resistance from the LOB which in turn leads to an uncomfortable working environment and project delays.

Who is happy when you increase profit?
Everybody is happy when you increase profit.  The lines of businesses are happy because they are meeting their cost saving objectives.  The CEO is happy because the investors are happy with the new found growth.  The customer is indirectly happy because they feel confident buying products and services from a company that has a long future. 

In essence you get the best of everything when you decrease opex and increase.  revenue. You become empowered.  You become empowered to design an architecture that can win the support of the executives (because it generates revenue) and the lines of business (because it allows them to meet their commitments for reducing cost).  With all the parties on board you reduce the chance of internal strife allowing you to complete an architecture quicker and more efficently.  
In part III of this blog, I will provide some examples of projects that help increase profit.   And more importantly, I will discuss how you can position almost any project so that it can both reduce opex and increase revenue.  Indeed, sometimes all it takes is a little creative positioning to make everybody see the light.

“Technically sound / well-trained bodies” by ZDNet‘s Michael Krigsman — Discussions of offshore software development often reference cultural, communication, timezone, and language issues. Prashanth Rai, author of the CIO-Reinvented blog, raises a subtler and less discussed problem: the role of business maturity and sophistication in producing great software: One of the problems in the industry currently is that lot of the Indian IT Services companies are [...]

The best part of this post was the four conditions he presented that define success:

1. The finished software meets planned specifications, with a reasonable level of quality
2. The project is completed more or less on time and budget
3. The software solves the business problem for which it was intended
4. Users adopt the software, preventing the project from failing by obscurity (as described here)

I am going to adopt these four points as part of my mantra and hopefully (if time allows) expand on each of these four points from my perspective.

I have a love hate with the concept of chunking primarily because it is often misunderstood and misused by many information architects.  Indeed, even as I am finishing-up my in-depth research, I find my own understanding of the definition changing. I guess that is the beauty of discovery.

In any case, I hope to have the definition completed in about thirty days.  Once it is approved by the editors at Interaction-Design.org , I will post a link.

I didn’t bother pointing this out to him because I suspected he would respond with some idealistic quip demonstrating that having lots of money doesn’t make you “rich”.

In the business world, where I try to ply my trade as an information architect, money and not love is the primary motivator.   For most companies, there is a strong desire to be rich even at the expense of happiness.  This does not mean that business owners don’t love their business.   Rather, without money, love is an ill-afforded luxury. 

The need and desire for a business to make money is a cold and hard truth.  It is a reality that has taken me a long time to accept.  This is because I am a dreamer.  I believe that beautiful design, proper security, and fully functioning software should be the end goal regardless of cost.  Moreover, the practice of information architecture is my latest and longest mistress . I love her in every way. I love every geeky, uncool, and boring facet about her and I believe that information architecture should be practiced with purity.

 In the past, these “feelings” would make me approach designs with arrogance and inflexibility.  Every design I would build was based on “best practices” or astute design principles.  My designs were, dare I say, brilliant.  They were incredible.  If awards were given out for the purity of information architecture, I would have been a nominee every year.  However, there was a problem. . Cost.   They were too expensive. 

 It was at this point in my career that I learned that Cost is a powerful factor when building information architectures.  With this lesson learned,  I now believe that every architecture you create must meet one of three cost factors:  

• Reduce Cost
• Increase Revenue
• Increase Profit (Increase revenue and reduce cost)

From my perspective, I will only produce designs and work on projects that increase profit.    This may seem a little egotistical but my past experience has shown me that increasing profit more than any of the other factors is a guarantee that a project will find success and that the customer will invite you back again and again.  I will discuss this in more detail in part II of this blog entry.  I will also discuss some of the ways I have “modified” my practice of information architecture to ensure I can achieve the desired factor (profit) while reducing the number of impurities that are introduced to the architectures I develop.

As a result, I added the all-in-one SEO pack for WordPress and I am happy to say that after a couple of weeks of religiously using the SEO pack, my blog now appears at the top of any Google search for “Martin Harrod”.   

 This may or may not be a result of the SEO pack but regardless I would highly recommend this plug-in for all WordPress users.  At the very least, it is one less thing to worry about.

Nevertheless, just before I left I re-discovered the beauty of O’Reilly Safari books online. 

I used to subscribe to this service when I was spending more time writing code but it has been several years since I last used it.   I have to say I find the service much improved.  The search function is more flexible and the ”print fidelity view” makes reading the text much more enjoyable. 

The pricing is reasonable and unless you are going to use Safari as your sole reference source I would suggest that you subscribe to the Basic 10-slot membership. As a side note,  I also have a subscription to books 24×7  (paid by my employer) but the quality of the books is not even close to the ones on Safari. 

In short, O’Reilly Safari Books Online is one tool I am glad to have back in my information architecture  arsenal.