I read with interest this morning Dave Kearn’s last missive from Network World - Has OpenID lost its mojo.  I share Dave’s concern about OpenID, but I don’t think its lost its mojo.  There are plenty of site using OpenID and it is spreading.  Yes, there are lots of people using Facebook, but in my network I have not encountered a single person or entity using it.  I have high hopes that Hardt’s move to MSFT will be a positive step for both Infocards and OpenID.

Here’s wishing that 2009 will be the year that digital identity management really takes off and we can have platform interoperability and true data portability that allows the individual to be 100% in control of their digitial identity.

Retaining mature workers key to holding off job shortages

As I was reading this article (linked above) it struck me that the issues and tactics outlined to retaining mature workers really are the same that are needed to retain less mature (mature = older, less mature = younger).

The five steps outlined are relevant to all workers, not just older workers.  Employees desire to be connected, engaged, appreciated, and fairly compensated.  In return they will provide appropriate value and expand the organizations capabilities and collective knowledge.  The accomodations outlined for older workers are the same that will attract and retain younger workers - flexible schedules, training, etc.

Why do these supposed “experts” feel the need to create these artificial and incendiary classifications between generations?  This approach is divisive and counter productive.  We live in a connected world that is cross cultural and trans generational.  This calls for connectedness not generational segregation.

I’ve been catching up with my reading and came across this item on Lotus Notes at TechCrunch.  It really was a fair treatment of Lotus Notes.

As an early adopter, implementer, evangelist, consultant, author and builder of Notes applications I’ve always been a bit partial to it.  I believe that even today it is a fundamentally better platform than Microsoft Exchange (it takes more than Exchange/Outlook to equal Notes built-in capabilities). 

What Lotus/IBM failed to do was understand that an intuitive User Interface is key to keeping the users happy.  We can’t forget that command and control IT management also had a hand in diminishing the users perception of Notes.

In the early days of Notes users were actually allowed to build their own applications; that was before IT management decided that users were mucking up their stuff.  Well, here we are in the Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media era and the users don’t know how powerful Notes is and how it can do most everything they want in 2.0/Social Media. 

IBM has updated the UI in version 8.0, but will users be handed back the keys and allowed to use the tool to its fullest potential?

I was thinking about a behaviour I’ve encountered over the years.  That behaviour is something I have come to call Ballistic Jelly (gelatin) Management.

Ballistic Jelly Management happens when a layer of management (I won’t use the term leadership for obvious reasons) charged with translating vision into action fails to make the translation.

The visual is a familiar one to those that watch any of the CSI television programs.  The bullet shot from a gun found at a crime scene into a block of ballistic gelatin and stopped with relative ease before it can escape to the jelly.

This layer of management that should be the translator of senior management vision to the organization just can’t seem to do it.  Instead of showing leadership the Ballistic Jelly Managers act just like ballistic jelly, stopping the vision before it can spread.  I’ve seen this happen mostly in “old school” command and control type organizations where the leadership is trying to changed the organization into one that is more collaborative with open lines of communication in all directions.

Perhaps it is a generational thing or just self preservation.  I think it is more often an inability to fully grasp the vision and personally apply it.  It really is hard for some people to change from an information hoarding to a fully transparent information sharing mindset.

It really is a profoundly sad thing to see this happen.