Conduce Group Blog

Email Security

Greig Schofield — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:28:19 GMT

We have now migrated all our hosted messaging services to Websense Hosted Messaging Security.

Traditionally we have run our own systems and a hosted third party screening platform. Whilst this worked well, we often found that the system maintenance was a high burden and the product itself, developed by a third party was often buggy leading to availability issues.

We had the infrastructure to support, but if the application crashed sporadically during the evening a firefight would ensue.

After a long think, we decided to switch applications to a different vendor, choosing Websense. We then had another decision......do we host ourselves, or do we outsource..... ?

We have an outstanding hosting setup, located across 2 high quality ISO accredited disparate Tier 2 Datacentres, but we felt best that Websense have the facilities, setup and knowledge to host their own product. This was also cost decision, weighing up the options it was more cost effective to outsource to a SaaS solution rather than using our own time, resources and equipment.

Generally this is the direction of IT at present, cloud computing, elasticity and SaaS solutions arent just buzz words, they make real sense.

So what do we now do ?

We will manage and administrate the solution from start to finish, without having the burden of a buggy application and a server farm to stabliise !

Well, we are now a Websense channel partner and you can purchase any of the Websense range from us at a considerable discount from RRP.

We will also consult and manage the transistion from your existing Email Security Solution to Websense Hosted Messaging.

Once setup, we will be happy to administrate the solution, implementing policies, settings filters etc and customising the environment to suit your needs as a business. Spam is a fine art, we have been dealing with it for years! Whilst the threats change and evolve, we still need to know how to stop it and that we are confident of.

If you would like any further information regarding Websense Hosted Messaging, and what we can do to help, please feel free to get in touch, g.schofield@conduce.net .

TV Licensing Follow Up

Paul Saunders — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:20:11 GMT

This morning, as part of my usual daily routine I checked out the Google Analytic stats for the Conduce website and there was a noticeable spike in traffic to the blog yesterday. This was particularly strange.... You normally would see such peaks in visitor numbers on and around days when we have posted a successful blog entry or news item, but never on a day like yesterday. We were busy at the Farnborough airshow and working on a number of external projects - so there was no new content on our website at all this week.

A bit of delving of visitor details, referring sites and content stats soon provided some clues. By far the most popular page yesterday was the blog item I posted last week about the TV Licensing website. In my inbox I also had a reply back from the TV Licensing website itself from the query I submitted at the time of posting my blog item. I wanted to commend the people behind the TV License website and make them aware of my thoughts.

TV LICENSING

BRISTOL

BS98 1TL

Email: enquiries@TVLicensing.co.uk

Our Ref: TVL19275135

20/07/2010

Dear Mr Saunders

The "web development team" are very pleased with the feedback.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Yours sincerely

TV Licensing

We had a significant amount of traffic from the Newcastle area yesterday and a number of referrals from Think.eu. So a quick peruse of the Think.eu website and I had my answer. These guys were indeed behind the TV Licensing site, are based in Newcastle and it seems had my commendation passed on to them. Back when they launched the TV Licensing site in May they wrote a news article themselves here: http://www.think.eu/latest/posts/redesigned-tv-licensing-website.aspx

So what does this teach us? Well, if you didn't know it already, Google Analytics is a fantastic tool that, if you have the right detective skills, can tell you all kinds of things about who's been looking at your website. Also, if you write something nice about someone or something it's worth making the effort to let them know about it.

How to Make Simpler MRO Software: Part 3

Paul Saunders — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:21:44 GMT

This is the third part of a series of suggestions about what can be done to start making software for the aerospace MRO industry simpler. So far I have discussed being more open and the importance of User Experience (UX). Today I want to discuss how MRO software developers interact with their customers and in particular saying “no”.

Part 3: Learn to say “No”
I have spent my entire working life dealing with customers in one way or another. I’d like to think I’m quite customer focussed. Even whilst working in internally facing IT departments I always have treated those to whom I am providing a service as a client and it has usually served me well over the years. I think this comes from my teenage jobs in the retail industry… specifically selling Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)… that’s being a barman in layman’s terms.

I was always taught that the “the customer is king” and of course that “the customer is always right”…. Those two rules along with the fact that you should never discuss politics or religion with customers and “first impressions last” are business rules that I learnt as an impressionable 18 year old that I have never, ever questioned… until recently.

This year I picked up a book called Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson and in there was a chapter entitled “Say No by Default”. The chapter begins with a quote by Henry Ford:

“If I’d listened to customers I’d have given them a faster horse”

They go on to discuss the integrity of your product and that customers should not be allowed to interfere with your vision. They provide examples where this has proved commercially successful or where it is downright obvious... like chefs for example. You wouldn’t expect a chef to change their lasagne recipe just because one or two pernickety patrons said it needed more bananas.

Although I squirmed a bit at first this message started to make sense… especially when there was a tech product involved. As I looked around I noticed more and more tech evangelists and successful creative types advocating a similar philosophy.

It got me thinking about all those times that I had argued with a client about a software feature but eventually graciously backed down, because they were the customer and had to be right…. No!! I was right all along, they were wrong! What do they know about software?? Idiots!! I’ve been brainwashed all these years….

Ok, maybe calling them idiots is taking it too far... there’s no need to be confrontational. I have learnt that bowing to every customer request is bad in so many ways.

Adding features adds complexity
Pretty obvious really: You make software simpler by removing, hiding or shrinking features. Therefore it follows that by adding features you are making it less simple. You run into the argument that it is only one additional field, one line of code etc etc what difference does it make? But as one Product Manager I know used to complain – “it’s just the thin end of the wedge”… where do you stop?

Quite right too…. I hereby apologise to any product owners and managers that used to despair when I rolled my eyes on hearing those words. Please know that I am deeply sorry: I have changed!!

In a recent discussion on the LinkedIn Aircraft Lifecycle Wikinomics Discussion board related to this thread my colleague Wayne Enis stated:

Most MRO software vendors don't have a huge pot of gold to design, develop & deploy a solution without a customer, nor should they. So a customer will play a significant role in the initial design process, the lead customer often ends up with an almost bespoke solution. Now, we talk about the MRO process, but whilst the start and end of the process may be the same across MRO's, the bit in the middle, where 99% of the work is done, can vary wildly between organisations. So, the second customer comes along and wants just a few changes to support their current processes and so on… For the MRO software vendor of today, this is marketed as a selling point, the fact that a new customer will benefit from 'industry best practice' of over 50 (or 60 or 70) other MRO's. In reality the software ends up bloated with features and functions that are only used by a few customers but end up being a distraction and confusion to all of the customers. It's at some point along this path that the software vendor thinks up the concept of 'switches' that can dictate how the system undertakes certain processes. Not just 1 or 2 switches that might dictate the use of process A or process B, or dictate using UI layout A or B; but 500+ switches that define much of the minutiae of how the system works under the hood. Whilst that sounds a perfect solution, nobody ever knows what the switches really do under the hood, and it becomes impossible to determine which switches can be used together (or which ones will cause problems if used together). From a QA perspective, it becomes impossible to test the system in all possible permutations. It is this level of complexity that makes the operation and usage of such systems so onerous.

There is a belief that designing software in this way is a customer focused design paradigm, incorporating the customer's requirements into the software model. But is that really the case? The customer may get what they want at the outset, i.e. a new field on the screen, or a new function in the system, but when that customer takes an upgrade in 12 months’ time and they get another 10 fields on the screen that other customers have asked for, and their new function works differently, how customer focused is that?

Manage Customer Expectations
So, you’ve decided that it’s a bad idea to cave in to every customer request and you’ve empowered your staff to say no, it is now vital that your customers are educated as to the reasons why you are refusing what to them seems like a perfectly logical and reasonable request. People can be surprisingly understanding about this way of working if you take time to explain to them your point of view and show willing to help the customer achieve a suitable way forward. This might mean a change of customer’s process; the development of an external tool (providing your software is open in the first place – see Part 1); or it could be that they take their problem elsewhere. You might even win them over to your way of thinking. In the end it is better for everyone that your product is not spoilt for the rest of your users by changing it for one customer.

Next week in the last part in this series I will be discussing Introspection in the MRO software industry.

Related Posts:
How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 2
How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 1
Why MRO Software isn't Simpler
Why isn’t MRO Software Simpler?

Great UX - TV Licensing

Paul Saunders — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:35:42 GMT

This week Wayne, our CIO and resident Arjen Robben look-a-like moved house so needed to update his TV License.

This morning he was raving about the TV License website and urged me to take a look. I have to agree that this is probably the best governmental website I have come across.

It has all the classic elements of simplicity and user experience. There’s loads of space, clear calls to action and redundant content has either been removed, hidden or shrunk. I’m a big fan of the design in that it is slick and modern, but degrades nicely across browsers. The two tone buttons, hashed backgrounds and comment shaped title bars seem to be a bit of a vogue lately. My only criticism of the landing page is that I detest stock images with people in them… so lose the lady in her show home bedroom and you’ve got 10 out of 10 from me.

When you get on to renewing or purchasing a license the interface is really neat. There are some nice little touches which make the user experience border on delightful especially for such an uninspiring product. I really like how most forms are pre-populated as much as possible. Most people buying a license will not be sight impared, over 75 or registered students, so these are the default options….

The microcopy is really clear and concise compared to most governmental sites and you can tell this site has had quite a lot of usability testing. One great touch is if you submit a form with empty mandatory fields. The feedback is really helpful – especially bearing in mind the type of users they might get visiting and using the site. As well as getting the missing fields flagged, you get a description of the problem at the top of the form container…..

The site definitely passes the “can my Mother use it” benchmark
I didn’t test the payment section although I’m told it is equally as polished. I couldn’t quite figure out who developed the site, but it appears to be the BBC web team…. In any case, bravo I’m really impressed. A great example of simplicity and surprisingly good UX.

How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 2

Paul Saunders — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:48:49 GMT

This is the second part of a series of suggestions about what can be done to start making software for the aerospace MRO industry simpler. In my last post I suggested that MRO software vendors should open up their code to third party developers. Today I am looking at the importance of User Experience.

Part 2: Outside-In Design
Aerospace MRO is a complex industry – I’m not debating that. I mean it’s not rocket science or brain surgery, but I’m told by those in the MRO software industry that its really really really complex. “Complex Cubed.” So it should follow that the tools utilised in MRO are also complex and to try and make them simpler would be…. well it would be just too simplistic.

Designers and developers of MRO software tools have no end of insurmountable problems to overcome. They can’t possibly be expected to worry about the user’s problems before their own. Therefore they often don’t worry about that. They expose the inner complexity of their software to the user and boast about how mind-blowingly complex it is… After all complexity adds value.

Of course I don’t actually believe those previous statements, hopefully I am exposing just how daft I would sound if I did believe what I’ve been told.
If Google had been made by a significant majority of MRO software vendors instead of being posed with a text entry field and a go button, you’d be given a map of its servers and asked how you’d like to load balance the search you’re about to perform; whether you want to filter results, include adverts, search nationally or internationally, include foreign languages, whether you want to be included in the various control or experimental testing groups, etc etc etc…. but it doesn’t work like that and this partly explains Google’s success.

Google conducts a series of simultaneous calculations in only a fraction of a second 300 million times a day. But you as a user don’t see any of that, and you probably don’t even begin to understand how Google works.

You just want to type in your search criteria and find the page you’re looking for. It just works – you don’t even need to think about it. If only MRO software could be like that.

Google takes a fantastically complex process and renders it simple for the average user by designing the interface from the outside-in rather than from the inside-out. The IT industry and other technology industries are littered with countless examples of successful outside-in design where a simple and delightful user experience has proven to be the best way of working, but still we are stricken by an MRO software industry that is obsessed with designing applications and interfaces from the inside-out.

“You are not designing for you, but designing for your users.”

MRO software often has a really sophisticated user interface, but I don’t know any that provides an awesome user experience. Mainstream enterprise level software users are surrounded by software. They use social media, they download apps to their phones, they use software and applications at home, on their PCs, their consoles and on devices in their home or car… they know what software they like and will consume software in the same way that they consume media. They will return to a particular application time and time again and build brand loyalty based on user experience. Equally they know what they don’t like and if they don’t have the patience or ability to articulate what the problem is they will give up or go elsewhere. Vendors of enterprise level software should pay attention to this fact and improve the user experience of their products.

If your software is bland, difficult to use and frustrates rather than delights then this will have detrimental effects on the software’s success. When users like software, they will use it more efficiently and more effectively, increasing productivity thus promoting a better return on investment, etc etc etc…. leading to future sales of your software…. ultimately leading to safer, more compliant aircraft and so on….

I’m not going to drill down into the details and theory of user experience design… this stuff is well documented with empirical evidence everywhere. If you want to know exactly what shade of green a button needs to be to register an improvement on click rates then that stuff is out there. Here are just a couple of general issues to consider.

Invest in Usability
Changing a company from one that is hostile to usability to one where user-centric design is integrated to everything the company does is a major step. Changing from purely functional design to usability design and from quality testing to usability testing requires new skills, new ways of working and new personnel. As with values such as quality and compliance usability can only be integrated into a product if the company invests time and resources across the whole organisation. Incorporating user experience strategies into your business strategies is the way to put your product on a path towards simplicity. Make space, time and money available for usability improvement or else it simply won’t happen.

Human Factors
From comments I have seen on the various discussion groups, on blogs and from evidence I have experienced first-hand as a software selector, as a software user, as a software installer and most importantly as a software designer and vendor I believe that the human factors in aircraft MRO have been overlooked when it comes to improving MRO software. We ensure that we don’t create trip hazards by trailing network cables across hangar walkways. We ensure that engineers don’t get repetitive strain injuries or go blind from entering data all day long… but other than customising one or two screens, or fitting RFID tags to ground equipment what has been done to the actual MRO software to help make user’s jobs as efficient as possible? Where are the field studies, where are the usability tests, how much attention is paid to usability data?

MRO software isn’t focussed to the user’s requirements. MRO software isn’t ergonomic. MRO software is cumbersome. MRO software can be made simpler by examining the human factors involved in using the software and developing software from the outside-in.

MRO software vendors think they are already doing all they need to do by holding annual user forums and software advisory board meetings – but this is chaff. Who attends these meetings? CIOs, CFOs, Technical Directors? Sys admins at the very best. None of these people represent any serious amount of system utilisation or expertise in the nitty-gritty of the software. All these get-togethers serve to do is limit the development of software to “design by committee”…

~~Designing by Committee~~
Collaboration is great. Finding out the answer to a technical issue by talking to an expert is fine. But designing simple software by committee is nigh on impossible. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, recently wrote:

There’s a saying I love: “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” A variation is “a Volvo is a Porsche designed by committee.” Some of the best product advice I’ve ever heard goes something like “damn what the users want, charge towards your dream.” All of these statements are, of course, saying the same thing. When there are too many cooks in the kitchen all you get is a mess. And when too many people have product input, you’ve got lots of features but no soul……

Product should be a dictatorship, not consensus-driven. There are casualties, hurt feelings, angry users. But all of those things are necessary if you’re going to create something unique. The iPhone is clearly a vision of a single core team, or maybe even one man. It happened to be a good dream, and that device now dominates mobile culture. But it’s extremely unlikely Apple would have ever built it if they conducted lots of focus groups and customer outreach first. No keyboard? Please.

Layout
Consider the layout of software elements and how they will be used. Most people will enter data into a screen from the top left to bottom right. Yet it amazes me that most software shifts the users attention back up to the top left again to save the data they have entered. Surely the control to advance should be in the bottom right? Right?

If there are several steps required to carry out a complex transaction then group them together into a logical order on the screen or menu. Even better, join them together in a wizard type interface. Users hate having to scout around modules looking for the next step in their process. Users shouldn’t have to think…. It should just work.

Microcopy Writing
In most MRO software I have seen the copy writing is atrocious. Most developers assume that copy writing only belongs in the marketing and sales content…. Well guess what? Users have to read the content of software so it really is something developers should think about. The interaction wording that surrounds the user interface of a software product is often known as “microcopy” and can add incredible value to the product, or at least bad microcopy can have a massively detrimental effect on software usability.

As with all elements of user experience theory the devil is in the detail. Feedback cycles that acknowledge and confirm software actions or problems whilst appearing to be trivial have a major impact on how users regard software. Put some effort in. Don’t just leave it to the developers to decide what an error message should say. They don’t think like users. They understand what “invalid text entry field” means… my Dad doesn’t and he might be your user.

Get your microcopy written by someone who didn’t drop English at school at the first available opportunity, preferably by someone with English as their native language. That isn’t a derogatory statement about your offshore development team – they’ll probably thank you for employing a copy writer. Would you get them to write the content of your sales brochure? So why get them to write content for your product?

Removing Stuff
One of the key principles in improving User Experience is to remove elements from an application. This can only practically be done at a design stage, because once a feature is in the wild, only the foolhardy would attempt to remove a field or a feature. There is one quote that I return to again and again as a mantra which comes from Antoine de Sainte-Expury the author of “The Little Prince”. The quote has nothing to do with software, but is unbelievably relevant to user experience.

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Without a change of culture, this suggestion is incredibly difficult…. In my next post on this subject I will focus on providing some assistance here by “Learning to say No”.

Related Posts:
How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 1
Why MRO Software isn't Simpler
Why isn’t MRO Software Simpler?

Windows 2000 Server Support Ending July 13th 2010

Greig Schofield — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:05:02 GMT

It had to come to an end...............

Windows 2000 server support from Microsoft has now ceased as of today, July 13th 2010.

Windows 2000 was seen as a massive leap from its predecessors, NT4, and Windows 3.x eeek !, oh and lets not forget the DOS range, doesn’t it all still run on dos ? ;-)

Microsoft were under an enormous amount of pressure in 1998 to release “Microsoft Windows NT 5.0”, so it was rushed to market, some of the new features in Windows 2000 were half finished, but it was stable. A lot of the features that were originally planned were left out, and were later released in bit form across service packs or in the next general release.

Likewise some of the features that did make it in, such as Active Directory, didn’t work very well ! Active Directory (this isn’t something that has been there from day one) was Microsoft's first directory offering to the market place in 1998, oh, but Novell and other vendors were there first.

So the BDC’s, and the PDC’s (the real PDC’s, not the cheap imitations that we are now used to) had come to an end, and Microsoft’s Windows 2000 was launched to much, well disappointment! (thats the community for you!)

I certified in Windows 2000 immediately, and could see its benefits, and its shortfalls. Ive been happily supporting it ever since, and will continue to do so “Rambo” style, on my own, without the support of Microsoft going forward. I will of course try and migrate and upgrade where possible to Microsoft newest operating system, Windows Server 2008 R2, which in my opinion is their best so far. Come to think of it, Windows Server 2003 is a very close second!

So all hail Windows 2000, its been nice knowing and working with you for all these years. If you are still using it, from today onwards, if you run into a problem, cross your fingers and call us, we might be able to help!

To view more info regarding this please visit http://support.microsoft.com/ph/1131#tab0

MyTechLog.net Production Blog Part 4

Paul Saunders — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:52:49 GMT

CSS
Development of the MyTechLog.net web app and iPhone app has been rattling along nicely. It was always our intention that our development team would do all the programming donkey work and that I would design the UI with a bit of help on individual elements from Ella our pucker Graphic Designer. With that in mind, our actual code has very little in the way of CSS in it with a view to get a CSS expert to do the final skinning… however I recently made an executive decision to do the CSS myself.

This isn’t too radical a concept and nobody freaked out at the thought of it as I’ve done a little bit of CSS in the past and after all, how hard could it be?

What is CSS?
For those not in the know CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet and is the bit of code that is used to control the look and format of web sites and web applications.

It took me about a day to get into the groove, suss out the application code which has been written in C# and find out where everything needed to go from a programming point of view. The basic CSS files had already been created, so it was just a case of appending additional classes and making things look and feel how I wanted. It’s taken me longer to get stuff done than someone with proper CSS skillz (as they say in the business) but there have been several benefits of me doing it.

1.    The total elapsed time is probably less as I can make instant decisions and see the results straight away.
2.    I feel more attached to the project now having invested even more time and effort.
3.    I’ve learnt a cool new skill.
4.    There’s a definite sense of satisfaction writing a bit of code and seeing the results instantly.

Admittedly we’ve had a few problems: The biggest being cross browser compatibility, but nothing that either Google doesn’t answer or that we can’t make a compromise over. However we will be getting someone to cast an eye over the results and tidy up any areas where I have deviated from best practise.

Read on if you’re feeling geeky
Still here?
OK, so I’ve been doing everything in CSS3 and have decided to do as much as possible in pure CSS without the use of external images. This means that things look a bit ropey but passable in internet explorer, but never mind, IE9 will be out soon enough.
Here’s a screen shot of the work in progress current state of play of one of the application screens. Please excuse the dodgy test data

I’m currently working on changing the Boolean table values and Delete|Edit links into nice little icons, but am just waiting on the designs for those to come through. Also I’ve been toying with how the pagination looks…. I’m open to suggestions there. I’m quite pleased with the buttons, although the colour schemes aren’t finalised yet. We are planning to use links throughout the application as we realised that links, buttons and submits are rendered slightly differently by the browser.

If anyone is interested (and at the risk of having my CSS skillz really scrutinised) here is the CSS used for the back button link in the bottom left of the screen shot.

A.Back
{
/*Back button ;*/
   background: #099bd7;
   background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#8dc4eb), to(#099bd7));
   background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #8dc4eb, #099bd7);
   -webkit-border-radius: 9px;
   -moz-border-radius: 9px;
   border-radius: 9px;
   -webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.4) 0px 1px 2px;
   -moz-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.4) 0px 1px 2px;
   box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.4) 0px 1px 2px;
   color: white;
   font-weight:bold;
   font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
   padding:3px 24px 3px 24px;
   vertical-align:baseline;
   text-decoration:none;
}
A.Back:hover
{
   /*Back button hover state;*/
   background: #8dc4eb;
}
A.Back:active
{
   /*Back active state;*/
   background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#ff0000), to(#fc6b7a));
   background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #099bd7, #8dc4eb);
   -webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.4) 0px 1px 2px inset;
   -moz-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.4) 0px 1px 2px inset;
   box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.4) 0px 1px 2px inset;
   position:relative;
   top:1px;
}

The more observant of you will notice that I have used an :active pseudo class which has the effect of reversing the gradient and box shadow as well as dropping the position by 1 pixel when the link is clicked. This makes a basic hyperlink look and feel much more “buttony”.

The current plan for development is to release for beta testing in the beginning of August with a view to fully launch by October. So best I stop writing and get these table icons sussed.

Click here to read Part 3 of the MyTechLog.net Production Blog: Wire Frames

Near Perfect Foresight

Paul Saunders — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:41:50 GMT

On the 11th of June at the beginning of the World Cup I posted the following tweet.

my tip for the #WorldCup. Spain to win, the Dutch as my dark horse outside bet, with England getting to the semis ~PSFri Jun 11 11:37:40 via webconduce
conduce

Aside from the mis-guided England loyalties that wasn't a bad prediction was it?

World Cup Tweets by our Peeps

Paul Saunders — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:45:10 GMT

Despite the England team's crushing defeat by the ultra efficient German team managed by 80s Radio One legend Mike Reid, the Conduce team are putting a brave face on things and have completely converted to the tennis just yet. Here are the best tweets by our team regarding the world's greatest sporting event.

Interesting that none of the stars of the Nike advert had a good World Cup. Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Drogba & Ronaldinho. What happened?Wed Jun 30 08:11:01 via webconduce
conduce

England pathetically crash out, but our funny World Cup blog just keeps getting better and better! Read it here http://bit.ly/9BDCmrTue Jun 29 16:04:38 via webDreamscape Design
DreamscapeUK

This has to be my favourite pic from the #worldcup so far http://bit.ly/a7CNBnMon Jun 28 21:56:54 via webCurt Timson
curty_

it's at least reassuring to know that I have several sharp knives and a gas cooker available if need be! #eng England #worldcupSun Jun 27 14:31:55 via webAndrew Parker
electricbananas

Photos from yesterday's #ENG v #SVN game in the @Conduce Office here http://bit.ly/cSJv5e ~PSThu Jun 24 09:36:32 via webconduce
conduce

http://bit.ly/aVkkYl We knew it! ITV are a jinx. England win on the BBC!!!! So everyone please pay for your license fee #worldcup #engWed Jun 23 16:12:52 via webDreamscape Design
DreamscapeUK

How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 1

Paul Saunders — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:11:28 GMT

In previous posts I have written about the complexity of MRO software and why it isn’t simpler. This is the first part of a series of suggestions about what can be done to start making software for the aerospace MRO industry simpler and more user-centric.

Part 1: Be More Open

One of the problems with MRO software is that the vendors can be so protective of their own intellectual property rights and their own little corner of their customer’s business that they do not allow outsiders to have access to their code or to their data structures. This means that inter-connecting systems to other business applications becomes very problematic. The cost of building additional business functions into the application environment becomes cost prohibitive as you have to re-engage with the original vendor using their expertise or you have to wait for them to build bespoke proprietary services for you to utilise.

We have found through experience that most MRO software does not have readily available Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Software Development Kits (SDKs) or a true Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to allow this to easily happen. Even if they do have a readily available method for inter connection it is often like getting blood out of the proverbial stone to obtain the necessary information without first being a “technology partner” or without demonstrating you have a queue of customers ready to pay for your idea.

I don’t know of any other sector of the IT industry that behaves in such a restrictive manner. Admittedly Apple and Microsoft amongst others have been accused in the past of being restrictive in the way they have presented their code to external developers and have stifled innovation through the application of legal proceedings for patent infringements, but at least they do provide access to the various resources third party developers would need for nearly all of their product range. In most other industry sectors independent developers can produce applications in their back bedrooms that add value to software by expanding capability into niche areas. And this does actually happen.

If I am producing a web application, but have no expertise in hand held devices such as the iPhone, Android or BlackBerry I would thoroughly encourage third party developers to produce external software to make it run on those platforms. I’d give them access to my technical infrastructure and help them do it to the best of my abilities as it adds value to my product, and enhances my return on investment for relatively little effort on my part.

One company that does this fantastically well is 37Signals. These guys produce enterprise level applications for many areas of business from cloud based CRM to collaborative project management software. They are fabulously open with their APIs meaning that there are a whole raft of plug-in tools and system connectors which have expanded their software functional capability into areas that the original designers could never have imagined.

Likewise in MRO software, if a customer wants to do something with the software that is peripheral to the core application product (like create a custom user interface, build an iPhone app or inter-connect it with an external system) this should be both straight forward and within easy grasp of any interested and capable third party. I’m not saying use Open Source, but provide open access to your architecture. Maybe this is coining a phrase, but I refer to this concept as “Visible Source”.

This is the first step towards truly simple, user-centric software.

Related Posts:
Why MRO Software isn't Simpler
Why isn’t MRO Software Simpler?
This is what we believe: Web Apps

Google First Page

Paul Saunders — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:30:34 GMT

As visitors to our blog have found for themselves we are on the first page of Google if you search for any of the following terms:

Why Fax machines suck
Simpler MRO software
Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference
Promote Events with Social Media
Aerospace MRO
aircraft mro maintenance automation device trends 2010
airspace rebooted
mro ipad

Why MRO Software isn't Simpler

Paul Saunders — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:02:35 GMT

A couple of weeks back I wrote a blog post entitled:
“Why isn’t MRO Software Simpler?”
This generated quite a bit of debate here on our blog, but also on a couple of LinkedIn discussion boards including the Aircraft Lifecycle Wikinomics group where it was a featured discussion. There were loads of really insightful comments and thankfully my opinions didn’t get flamed. This morning I addressed the 30+ comments on LinkedIn by attempting to distil all of the suggested reasons to the root problem. Here is that response copied and tidied up in one or two places.

I think that the reasons that MRO Software is not currently simpler can be distilled into 6 key factors.

1. The MRO process is very complex or at least is perceived to be so.
I don't argue that MRO processes are not highly sophisticated, but this should be an argument to strive to make the software simpler not MORE complicated. Other industry sectors have proven that it is possible to make the solution to a problem as simple as possible. I like using the example of the Windows Vista shut down button vs. the iPod off button. Windows Vista had 7 different options to shut down the PC, the iPod doesn't have any way to turn itself off... it does it by itself when it’s not being used.

Windows Vista. 7 options to shut down.

The 5th generation iPod Nano. 0 options to shut down

This of course is an abstract example, but it goes to show how overly complicated things can be made and how ultra-simple they could be if applying a bit of thought and common sense when designing a solution.

2. The software vendors are to blame.
Again there are some excellent points being made here. Without question these vendors need to have industry experts to correctly interpret business requirements and convert those into functional specifications. It is taken for granted that a software vendor employs adequate technical experts. In my opinion there is something missing between these two mandatory nodes of the software business. Where are the UI designers, the micro copywriting experts, and the event tracking gurus?? How much time is spent in the R&D of software in really understanding how users consume software? What makes them happy? What makes them use it more? What makes them use it more efficiently?? How much time is spent by MRO software designers in figuring out exactly what shade of green a button should be to make a user more inclined to press it? How many MRO software providers change the size of an object by one pixel to see the effect it has on tracked events? Other sectors of the IT industry do this. Why not MRO software? If a software vendor can tell me that hand on heart they do this I will cheerfully apologise and will eat my hat (and will provide photos to prove it.)

3. The MRO companies are to blame.
There have been some good points here. The MRO software vendors will only provide what the customer asks for. The customer doesn't actually know what they want. They know the process is complex, they know the engineer wants something simple, they know the accountant wants something sophisticated, they feel if they are spending hundreds and thousands on something it needs to have lots of bells and whistles and flashing lights.... all fair enough. Who is going to educate the MRO that they should be doing something else? Actually with no alternative on the market this proves impossible to even the wisest IT guru. So in my opinion the onus is on the vendor to make the leap of faith here.

4. The Regulations won't allow changes.
This is utter nonsense and I whole heartedly disregard this statement. Remember it is the MRO business process that is approved not the IT tool. As someone rightly stated the regulations have remained largely unchanged for years whilst technology has moved on at pace. At what point did the regulator decide that perhaps there isn't quite enough information being stored about this particular defect. I'm not satisfied that you are recording the ATA chapter to 8 digits. You need to also record the Reliability Chapter, the repetitive chapter, the next higher assembly chapter and so on. This bloating of software is not down to the regulators demanding it, it is surely down to the processes surrounding the software. In the early years on IT in business (what I call Enterprise 1.0) computers were used to do the mandatory compliance stuff that needed a bit of number crunching like payroll, invoicing, stock holding. As the years have gone by we have simply added more stuff to the compliance category, so we have forecasting, scheduling, etc. etc. all thrown into the same pot. Enterprise 2.0 should not be about doing more stuff because we have to. It should be about doing things better and easier. A client of mine has challenged the idea that a CAMO needs to operate from a single base in some kind of shared office. He has been the first EASA Part M approved organisation in the UK (perhaps the world) to utilise a virtual office of airworthiness where all his staff work from home. Many people said the UK CAA wouldn't buy it... but they did. Admittedly they did a bit of head scratching, but it goes to show that if you can provide a compelling case and a bullet proof exposition to the authorities then they will go with it....

5. The sales process is to blame.
I guess elements of item 2 and 3 are involved here. The sales guys I have met have certainly been keen to extoll the virtues of a really complicated system and whilst buyers are lapping that up then nothing will change in the near future.

6. It’s too hard to change the software and make it simpler.
Yep, this is dead right. Millions of man hours go into making wall-to-wall enterprise level software. Like the proverbial super tanker a product cannot suddenly perform a hand brake turn and change direction. By the time the next generation software has gone through the planning and production phases it could already be out-dated by several years. Perhaps the future doesn't lie in massive enterprise level software - perhaps it lays in true SOA, focussed, interconnected, niche software? But that is heading towards a sales pitch.

Related Posts:
Why isn’t MRO Software Simpler?
This is what we believe: Web Apps

System Uptime

Ben Moses — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:31:13 GMT

We've just noticed that a CISCO router that we installed for one of our customers has been running non-stop with no interruptions for the past year, 30 weeks, 3 days, 1 hour, 28 minutes and counting....

Not bad eh?

9 Alternatives to MS PowerPoint

Paul Saunders — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:27:12 GMT

Yesterday saw the commercial release of Microsoft Office 2010. I’ve been using MS Office for years and have used this particular version at home and work since it was first launched as a beta release candidate several months ago. It goes without saying that I am a big fan. It’s as if someone has fettled away all the burrs and rough edges from the 2007 version and produced a finely tuned product. However upgrading or purchasing Office 2010 in a commercial environment isn’t a cheap proposition. More and more organisations and individuals are looking at alternative options to save money and differentiate with unique functions.

In the first in a series of blog posts looking at the alternatives to the individual elements of the MS Office suite today I’m taking a look at some potential substitutes for Microsoft’s presentation application, PowerPoint.

Desktop Alternatives

1. Apple iWork Keynote - http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/

If you are a Mac user then it is likely that you already prefer Apple's presentation offering available as part of the iWork suite. The slick use of graphics, animations and effects are what you would expect from Apple. Its a shame that Keynote is only available for the Mac, but it will only be a matter of time before some of its unique selling points make their way to other applications. The integration with the iPhone is the killer feature though, with an app to use the iPhone as a Keynote remote and the promise of iWork being fully supported by the iPhone 4. Its not free, but at less than £50 for the full suite, its a cheaper alternative to MS Office for Mac users.

2. OpenOffice.org Impress - http://www.openoffice.org/

The best things in life are free and the OpenOffice.org suite of applications is the forerunner in free alternatives to MS Office. Impress is a dead ringer for the XP version of PowerPoint and has pretty much the same functionality. Admittedly it isn't as advanced as the latest version of PowerPoint but is a fully capable alternative for all but the most die hard power users. OpenOffice leads the way with an XML based Open Office file format so by default uses .ODP files, but you can easily change the default settings and open, edit and save .ppt files. One gotcha to look out for is that newer .pptx files created on PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 don't convert perfectly if they have utilised some of the newer Office features.

3. IBM Lotus Symphony Presentations - http://symphony.lotus.com/

Lotus Symphony is IBM's latest foray into the Desktop Office application market. Symphony Presentations is a free application based on OpenOffice.org's technology so is compatible with both .ppt and .odp files and functions.

Online Alternatives

4. Google Docs Presentation - http://docs.google.com

Google's free online Docs applications uses a simple interface which isn't particularly feature rich, but allows for the benefits of cloud availability and online collaboration. The colaboration benefit is enhanced by a chat feature.

5. ajaxPresents - http://www.ajaxpresents.com

Ajax is another online full Office suite from ZoooS. It has extensive capabilities including the ability to open, edit and save both .ppt and .odp formats. The interface is a little busy, but is free so worth a look.

6. Zoho Show - http://show.zoho.com

Version 2.0 of Zoho's online Show application is still in Beta mode but has all the fundamental features you would expect. There is an integrated chat feature and online collaboration and remote presentation functions to take advantage of the cloud based status. Presentations are embeddable to blogs and websites and the elegent UI will be familiar to users of Zoho's CRM application. Zoho Show is free for personal use and can import and export .ppt files.

7. Slide Rocket - http://www.sliderocket.com

Slide Rocket is a paid Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application that has a slick user interface and powerful online collaboration and remote meeting functions. There is a free option which doesn't extend to all features but provides a perfectly adequate 250Mb of storage and unlimited presentation files. As you would expect you can import and export .ppt files and the library and synchronisation functions look pretty impressive. The paid service starts at $12 per month and offer up to 1GB storage per user.

8. Empressr - http://www.empressr.com/

Empressr is a free online Presentation application that attempts tp bridge the gap between a desktop office applications and social media. It is a flas based application that integrates nicely with Wordpress, Twitter, Flickr and other Social Media platforms. One nice feature is the ability to track viewing stats and channel Twitter feedback.

9. Prezi - http://prezi.com/

Mathematweets on Prezi

If you are looking for something distinctively different to the PowerPoint clones then Prezi is definitely different and distinctive. The cool, unique zooming and panning transitions are completely unlike any other presentation tools I've seen before and take a radical step forward in presentation technique. Prezi is a SaaS offering that has a desktop version via a Prezi Pro account. The free version is public facing with up to 100Mb of storage with paid versions that allow for private content starting at $59 a year. There are elements of social media within the user community with public facing Prezis available to view via the site's Showcase section. Users are encouraged to "pat on the back" and "say something nice" about other user's output. Output is easily shared, embedded and downloaded to be run offline or via websites, blogs and social media networks. Definitely worth having a play with.

Why isn't MRO Software Simpler?

Paul Saunders — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:20:32 GMT

Last week we attended the 2010 Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Frankfurt.
One of the disappointments for us at the conference was the lack of real innovation in the design of the MRO business systems that were on show. Whilst many other industries are abstracting away the complexities of the process, workflow or machine, MRO enterprise software vendors seem to be particularly proud of the complexity and functional overload of their software solutions. On more than one occasion we had CEOs and Sales Directors alike explain to us just how fantastically bewildering their systems were and how users were demanding more and more complex, feature rich solutions to their problems.

We had hoped that truly service orientated solutions would be available by now, solutions that hide the complexity behind a simple, easy to use interface, designed to do a specific job very well. We’ve all seen how glass cockpits over recent years have simplified a pilot’s role, even though the complexity behind the UI has increased beyond recognition.

Here’s the cockpit for the Concorde designed back in the sixties. So complex it took three people to fly it.

Copyright Dr Richard Murray and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence.

Compare that to the latest generation A380, a much cleaner, simpler user interface that focuses on the essentials for flying.

Copyright Naddsy and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons License.

Whilst the human factors within the cockpit have been analyzed ad infinitum, the human factors in the hanger seem to have been hugely overlooked. Are maintenance engineers and their managers really demanding more and more complex systems? The folk selling them software seem to think so. I’m sorry but I just don’t buy it.

Other than in the MRO sector when did you last hear users clamoring for more complex software? In the bleeding edge industry of social media users are demanding “magical” user experiences that delight through ultra-simple applications that focus on doing one function and performing it perfectly. This sector is thriving and the trends created are spilling out into the rest of IT. Using web design as an example, modern web sites are becoming simpler and simpler with loads of white space and clear calls to action being the norm. Take these two examples of airline websites. I wouldn’t mind betting which site has the better conversion rate per visitor.

The current American Airlines website, voted one of the world’s worst airline websites.

The award winning Nature Air website uses a simple and clear call to action.

OK, maybe I’m being a bit harsh. It’s taken the best part of 40 years to move cockpit design from the Buck Rogers style instrumentation of the past to a more rationalized, simplified next generation cockpit panel. The technology has certainly helped this outcome over the years. To be fair, developing a new interface for Enterprise software is no walk in the park. It could be thousands of man hours in design, build and testing before a vendor has completely retooled their entire system. But if you’re buying enterprise software now, with a life cycle of 5 maybe 10 years, it could be out of date by the time you’ve finished implementing it in 18 to 24 months’ time. But I don’t see any enterprise MRO software even heading in the right direction yet.

The wall to wall enterprise solutions of yesterday simply don’t cut it when it comes to simplifying processes and keeping engineer non-productive time to a minimum. The age of features is dead. Software developers should be focusing on distilling features and processes to their bare minimum functional requirements and performing those functions perfectly with a simple intuitive interface that anyone can understand. They should be building their software around services which can be consumed by any application to perform the function they operate. Engineers like spanners because they have evolved to be to most simple and elegant tool for the job. MRO enterprise software has a lot of evolving to do it seems.

So why is MRO Enterprise software so far behind the times? Is it lack of investment or a simple lack of innovation and foresight in the MRO market? Let me know what you think.

Old School iPad interfaces

Paul Saunders — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:21:46 GMT

Are you a frustrated iPad owner who is fed up of finger smudged screens, slick User Interfaces and who yearns for the reassuring clunk and click of an old school device? Then there are a couple of peripherals for the iPad that could be right up your street!!

USB Typewriter

iCade

Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference

Paul Saunders — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 11:05:10 GMT

Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference Review
7th and 8th June 2010 – Frankfurt

Last week Wayne and I attended the European and Middle East instance of the Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Frankfurt.
http://www.aircraft-commerce.com/conferences/Frankfurt_2010/default.asp

Being run for the fifth year by Aircraft Commerce and attended by anyone who is anyone in aerospace IT this was apparently the only “must attend” show there is. The show came a little bit early for us to exhibit, but our intention was to catch up with what was new in the industry, attend some interesting speeches and network with the main airworthiness system providers with a view to obtaining APIs to help us develop our mytechlog.net app interfaces.

After the usual registration formalities and a quick coffee and croissant it was straight on with a full programme of presentations, case studies and workshops. Proceedings got off to a promising start with a passionate and shouty keynote speech by SAKS Consulting’s Sharhabeel Lone. His topic of “The rights and wrongs of MRO implementations” was a refreshingly brutal lecture aimed at those delegates who were perhaps about to embark on an MRO system implementation. Scattered with statistics of the number of failed and overrunning projects his message did at times seem a little bleak with promises of failed ROI, scope creep and lower than planned functionality. I think the presentation did provide a vital reality check and set an important tone which was continually referred to throughout the conference by other speakers and delegates. However if the usual pleas for executive commitment, risk management, scoping and structured approaches did not fall on deaf ears then there is some hope for IT Success.

The conference was divided into two main streams over the two days with presentations and cases studies in the main conference hall and more informal tutorial style workshops in a more intimate meeting area. Whilst MRO presentations were being carried out on day one it was a programme of operations topics in the workshops and this was reversed for day two. Whilst the presentations were going on there were exhibits from some 30+ software vendors on small uniformly sized stands where the emphasis was on technical discussion and demonstration rather than executive schmoozing and boozing that you would often see at the bigger trade shows.

The MRO presentations on day one were mostly case studies of maintenance organisations outlining improvements to processes and time savings that had been realised through the utilisation of technologies such as RFID tagged ground equipment, rationalised IT assets and the automation of planned maintenance. Nothing earth shattering, but some interesting insights. More enlightening were private discussions with other delegates and exhibitors. We managed to discuss mytechlog.net with a couple of technical representatives of the main airworthiness software vendors. Interest in our product ranged from several counts of seemingly genuine interest through to one instance of vexed hostility from one well known vendor. I can’t quite work out whether this agitation was caused by the fact that we were producing quick, simple software and therefore not worthy of interfacing with more complex and bloated software or that we had uncovered the fact that the airworthiness software in question does not have a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) that does not have any readily available Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Quite naturally we tended to gravitate to any fellow delegates who were advocating a similar philosophy to our own, that being enterprise software was moving towards lighter, simpler niche software that is inter-connected through the consumption of services. One enjoyable chat we had with a representative of a large OEM concluded with our fellow delegate being uncertain as to whether we were geniuses or mad men… isn’t there a quote along those lines where the difference is measured by success?? The grumpy software vendor from earlier hosted a cocktail reception to close the first day’s proceedings, so after a couple of nibbles and beers all was forgiven.

Day two began with a workshop by the SAKS Consulting team. Sharhabeel Lone’s passionate speech from the previous day must have struck the correct tone, as the session was fully subscribed and we were subject to a bit more of the same impassioned bellowing which was well received by an attentive Egyptian delegation front and centre. The pick of the presentations came from David Ploog and Christophe Mostert of m2p Consulting whose workshop entitled “An end to end Project Lifecycle of MRO system replacement masterclass” encouraged the most debate and conjecture. Somewhat disappointingly this particular workshop was the only presentation we attended which outlined a vision of current and future trends in aerospace IT systems. It was refreshing and reassuring to hear that these opinions closely matched our own. It is a shame that trends in other areas of IT have not yet been fully embraced by aerospace IT in the field of MRO. Next generation technologies such as Open Source, true Service Orientated Architecture and multi-platform applications were distinctly ominous in their absence. Software vendors were espousing how feature rich and complex their systems were and it is striking to note how far behind this way of thinking is compared to the cutting edge trends in other sectors of the IT industry.

The conference was well organised by the Aircraft Commerce team headed up by Charles Williams and Ed Haskey who throughout the show were ever present, approachable and affable. It speaks volumes to note that delegate attendance was high throughout the event without the usual drifting off to the hotel bar or for sightseeing. Delegate numbers were well over 200 and was a veritable who’s who of aerospace IT. I would thoroughly recommend visiting the conference in the future and fully intend to exhibit next year.

Related Posts:
How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 2
How to make Simpler MRO Software: Part 1
Why MRO Software isn't Simpler
Why isn’t MRO Software Simpler?

Yet More Tweets by our Peeps

Paul Saunders — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:32:56 GMT

Our regular look at Tweets over the past 7 days by our team.

John Motson eat your heart out! Our NEW World Cup football blog is the definitive guide to ball-kicking in S. Africa. http://bit.ly/c1A20jThu Jun 10 08:44:25 via webDreamscape Design
DreamscapeUK

my colds still here, but my bellies full of hot madras, i think that cancels out :)Wed Jun 09 20:47:57 via TweetDeckCurt Timson
curty_

is going to cheer himself up with crumpetsTue Jun 08 20:12:11 via webAndrew Parker
electricbananas

im wondering...............what would being pecked by a duck feel like??Mon Jun 07 12:33:08 via webChris Clarke
ChrisClarke86

England team arrive in South Africa via Virgin not BA. A lesson in PR? One-nil Richard Branson ~PSThu Jun 03 08:53:26 via webconduce
conduce

Software Quotes

Paul Saunders — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:26:03 GMT

"Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight."

Bill Gates

"The age of features is dead."

Aral Balkan

"Cool is a detail, useful is a quality."

Jason Fried

"Maybe that's why Microsoft's new business model is lawsuits. Their overpriced tech is failing to attract anyone under 30."
David Heinemeier Hansson

"Companies should make their own enterprise software as often as network security companies should manufacture their own aspirin."

Phil Simon

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Expury
[NB: this quote wasn't made with software in mind, but I think it is highly appropriate]

Even More Tweets by our Peeps

Paul Saunders — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:32:22 GMT

Here are the best Tweets from our staff over the past seven days.
This time I've used a slightly modified and improved version of the Blackbird Tweet embed tool found here: http://publitweet.com/blog

"bank" and "holiday". 2 of the greatest words in the English Language!!!!! Err....actually "bank" isn't great, but "holiday" is 10 out of 10Fri May 28 07:01:15 via webAndrew Parker
electricbananas

lives on the corner of funny street and silly road, In Crazy Town which is in psycho valley, in a twisted state of mind!Thu May 27 19:47:58 via Status ShuffleChris Clarke
ChrisClarke86

The 3rd part of our production blog is now online http://bit.ly/9l09KX All about Wire FramesThu May 27 10:03:30 via webMyTechLog
mytechlog

The Pac-Man game was so popular that Google has now made it permanently available on its own page. HOORAH! http://bit.ly/apB3fQ *APWed May 26 16:00:39 via webDreamscape Design
DreamscapeUK

#nowplaying Cheryl Cole... no, seriously.Tue May 25 21:17:24 via TweetDeckCurt Timson
curty_