Are Roundabouts Un-American?

I stumbled across an article this morning about an American city called Carmel who are leading the way in the introduction of roundabouts to its intersections.  Not immediately the most fascinating subject but the monkey in me couldn’t help but mark American Independence Day with a story about the US adoption of a very British idea.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13863498

The roundabout was invented in 1960s Britain and the idea seems to be taking it’s time transferring across the pond.  Dan Neil, motoring correspondent at the Wall Street Journal, believes that this is down to a difference in the American psyche that as a country they do not have the same attitude to queuing as us Brits, prizing independence over regimentation.

The idea of roundabouts also causes issues because Americans “like right angles, yes and no answers, Manichean explanations. Roundabouts require more subtlety than [they] are used to.”

If this is the case, then Mayor Jim Brainard, who has been leading Carmel’s change to roundabouts, has done a fantastic of overcoming the initial scepticism of the city’s residents to the point that many of proud of their new way of driving.

One of the key areas of success has been achieved by doing their research to identify key benefits:

  • Reduction of maintenance costs to the scale of £150,000 per year
  • Drivers will save a combined total of thousands of gallons of fuel reducing the cost and environmental impact of fuel consumption
  • 40% reduction in accidents (90% reduction in fatal ones)
  • The decoration of roundabouts with plants and ornaments improves the look of the city

More importantly, they have communicated through newsletters and video campaigns to get their message across and translate the benefits to everybody in the city, focussing on areas like safety in order to address the concerns of their critics.

This communication has been paired with a campaign that educates drivers on how to use the new roundabouts and signposts that clearly demonstrate the flow of traffic.  This approach has meant that they have already seen a reduction in the number of accidents on the new roundabouts.

In this case, they have shown that a combination of clearly defined benefits and good understanding of your audience can help you to create an implementation plan that addresses their concerns and helps them to understand the change.

How are you going to change the culture of your organisation to deliver the benefits you want?

Posted on July 4th, 2011 in News / Blog | 1 Comment »

Google+

This week, Google announced the release of Google+; their latest attempt at social networking and possibly their most direct attempt at taking on Facebook.

Like Facebook, Google+ allows users to share photos, messages and comments but they have also added some new bits of functionality such as multi-user video “Huddles”, and “Circles” which allow you to group your contacts and communicate accordingly.

Sounds great but I’m afraid I think that Google are on a road to nowhere with this one.

First of all, Facebook has become a social habit where users have already established their networks.  The success of Google+ is going to rely on how well they persuade Facebook’s 750m users that it is an alternative.  The crux is going to be the functionality that they offer and whether it is likely to make people change.

Early reports indicate that Google have done a pretty good job of making the Circle and Huddle functionality intuitive.  However, on the face of it, I can’t see anything that would make me want to make that big leap away from my friends on Facebook.

To be honest, the new additions feel a bit old hat and hands on for me to get excited about them.  The chances of me getting a group of people together for a Huddle seem pretty slim and grouping friends into Circles sounds like more admin.

But even if other people do like the additional functionality, what does that mean for adoption?

If you take Twitter as an example of how to launch a new social networking site post-Facebook, it had a distinct advantage; the functionality was different enough for people to be willing to run two accounts and there was the option to link the two.

Unfortunately, Google’s decision to replicate much of the functionality of Facebook puts potential users in an “either / or” situation where they would have to manage the same sort of information of two sites while everybody else in their network moves.  However, this would seem unlikely given the “frosty” relationship between the two companies.

However, although I don’t see much opportunity for Google+ for social networking, I think that with a few adjustments, it could offer an exciting prospect for business use.

Imagine a single global platform for organisations to communicate and share information with groups of internal and external stakeholders.  Maybe that’s the future – social networking for businesses?

Posted on July 1st, 2011 Tags: , ,
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Thanks For Your Feedback

The Sutton Trust was recently tasked with helping schools in deprived areas to improve results.  The resulting report was published recently focussing on value for money to offer “high impact for low cost” methods that make the most of the schools’ budgets.

More information on the report is available on the BBC website – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13558209

The report has suggested that one-to-one coaching, smaller class sizes, extra homework and teaching assistants do not offer significant benefits and instead suggests that teachers’ comments can help to improve performance.

The comments must be meaningful, relate to challenging tasks and focus on the positive in order to boost self-esteem.

It also suggests that pupils tutor each other in order to understand their own learning processes and encouraging learners to take responsibility for aspects of teaching can drive improvement.

Many companies seem to be facing the same sort of challenges where HR budgets for training and extra staff are tight.  So does PLM offer a way for companies to develop staff to offer extra benefits?

Implementing PLM in the right way means that everybody becomes involved in the process to take responsibility for new product development and play an active role in the development of the organisation.  By bringing them closer to all aspects of new product development they can broaden their experience and develop themselves to add more value to the organisation as a whole.

It is also a collaborative process.  By creating the right atmosphere, individual members of the project can seek support from other members of the team to share experience and improve their individual performance.  This level of support needs to flow through all levels of the organisation which brings me to the importance of comments within the PLM process.

The majority of PLM systems offer the ability to build in formal and informal review and approval points in order to monitor progress and manage information, allowing the reviewer to add comments. 

These comments offer senior management (particularly through “informal reviews” from SMEs or Heads of Departments) the opportunity to engage with people in a way that not only supports the current initiative but also develop them in a way that adds benefit for the future.

The key is to see the implementation of PLM as a journey that requires patience and support.  Therefore feedback needs to be positive and constructive in order to encourage everybody to embrace the change.

So, how are your comments helping to develop the future of your organisation?

Posted on May 27th, 2011 Tags: ,
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Desert Island Discs – A Discussion on Data Migration

Yesterday I stumbled across something exciting (well, exciting for me anyway).  The BBC have set up an area on their Radio 4 website to archive all of the selection made by everybody who has appeared on their Desert Island Discs program.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs

Amazingly, it’s been a regular feature for over 70 years and in that that time they have had a wide variety of ‘castaways’, ranging from musicians and authors to Nobel Prize winners, who each select eight songs that they would take away to a desert island.

In doing so, they have created a fascinating database of the music that inspired the guests on their respective journeys towards success.

I immediately dove straight in the archive to listen to interviews with Debbie Harry and Morrissey to get an insight into their musical influences, but I can imagine how trawling further back into the archives will become a regular part of my spare time to explore a wider range of personalities and eras (yes, I’m a bit like that).

It also got me thinking about an important step in the implementation of PLM … data migration.  It’s not the most glamorous or exciting point in the process but it does have a long term effect of the success of gaining user adoption.

Quite often, it comes down to one question: “How much information should organisations migrate?”

Some companies opt to start with an “empty fridge” with the intention of filling it as they go along.  However, in doing so, they create a system that does not appear to offer anything exciting so uptake is sporadic and users do not immediately see the benefits of the system.

However, this decision is offset against the time and effort that is required to gather the full archive of information.   The BBC website gives a good insight into what is required to do this …

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/about/making-of-the-archive

The first issue is often tracking down the information that you want to migrate.  The BBC had to gather information from paper archives and early database to create their “dirty spreadsheet” of information.

This then had to be cleaned in order to correct any errors in the data and then they began a process of standardisation and classification in order to make the information searchable and easy to understand.

In my opinion it comes down to understanding what will add ultimately add benefit to your business:  Creating an archive of obsolete information from year dot may prove to be unwieldy (and I’m can’t say I’m fascinated to see what records Captain A E Dingle chose in 1942).  But, the “empty fridge” is unlikely to inspire users to invest in the system.

So what do you think is the right amount of information?

Posted on May 25th, 2011 Tags: ,
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Weekend Retreat

It’s been a bit of a ‘back to nature’ weekend for me over the 4 day UK Bank Holiday.  On Friday, we went to visit my in laws out in the countryside, hanging out with the goats and chickens in their garden.  On Saturday, I returned to Manchester for a friend’s birthday party which loosely coincided with the pagan festival of Beltane.

For those amongst you are not familiar with Beltane (I’m going to count myself among you as an on/off attendee of the group), it is a spring festival that celebrates the waxing of the sun in the lead up to the summer equinox when it is reaches its peak.  Traditionally, it has been celebrated in various forms through bonfires and dancing.

I am neither a particularly religion nor spiritual person, but what I do appreciate about these celebrations is the communal atmosphere that is created by a group of people around a fire.  This one was no different, especially because a majority had brought food and musical instruments to keep us all entertained with drumming and singing.

It is also surprisingly liberating to leave my phone, laptop and iPod to one side and enjoy the simplicity of what was going on around me … in doing so, my normal self-conscience instinct left and I found myself tapping and humming along with the group.

Now I’m not quite ready to trade everything in for a self-sustainable ‘Good Life’, but it does make me think that there is a lot to be said for ‘keeping it simple’; if you tell people where to go and what you want them to do when they get there, then anybody can play their part.

In this respect, making a change in an organisation isn’t that much different.  Ultimately, it is about getting everybody engaged in the same direction so that even the wariest of onlookers feel comfortable enough to put their fears to one side.

So what is the answer?  From this weekend’s experience, it’s about making it simple.

Posted on May 3rd, 2011 Tags:
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