Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Is the Future of School on a Chromebook?

When I was growing up, it was all about “Apples in the classroom.” Then, while I was in college, every student had to have access to a PC and connected printer so our term papers would be legible. If you’re a school-aged child today, though, chances are you’ll interface with Google hardware before you ever hear the words “Apple” and “Microsoft.”

My husband grew up in Norwalk, CT, and according to Dian Schaffhauser at The Journal , this school system currently provides a huge number of Google Chromebooks to its students. Ralph Valenzisi, chief of technology, innovation, and partnerships in Norwalk, told Schaffhauser that he needed the devices so students could take the Smarter Balanced online tests.

“We also wanted to move to a cloud-based computing platform that would deliver applications and provide a 21^st century learning environment allowing creative thinking, collaboration, and communication among students, while giving them access to whatever they need,” he said. “Since most teachers were already using Google in their pockets, the Chromebook was the easiest tool to move forward with.”

A 2015 Futuresource Consulting study found that Google Chromebook sales now account for more than half of all devices sold for U.S. classrooms (not including the still-ubiquitous desktop computers), up from less than one percent in 2012. The Chromebook device has a built-in keyboard and cloud-based storage.

Why the sudden takeover? “Chromebooks have the perfect value proposition for education: They're easy to manage, secure, can easily switch between users, and are cost-effective,” Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder told CNBC’s Harriet Taylor. “Plus, a great deal of educational content and software has been optimized for Web-based delivery.” Case in point: Google Apps for Education is an easy solution for word processing, presentation building, and spreadsheet development.

Chromebooks are also very lightweight and hard to break.  Compared with similar devices, they are also relatively inexpensive, and their software allows teachers to offer learning plans that are tailored to a diverse range of student abilities and requirements. The only issue with the Chromebook (and it’s a fairly big one), is that functionality is limited and students often get stuck because the device can’t perform as, for instance, an iPad would.

Printing is one major area that has proved cumbersome for Chromebook users. Up to this point, if a child wanted to print out a document, they had to send it to a parent or teacher first. But fortunately, my partner Xerox has a new solution that may just save the Chromebook’s efficiency. The Google Chrome store now offers the Xerox Mobile Print app, which, when it comes to printing, immediately turns the Chromebook into a standard mobile device that students already know how to operate.

The app lets students send their Chromebook docs to any printer, even the old, laser jet ones that might be sitting in the office. School districts purchase access to the Mobile Print cloud server, and with basically the flip of a switch, tens of thousands of students have access to the app. The districts, in turn, can set policies for security, accounting, and tracking so they can restrict access where necessary.

In a digital world, why is it so important for students to be able to print easily? Obviously, assignments, lesson plans, and tests sometimes require it. But there is also a psychological component, which a MediaPlanet article describes well. “Imagine a student spending hours on that well-crafted report or project — and the pride experienced when seeing the fruits of their labor in printed form or when receiving the proverbial gold-star of approval from their teacher. Equally, many parents still want to proudly display their child’s handy-work on their fridge or at the office. None of that is possible without paper.”

In short, the future of education appears to be on a Chromebook that’s connected to mobile apps like the one offered by Xerox.  I’m looking forward to seeing how this trend develops!

Advancing Partnerships in the Workplace

In their research, Gartner analysts Jeffrey Brooks, Heather Colella, and John Roberts found that CIOs believe current approaches to assessing executive satisfaction are missing something, and that IT organizations require a technique that puts the onus on line of business partners to articulate exactly what they need from IT.

Gartner has developed one such technique, which involves understanding the importance of a reciprocal relationship, refining value-added questions for business executives, and initiating the conversation in a way that promotes maximum participation.

Reciprocity

According to the Gartner EXP report, The Politics of Powerful Partnerships: “At the heart of a powerful partnership between IT and the rest of the enterprise is reciprocity: the exchange of equivalent advantages or privileges. Without reciprocity, IT cannot move from order taker to powerful partner.”

“Individuals decline to enter into reciprocal arrangements with those they consider significantly different in power and status. CIOs can create powerful partnerships between IT and other departments by systematically building IT’s power and status in key areas to reach equality with business peers.”

One way to do this is through regular satisfaction surveys. By benchmarking IT through four types of satisfaction surveys, Gartner suggested that CIOs will be armed with the information they need to have meaningful conversations with their business colleagues. These types include:

• Measuring satisfaction when a service desk ticket has been closed
• Measuring satisfaction at the end of a project
• Conducting annual IT satisfaction surveys with business users
• Conducting ongoing surveys and conversations with business leaders to get their qualitative opinions about IT

Value-added questions

A key role of IT, said the Gartner analysts, is growing line of business technology capabilities. CIOs can do this by creating a few open-ended questions for business colleagues to gain a clearer understanding of what their people expect of IT. As stewards of their organizations, the business colleagues can then interpret that information for the CIOs. Finally, CIOs can work with business colleagues to redefine and rethink how technology enables the enterprise.

Gartner’s thought-starter questions included the following:

• How is your personal success measured, and how well-positioned are you to achieve it?
• How do you leverage technology to drive better business results?
• IT tends to describe what it does in terms of services. What three services do you frequently use?
• If you could divorce IT, what would you look for in a new partner?
• If you were named CIO tomorrow, what would be the first three actions you would take and why?

Telepresence Robots Coming to an Office Near You

Using telepresence robotics technology by Double Robotics and others, organizations are virtually sending their employees on client meetings and speaking engagements every day. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

Telepresence is one of the few commercial applications of robotics technology that I’ve been genuinely excited about. Now that remote work is significantly on the rise, I view telepresence as a terrific means for professionals to virtually project themselves into an engaging human office environment.

Since I don’t have a telepresence robot myself yet, I checked out some opinions from those who have used them. Do the currentmachines live up to the hype, and are they a nightmare for IT staff to manage and secure?

In theory

Over at TechCrunch, Peter Hirst wrote about his colleague at MIT Sloan Executive Education, Paul McDonagh-Smith. Paul’s based in London, but his telepresence robot from Double Robotics allows him to present at a conference in Singapore first thing in the morning, then have a business meeting in Cape Town, South Africa and later that afternoon, meet with team members on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“In our office, telepresence robots are no longer a novelty, but an everyday tool we’ve been using to enable our remote team members to be more engaged,” said Hirst. “Double’s robot units are available regularly for team meetings or one-on-one visits. We all enjoy the ability to be truly present in our interactions with colleagues and clients — an experience that feels much more natural and personal than a phone call or a videoconference.”

In practice

Emily Dreyfuss is a remote worker at Wired. She lives in Boston, but most of her colleagues are in an office in San Francisco, and she was feeling left out. Her boss bought her Double Robotics’ creatively named Double, which sells for around $2500. The telepresence robot was Dreyfuss’ physical embodiment at headquarters. Instead of legs, she moved on gyroscopically stabilized wheels. Instead of a face, she had an iPad screen. Instead of eyes, a camera with no peripheral vision. Instead of a mouth, a speaker. And instead of ears, a tinny microphone.

At first, Dreyfuss was enamored with the experience. “It’s thrilling. I am in the office! There is the kitchen! There is Sam! Hi, everyone! I am here!” she exclaimed. Her robot, nicknamed Embot, attended meetings. “Plunked at the end of the conference table, my iPad head tracked the conversation, listening.”

Although Embot put Dreyfuss physically in the office, her co-workers could only see her face and not her body, and therefore were not constantly reminded how pregnant she was. “The visual reminder of my changed condition was not in their faces,” she said. “I have worked at places before where women start getting treated differently when their bellies show.

Dreyfuss realized, however, that current telepresence technology has its limitations. For one thing, people were always touching her robotic body without asking, either to help her move if she got stuck or just because they felt it. It was awkward for her – and her colleagues too. As one reported: “You know, when Joe lifted you up and carried you – with your face on the screen, it looked really inappropriate. Like he was cradling you in his arms.”

Embot was also a little rough around the edges technology wise. Dreyfuss couldn’t hear meetings very well. Robots, of course, live off power and and Wi-Fi, and signal strength proved to be a big problem.

For the rest of the article, check out QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Microfeedback: The Future of Management

A few months ago, I attended an employee engagement workshop. The facilitator suggested that millennials require performance feedback more than once a year. “Maybe once a quarter,” she said.

More like once a day!” I couldn’t resist calling out.

I wasn’t kidding. For the 80 million millennials who now make up a majority of the workforce, no news is bad news. If they don’t hear from their managers frequently, they think they’re doing something wrong and quickly grow disillusioned.

Nevertheless, an open door policy in which employees are invited to stop by a manager’s office for extended feedback sessions multiple times a day simply isn’t practical. So what’s the solution?

The innovative concept of microfeedback originated in the consumer space and consisted of collecting a small amount of information from customers at key moments in their shopping experience. The goal was to gather relevant customer feedback for a more accurate assessment of their satisfaction.

Think about this, though. Why can’t the idea of microfeedback be extended to performance management? We certainly have the technology. Intra-company messaging systems like Yammer, Skype for business, and Slack are growing exponentially and with some groups (like millennials), are even  more popular than email.

Imagine that your direct report gives a status update in the departmental meeting for the first time. You think she did an exceptional job, but instead of noting it in her file to be reviewed in six months (or worse, forgetting about it completely), you send her a “thumbs up” emoticon via Slack. The action takes you less than 30 seconds, and yet your employee has a piece of encouraging feedback that will make her day.

For more where this came from, head over to the SilkRoad blog.

Do You Have One of Those Time-Waster Personalities?

When I met Dana Brownlee, the founder of corporate training company Professionalism Matters, we got to talking about time wasting habits. It turns out that certain types of people are actually prone to ineffective time management.

Being the productivity nut that I am, I naturally probed a bit deeper on this one and asked Brownlee to describe her four personality types, and how to stop struggling if you have one of them.

The Fire Extinguisher

This person has no real plan for their career or even the day ahead. All she can do is focus on the latest fire or the most recent request in front of them, with no organized system to manage all of her tasks. Brownlee says this time bomb approach explodes when something really important falls through the cracks.

The Checklist Checker

This personality is more focused on checking off items on his “to do list” than the real accomplishment of important items. Focusing too much on small tasks rather than the critical (and yes, daunting) ones is a dangerous approach because it gives the false illusion of achievement.

The Manic Multi-Tasker

This personality is convinced that one has to do 2-3 things at a time to be efficient. This person often can’t distinguish what can be multitasked versus what can’t. This can set her up for negative consequences (e.g. quality lapses, errors) that result from lack of attention and concentration.

For more where this came from, check out the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Top Business Process Pitfalls to Avoid

Business process improvement requires good business process visibility, or the ability to accurately and completely view the processes, transactions and other activities operating within an enterprise.

In particular, it ensures that the business has a complete and accurate picture of IT operations, and vice versa. Organizations can also quickly identify process problems and get processes that don’t map to overall business objectives back on track – increasing value and efficiency.

But business process visibility is not just a nice-to-have, it’s essential in order to improve business processes and overall operational efficiency. Here are eight unfortunate things that happen when visibility isn’t up to par.

Silos and Manual Solutions

When information isn’t stored and shared in a central location, each team must develop its own process and solution. Obviously, these are inconsistent and unreliable, and “reinventing the wheel” always takes longer that sticking with a single plan that everyone knows works. Also, while project managers may share schedules with sponsors and other leaders at the start of a project, executives may lose the trail if documents are updated but not shared in real time, or worse, via emails and spreadsheets.

Insufficient Resources

When leaders can’t see individual tasks and team capacity, they are likely to assume that their people can do more with less and may go overboard with project planning and assignment. Project managers may be aware that team members are overloaded, but without process visibility, they lack the means to prove it to executives. And with no reprieve in sight, top talent is likely to seek other opportunities.

Incomplete Communication

Email is the biggest culprit here. This resource is frequently used to communicate about projects, but what happens when a new team member joins and doesn’t have access to the project’s documented history, and what happens if a team member forgets to cc another on an important piece of communication? And what about the common scenario of the executive who feels kept in the dark because he or she isn’t receiving regular updates? Then, you have team members wasting time frantically searching their inboxes.

Lower Quality Outputs

Fragmented processes lead to poor project quality because it’s easy for details to be missed during handoffs and things to slip through the cracks. A small problem may easily become a larger one. The result? Anything from a cost overrun to a defective product.

Inaccurate Reporting

Even when businesses have the right business intelligence information available to them, it may be inaccessible or erroneously reported due to lack of process visibility. Leaders who don’t have the most relevant insights at their fingertips are less likely to make smart choices.

For more pitfalls, head over to QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Are Your Business Processes Stalled?

If your business process management isn’t up to par, you’re not alone.

At the Six Sigma IQ website, BPM expert Dan Morris assured readers that many companies suffer from stalled BPM. But whether you are stuck on simple improvements rather than true transformations or whether you are being overly tactical instead of strategic, there is a way out of the tunnel.

What’s your first step? Morris offered a self-test that can help you identify whether your BPM is in need of some adjustment.

• Does it seem like few really significant changes (transformational) get done?
• Are most of your BPM projects really just improvements on what is already being done?
• Do your projects challenge fundamental concepts in the way the business functions?
• Do your business managers think the projects make a real difference?
• Are your change projects normally considered to be successful by senior management?
• Do your BPM project benefits really make a difference to the bottom line (e.g. cost reduction or sales expansion)?
• Is the head of your BPM group considered a trusted business partner by business key managers – is he or she invited to their business operation meetings?
• Is your BPM program expanding in the company?
• Is your BPM budget adequate to support a growing service group?

Morris advised that in a nutshell, your answers to these questions will determine whether your business is improving significantly as a result of your BPM, and/or whether senior managers are getting the return they want from your efforts. If you thought you were doing a great job but the current answers to these questions involve a lot of “Nos”, you might be experiencing a setback that looks like this:

• Your group’s budget stagnates or increases very slowly
• The ability of your group to hire good people decreases and turnover is a problem
• The role that your group can play is limited
• BPM becomes a secondary concern with focus shifting to BPMS and IT application generation
• Your group is focused on chipping away at small improvements instead of projects that are big enough to make a difference in the company’s ability to compete
• Management’s expectations of your group are lower

For the rest of the post, check out QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

Friends Versus Clients: Where Do You Draw the Line?

By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator, according to a recent Customers 2020 Report. Increasingly, customers of small businesses may be expecting owners to know their individual needs in detail and go out of their way to personalize offerings and the shopping experience. When this is done properly, repeat business can be the result.

But what happens when you please the customer so much that your relationship becomes personal? Claudia Mora, owner of The Beauty Vault salon in Fairview, New Jersey; Jeanne Nohalty, founder of design boutique Alley Cat Décor in Oak Park, Illinois; and Jason Sherman, CEO of dating appInstamour in Philadelphia reveal how they manage this situation.

Briefly tell us about an experience where a friend became a customer, or a customer became a friend.

Claudia Mora: Owning a beauty salon is a tough job. You have to be a best friend, a therapist, a stylist and so much more. You see the same clients at least once a week and they become friends, almost family. You talk to them about life, business and, of course, love. I go out for drinks with customers, and they often text me to make appointments instead of calling the salon.

Jeanne Nohalty: We’ve for sure had customers who have turned into friends. It’s wonderful and validates that you are doing your job well. Our key business focus is outstanding customer relations. We treat our customers exactly like friends and therefore see no difference in terms of how we provide service to a friend or a customer who walks in off the street.

Jason Sherman: Often, when my friends need help with their businesses, they turn to me. I tend to be careful, as one wrong move could end the business relationship as well as the friendship. In one case, I agreed to help a friend work on a new product website. 

What were the challenges associated with this situation, and how did you cope with them?

Sherman: It was challenging because she wanted a great deal of customization. The situation became very difficult. During this process, we became less friendly and more like business acquaintances. I even tried to reinforce our friendship by building a custom site for her anyway to show her how it would look, but she ended our contract anyway.

Mora: When I first opened up shop, I offered all my friends the "friends and family" discount, and sometimes I'd comp their services. One day, one of my best friends, who was a customer, said, "I don't need money off. Charge me as a regular client. I should pay the same price I’d pay anywhere else.” That was the last day I offered the “friends and family” discount.

For the rest of the interview, head over to the AMEX Open Forum.

For Greater Productivity, Try 52/17

Over five years ago, I wrote one of my first posts for the Fast Track blog. The article was about how I was able to hold down four paid jobs in addition to raising a toddler. Fast forward to today, when I am working on at least a dozen paid jobs and am responsible for an additional child. I’m still using the same system, and it’s still working.

One of the things I mentioned in the article is how I leave two hours per day for last minute tasks, essentially only scheduling enough productive work for six hours. During the remaining time, I manage administrative tasks, networking calls and gatherings, media interviews, research, and yes – downtime.

Introducing 52/17

Julia Gifford is a self-proclaimed Canadian born tech-enthusiast who currently works for the Draugiem Group. Gifford published an article on TheMuse.com detailing her company’s research study on employee work flow. Using time-tracking and productivity app DeskTime, Draugiem looked at the habits of the most productive employees and pinpointed the work style leading to an incredible ability to get things done.

What’s the strategy? It turns out I wasn’t so far off in my approach to six hours of productive work and two hours of non-productive work or breaks. Draugiem found that the most productive 10 percent of DeskTime users work for 52 minutes without stopping, break for 17 minutes, and then get back to the task at hand. They repeat this technique every hour.

If this sounds familiar, you might have heard of a similar approach called the Pomodoro Method. Cited by Gifford, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that uses a timer to break down work into intervals of focus and rest. These intervals are called “pomodoros” (or “tomatoes” in Italian), after those tomato-shaped kitchen timers.

Pomodoros are separated by short breaks for distractions, daydreaming, snacking, etc. It works by choosing a task to work on exclusively for 25 minutes, setting a timer, working on the task until the timer rings, and then taking a five minute break. After going through this cycle four times, you take a longer (about 15 minutes) break.

The Magic of the Creative Sprint

Why do methods like 52/17 and Pomodoro work so well? How can people who don’t even work a full day accomplish so much more than those who clock way more hours? Gifford wrote that the reason the top 10 percent of productive employees are able to get the most done during a comparatively short period of time is that every interval of working time is treated as a sprint. During the 52 minutes, they work with intense purpose, and then during the 17 minutes, they remove themselves completely from the task so that they can be fully focused and ready for the next sprint.

Human beings, apparently, are actually built to sprint. The body is not meant to sit for eight hours straight, so breaks on-the-hourimprove both productivity and health. The brain doesn’t love focusing for long periods either, and according to Gifford, concentration is like a muscle that needs to rest. Even if you’re a conscientious employee and love your work, doing it for hours on end will inevitably result in boredom and flagging attention. Psychologically and physically, being overworked is worse than being underworked.

For the rest of the piece, check out QuickBase's Fast Track blog.

5 Essentials for the “Office” of the Future

Yesterday I traveled to the Gil Hatch Center for Customer Innovation in Rochester, NY to talk with my partner Xerox and visiting press and analysts about the future of work and office technology. Given that the office isn’t a necessary a physical location anymore, both software and hardware must be configured to be used effectively and efficiently by a growing virtual, mobile and contract workforce. Whether you are an enterprise or an SMB, here are the must-haves for your technology.

IoT and mobile operations

Technology must be accessible anytime, anywhere, by both full-time and contract workers. Mobile phones must be able to seamlessly communicate with other devices via the Internet of Things as well as any onsite infrastructures and systems, and users want to automate complex processes with a single touch or action. And, all of this must be done with minimal intervention from IT as these professionals can only assist so many people at once.

Remote collaboration

In 2016, flexwork is king, meaning that the days of the majority of your employees working together in the same location are likely numbered. But technology must facilitate virtual work in which it’s just as easy and productive to engage with your colleague in Japan as it is with the one in the cubicle next door. Technology must be agile, with the ability to support new collaboration apps being developed on the consumer side or via in-house citizen development.

Secure workflow to and from the cloud

When it comes to intellectual property residing in the cloud, security remains the biggest concern. Organizations want their data stored in a central location and accessible by everyone who needs it, but documents must be managed in a way that is controllable and protects them from internal and external threats and breeches.

Customized to the individual

Employees have variable needs and every individual has his or her own way of doing things, so mandating a certain process for using technology is a surefire way to hinder adoption. Tomorrow’s office systems must be personalized so that whether you prefer to print via mobile or manual methods or scan via email or QR codes, you’re covered.

Despite the obviously increasing sophistication of office technology demands, according to IDC, 40 percent of smartphone users and 35 percent of tablet users don’t even know how to print from their device. So, as an example of new office technologies that address these demands while also simplifying solutions for the individual, Xerox has just released the 14 Xerox ConnectKey enabled i-Series multi-function printers (MFPs). In order to accommodate a diverse mobile workforce, the MFPs are designed with an intuitive user display with ready-to-use MFP applications right on the interface.

In particular, the Mobile Link app lets users create one-touch, automated workflows on their mobile devices to remotely control a Xerox MFP and transmit documents to fax, email and cloud-hosted services like Box, Dropbox and Google Drive. And, perhaps most importantly, the new MFPs have secure print and scan encryption so companies can ensure that documents remain confidential.

What new technologies are helping you be more productive at work?