Why TwentyFeet is Total Twash

Yet another Twitter analytic tool has made it into the spotlights: Twentyfeet
Like most if not all other tools that try to measure Twitter stats (Klout, Tweetlevel), it horribly fails. Apparently it's too much work or money to actually measure all tweets, and do they take a sample and extrapolate - or rather, sugguestimate - the rest

That, or they really just can't count

Big Brother? Sits right on your mobile

[The image above has nothing to do with this post, but it seemed to be fitting, given the latest developments. This post is all about trust]

In this age of free(mium), it's common knowledge that you pay with your privacy. Facebook is the best (or should I say worst) example of the dance around your data, yet there are many more tools that you use, which have access to everything that you carry with you: all the data on your phone. Not only can they read that, they can also change it - and even "impersonate" you

Some applications do need this very deep trust level, e.g. virus scanners and applications such as Androidlost. Others absolutely do not do so, like Skype, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Facebook. Interested to see what they can do to the contents of your phone? You'll be in for a surprise, or should I say, shock

Why I only watch blind auditions of #TVOH

It was an intention I had after the first season of The voice Of Holland had ended. After the second season, it was a firm agreement I made with myself. And yet, as it's aired on Friday night, it's become a tradition for me and my women to watch TVOH with a proper fire in the fireplace, drinks, potato chips, and lively discussions

No more. I tell you, no more

Innovation and inclusion - a matter of space and time

[Image by Salim Virji]

I am not sure anymore on relationship between innovation and inclusion . Need to think through it during the long flight to India tomorrow
— Vijay Vijayasankar (@vijayasankarv) October 26, 2012

Vijay Vijasankar and Ethan Jewett dragged me into a conversation on innovation and inclusion. Well of course they didn't, I butted in as usual

My answer was:

@vijayasankarv @esjewett that can't be true. They mean the extent of inclusion in space and time - I sure do hope
— Martijn Linssen (@MartijnLinssen) October 26, 2012

I'm sorry, you're just not incompetent enough to get it

Olivier Blanchard made me do it.

@martijnlinssen :D As far as I can tell, incompetence isn't a driver of failure. It's a driver of advancement.
— Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) October 16, 2012

And it is. Definition of advancement? Coming up soon. But this is the driver for most, if not all, of your life: work, life, religion, politics, social media (sic) and last but certainly not least successful Enterprise products.
Come again? Yes

SAP may be betting on the right horses, but how about the jockeys?

Mark Finnern welcomed the new Sap mentors today, 20 experienced people with some ties to SAP. As Matthias Steiner says, everyone can nominate one, selection process is "top secret".
If I'd get to single out one addition that pleases me most, it'd be Fred Verheul. Congratulations, Fred!

A whole conversation unfolded after I asked Jamie Oswald about the little HANA, Cloud and Integration expertise among the newcomers. Summing up all reactions, there was HANA experience among a dozen, and Jamie assured me that

@vijayasankarv @martijnlinssen Important to remember that Mentors aren't for marketing - big part of job is helping existing implementations
— Jamie Oswald (@oswaldxxl) September 25, 2012

I decided to take a look at the whole group of 110, and see how they could help existing implementations. In plain English: how does their expertise add up to the latter?

What drives IT failure? Ignorance and Greed

It was an interesting question Charles Storm posed the other day: was I saying that solutions are primarily driven by ignorance and greed? I wasn't, but he made me think:

• Every solution is driven by need, or want, and some lack of knowledge.
• Every failure is caused by ignorance and greed

Let's see whether I can find good arguments for that, and where the twain meet

Google you are so sad, you drive me mad

Google has tried a new trick to lure in people to their destined-to-die Social Network, aka Google+

Update August 3 7:32 GMT+2:
This works on Internet Explorer 8. I haven't been able to reproduce this on other browsers and versions

Why the harsh words? Because I'm appalled by the method they choose. If you're not getting enough attention for your product or service, you should try to make it more attractive (financially, operationally, which ever way) - not invent cunning ways to whip people towards or into it

What has Google tried now? They limit your Google Search results to 20, unless you sign up for Google+.
Let me repeat that: Google limits your Google Search results (to 20), unless you sign up for Google+

Twitter is NOT where the party is at

You couldn't possible have missed the messy story around NBC and Twitter, resulting in suspension of Guy Adams' Twitter account. Guy's latest reaction on that is here, and contains the concise version.

Update July 31st 21:15 GMT+2: Guy Adam's account has been unsuspended:

Oh. My Twitter account appears to have been un-suspended. Did I miss much while I was away?
— Guy Adams (@guyadams) July 31, 2012

I do have to say that "which is widely listed online" is an exaggeration for sure, as it's only to be found on one site

I remember that it was also in a comment to a 2008 post on that same site, but can't possibly find that anymore now the web has been littered with Gary Zenkel's email address. In an action that started 10 hours ago, people have been tweeting and blogging the email address and since then it's been mentioned over a thousand times on Twitter, and if you Google for it you'll currently get close to ten thousand results

The long tail of IT: the Indian connection

This is a theoretical post lacking research and analysis - for that, I'll have to take a few days and I'll follow up in my next post.
However, I have this idea in my head and usually, that leads to something good and insightful. So please bear with me while I set out my thoughts on the Indian connection.
I've worked for a system integrator for well over a decade - I've also analysed system integrators for almost a decade. As such, I've been sandwiched between internal figures, and outside figures, and wondered where the ever deepening gap disappeared into

My thesis: system integrators (SI) are a dying breed, yet that doesn't show so much (if any) because of the fact that they hire Indians by the sackfull

Why management rocks, and leadership sucks

[Image by _MG_5503]

The past 24 hours I had a fierce conversation on leadership and management, and I love how just everyone joined in on Twitter; especially those that disagree with me because they teach me most in the shortest amount of time

I started it with

Every one wants to be a leader, but no one wants to be led #leadership
- Martijn Linssen (@MartijnLinssen) April 22, 2012

By the way, that picture of the Redskins cheerleaders is just there to spice up my blog and the post. Might lead your eyes astray for a moment, but no pun intended. I had a very hard time to select photographs that weren't shot at some battlefield or military institution, seems like the US army keeps their men happy that way. Now that is what I call management par example...

How Dachis failed the Social Business test

[Image by Pablo X]

My post the other day on Dachis deleting blog posts of employees who left has led to quite a bit of Twitter conversations - not all of them equally pleasant nor a true example of Social (Business). I feel that this extra post is needed to bring some closure, and achieve some lessons learned. I'll show how the story has unfolded, and also

I wrote Is Dachis rewriting its own history because at that point I had found that certain blog posts were no longer present, and Dachis (Dave Gray, informed by Peter Kim) ensured me that no blog posts had been removed.
In the light of those contradicting facts, writing the post was inevitable

Is Dachis rewriting its own history?

David Terrar and I were discussing his post on Social Business in which he takes a trip down memory lane back to even before the coming of E2.0 as we knew it, and I was pointing him to my Redefining the meaning and goal of Social .
I clicked the link to David Armano's post Tweeting at the speed of scale on Dachis' Collaboraty, to find out it was a dead link. Odd

80-20: the deadly cause of IT project failure

There seems to be a rush of IT failure topics these days, all trying to find the Holy Grail of project failure. While I hold that this is a world of AND and AND, not OR and OR, I do see a major cause for project failure for the last decade: shifting from serial processing (waterfall) to parallel (Agile, Scrum, and so on)

Apart from the fact that Agile is solely focused on delivering a project rather than a product, this is not an Agile-bashing post: it is intended to show a very weak spot of contemporary IT projects

Why it pays to keep rats on a starvation diet

Full credit to Dennis Howlett for this title. I tried to locate the very tweet he sent out years ago, but failed. If memory serves me correctly, he compared enterprise employees to rats being kept on a starvation diet.
Why enterprise employees? Maybe because they come by the tens of thousands, I guess. But I vividly saw the image in front of me

I often hear people complain about the way they are rewarded at their job - usually financially. And when I say people, I don't mean the top 1-2% in an enterprise that surf ahead of the wave and automagically keep their feet dry when it drops on everyone else

Do uneducated vote conservative - in the USA?

My last post of the year was about the correlation between conservatism and education. I took the results per state of the US 2008 election, showing the margin percentage for Obama, and related that to total education spend per state

The outcome was astonishing: all but 3 states fit perfectly into the newly found rule. The odd ones out were Sarah Palin's state, Dick Cheney's state, and Louisiana. However, Pat McGuinness slapped me on the wrist 4 times in a row, assuming his ass off, calling me ignorant and prejudiced, and spreading dumb and unsupported rumours. So here's my answer.
The data in the table above is based on data from the National Center of Education Statistics and shows actual education level in 2006-8

On the correlation between conservatism and education

I was in a fairly regular Twitter conversation with Vijay Vijayasankar (meaning: anything goes) and it happened again: right in between the bartalk, something clever was born. See the dialogue above please, top-down, transscribed here:

@vijayasankarv The abundance of ignorance and misinformation among Americans, especially conservative ones, is staggering

@MartijnLinssen not sure if that is a problem with just conservatives..ppl think in extremes on both sides I think

@vijayasankarv I guess so. It's just that conservatism and lack of education is highly correlated - throughout the world

@vijayasankarv Having said that... if there *is* a correlation, that means conservative parties/govs must do their best to cripple education

@MartijnLinssen that is an interesting hypothesis

Migration 101 - follow the white rabbit

It seems that not every migration is welcomed by applause these days, reasons for which can usually be attributed to a definite lack of success. So, here's a checklist that will help you achieve success. Of course the list is condensed and a lot of detail is left out, as it's just a lot of work to do a proper, prepared and tested, migration - but this is a pretty good approach

Why I'm using fake identities to sign up

That is, from now on I will. It is not only getting harder to sign up, it is also getting harder to sign in, and out. Let me explain please as this story has a few sides to it.
But first, let me make my point: I'm going to use fake identities to sign up for new services. If I like the new service, I'll abandon the fake identity and sign up with a real one

Will that mean I'll be lying when accepting most ToS?

Public chats on Twitter - invading your timeline?

After a conversation with Alan Berkson, I wondered about the public chats on Twitter. They're conducted by following / naming a hashtag, which usually happens at conferences, but there are also various chats going on such as #lrnchat, #influencechat

How do you chat on Twitter? That is the question. And it is a difficult one, or rather, the answers are various. There is no general recipient for a chat except a hashtag maybe, but that is visible for all others to see. So everything you say, goes down your timeline and is to be absorbed by your followers