Our Brains are being Rewired

I’ve noticed, as well as read, about the impacts of the Internet and other technologies on both children and adults. Not only is it changing the way we think, it’s changing the way we learn. I can remember not long ago the term multi-tasking was a positive trait to list on one’s resume. But did you know that a recent study shows that multi-tasking has long term negative performance results? As it turns out, the sum of our multi-tasking activity is less than that of more focused individuals. Fascinating! Of course, as with any study, you must consider how it was governed, accept the laws of statistics, and question the objectives of those conducting the effort.

At any rate, the fact still stands that our brains are being rewired with children being the most susceptible. I only hope that our parents, teachers, and community leaders recognize this and work to educate accordingly. Two shadows always lurk in the face of change, resistance and opportunity. Which one will you choose?

Misdirection and Rabbit Holes

How much work completed by your organization is in direct support of your business?

This may seem like a trivial question and most would probably respond swiftly with, “All of it!”, but if you take the time to look closely you may be surprised at what you’ll find.

I worked as a business consultant for a broadband media company several years ago. Their business was technical in nature given the fact their mission was to develop and market solid state storage devices for use in the media industry. Sounds cool, right? Well, I have to admit, it was cool but the company was failing.

Not because of a bad vision or poor product, but because they were side tracked.

As the company grew so did their technology needs. They quickly found themselves with the burden of networking multiple geographic locations, implementing enterprise collaboration tools, streamlining business processes and managing vendors. This, as they would learn, can be a daunting task.

It wasn’t long before their mission changed from creating a best of breed suite of broadband media devices to being the best at managing internal operations and the supporting technology.

Even the best run organizations fall into a rabbit hole from time to time and lose focus on the big picture, but one of the safest ways to protect your business from falling victim to misdirection is to outsource. There are hundreds if not thousands of companies that specialize in what you may be trying to accomplish on your own.

Take advantage of those specialized skills outside your organization and keep your key contributors focused on the vision.

Keeping your internal message consistent and in line with the overall vision is critical to building brand, developing in-house expertise and ultimately growing your IP. How would your employees answer the following question? “What does our company do?”

Now, more importantly, ask yourself how your customers would answer the question if you asked them the following question. What does my company do?”

Regretfully, most organizations will find that not only their message is skewed internally, but it is completely missed by their target markets.

So, what can you do? Through my experience, I’ve found you must first define your message. You must understand clearly what it is the company is setting out to accomplish. Then, formulate this vision into a single governing mission that can be shared by all. Once you’ve got that, consistently evaluate your own organization and target markets to see if the message is clear. If not, you more than likely have misaligned or misdirected priorities.

Bring the attention of your key contributors back to the company mission and look to outsource those operational or infrastructure related activities.

No ASP.NET Tab, Upgrade Scriptmaps for Websites vs. Virtual Directories

Finding a whole lot of nothing provoked me to write about something specific related to this topic.

The Problem

You have Internet Information Server (IIS) running and are missing the ASP.NET tab.  In most cases, you could use “aspnet_regiis /lk” and find the unique name of the website and then use that name to issue “aspnet_regiis /sn <uniqueName>”.  Only the script maps for the specified site are updated right?  Well, not exactly because the /lk switch only lists virtual directories and you have multiple websites running on your box.  Therefore you find yourself stuck at step one and thinking:

“Why do websites not show up when I run “aspnet_regiis /lk”.  And furthermore, if they are not listed then how do I upgrade their scriptmaps to .NET 2.0?”

I actually have 15 websites running on my IIS server and only 8 results.  Not to mention, the specific website I want to upgrade is not listed!

The Solution

First of all, forget about all the recommendations and posts you’ve read about hacking the registry to fix the missing ASP.NET tab or reinstalling IIS.  It’s not worth it!

Instead, you can find the unique name needed for the aspnet_regiis command using IIS Administration Console.  Once you have that unique name, you can shell out to the command line and run “aspnet_regiis /sn <uniqueName>” without a problem.

Step 1: Open IIS Administration Console and right click the website you would like to upgrade.

Step 2: Click on “Properties” in the “Enable Logging” group.  The unique name you are looking for is located at the bottom of the Logging Properties dialog and embedded in the “Log file name”.  Remember this number, you will need it for the next step!

Step 3: Open the command line and navigate to the .NET 2.0 framework directory.  This is usually under “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0…”.  Issue the “aspnet_regiis –sn <uniqueName>” command to upgrade the desired website to .NET 2.0.  Keep in mind, the unique name from above needs a minor tweak to work.  For example:

               W3SVC1911477709  =  /W3SVC/1911477709/Root

Notice you must include the forward slashes in the appropriate places and append /Root to the end.  Then, aspnet_regiis will fully understand your request.

Step 4: Open your site in a browser.  If it depends on .NET 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, or 3.5 SP1 you should be in good shape.  Remember, you can’t verify the upgrade by using “aspnet_regiis /lk”.  Your website will not be listed!

Additional Tip: You can find the same information by opening the metabase.xml file and doing a search for your friendly website name.  The unique name is in a little bit different format, but you can massage it the same way we did the log file name above to get a compatible format for “aspnet_regiis /sn <uniqueName>”.

Conclusion

We found the unique name of a website running on our IIS server for use with the aspnet_regiis command.  Having this unique name provides us the ability to leverage aspnet_regiis and a slew of other useful commands.  We didn’t have to reinstall anything, we didn’t have to hack the registry and we accomplished our goal in this case of upgrading a specific website to .NET 2.0 or higher.

I sincerely hope this saves someone out there some time!  Good luck and happy coding.

Did You Know?

	“A society of problem solvers will advance far beyond that of labor workers.” Jeff Watson, 1.16.2009
Watch the Video

 Background

It is Friday afternoon and I’m minding my own business when an email hits my inbox that I would normally dismiss without another thought.  Instead, I figure I’ll give it 10 seconds to get my attention.  After all, it was sent from someone I know and trust but is also known for forwarding way to much email.  I’m not pointing fingers, you all know who you are, but if you don’t forward this link to at least 10 people you will have bad luck for the rest of the year.  

At any rate, it struck a nerve.  I work in technology, I consider myself a technologist, and until I watched this video I don’t think I have ever pondered the scale and speed things are moving.  If you have not watched the video above, then do so now.

The Inquiry

An old high school buddy of mine, Artagus, is teaching a class on technology at the college this semester and responded to my email about the “Did You Know” video above.

Hey Jeff,

How are ya man? I hope you all are doing great! I am teaching a class at … this semester (if you can believe that!), and thought you might be able to offer some insight for me and the class. The course is Technology and Sustainable Economic Development, basically on how technology helps to fuel economic dev. at different levels. Any thoughts or input or resources you may have would be much appreciated!

-Art

My Response

That’s great that you’re teaching.  Pretty neat!

One of the latest trends in technology is Business Process Management, or BPM.  BPM focuses on improving the quality and or velocity of business processes.  The bottom line is money.  Imagine how the assembly line transformed manufacturing during the industrial revolution.  BPM is the foundation for accomplishing the same thing but with technology.  It is less tangible which makes it more complex, but the end goal is the same.  Efficiency.  Do more with less.

This concept may seem counter intuitive when related to economic development because it seems to require less skilled resources or labor workers.  However, if looked at from a macro level, it stimulates the education of problem solvers rather than technical skills.  Think of it this way.  Would the world be a safer place with the majority of people knowing how to make better cars or drive cars better?  A society of problem solvers will advance far beyond that of labor workers.

Just my .02.  I’ll probably blog on this now that you’ve got me started.

-Jeff

And true to my threat, you are now reading my post.  Which, by the way, I’m mostly interested to hear your take on the video or the email thread.  What do you think?

Compliance is the Answer to Going Paperless

Mind Blowing

It simply blows my mind to see how companies spend time and money wrestling with a paper process.  I’m sure anyone who reads this can relate.  Have you ever heard someone around the office say:

• Ummm, yeah, I think that document is in file cabinet xyz.
• Our SLA?  We drafted that last year and I have no idea where it is.
• O, that document?  It was shipped offsite to Iron Mountain months ago.  We need it now?  Good luck!  We’ll be lucky to even find the thing.
• We wrote it and everyone read it…  I mean, we sent it out to all the employees, but we don’t know if they actually read it or not.

The story is the same everywhere you look these days.  We are surrounded by technology, yet continue to accept the defeat a paper process has to dish out.  The question is simple.  Why?  Well, if you’re like many companies it boils down to compliance.  That’s right compliance.  Think about it.  Regardless of how many trees I can save by going paperless, if I you can’t guarantee my digitized files will meet all the regulations imposed on my business, then what value are you actually adding? 

Enter Compliance

Compliance issues are the root of all evil when it comes to document management, workflow, and training.  They simply demand more than any solution can provide, right? And I don’t even want to think about the Archive Room. You know the one tucked away at the end of some hallway or in the basement. Cold and dreary, it’s the place where paper documents go to die!  Sound familiar?  If so, then you will also be familiar with the needs of an enterprise document management system.  Items like:

Scanning Security Retention Archiving

Availability Indexing Searchable Workflow Automation

Accessible Revisions Training Verification Electronic Signature

 

The list goes on and on.  My point is, and I’m not just saying this because I work for WayPoint, there is a better way and we help clients everyday overcome the burden of paper while improving process efficiency.  Not to mention, we are meeting every compliance regulation we’ve ever run up against and we’ve encountered some real buggers like the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11.

Summary

If you’re planning or have even thought about going paperless, look at it as an opportunity to incorporate a variety of improvements across your organization.  Focus on the end game and how it relates to your compliance strategy.  Finally, get with the program, pass every audit, save the company a bundle, and pat yourself on the back.  Sounds satisfying doesn’t it?

Blogging? Can I Play?

Get In The Game

Admittedly, I’ve been late to join the wave of blogging enthusiast but decided to give it a shot.  So far it seems like a nice outlet and a way to contribute back to the masses rather than being an information free loader.  What I quickly found was I needed, or at least wanted, an easier way to create snazzy blogs and then post them.  Here is my setup.  Hopefully it will save you the time it has taken me to test drive everything under the sun.

• Word Press (My blog is at: http://jeffwatson.wordpress.com)
• Windows Live Writer (Allows me to compose postings with ease!)
• BlogLink on Linked-In (Share your blog with your connections)

Step 1

Get a blog.  Doesn’t really matter where, but you need a place to store your posts.  Word Press is one of the most popular and it’s free.  Go out to Word Press and create an account.

Step 2

Download Windows Live Writer and connect it up to your Word Press Blog.  It makes the blogging experience so much nicer.  Here is a screen-shot.

Step 3

For me, Linked-In is a valuable resource and I use the free BlogLink tool to link my blogs to my connections.  Maybe you noticed this post via my Linked-In profile!

Team Foundation Server (TFS) Rules

“That’s right boys and girls, I’m touting a Microsoft product and have to say I’m very impressed.”

TFS + .NET = Loving It

Ok, ok, so everyone I know has some horror story about source control.  Personally, I’ve worked with and/or administered everything including but not limited to ClearCase, Source Safe, Synergy, CVS, SVN, Dynamsoft, etc.  However, until now, I haven’t experienced anything that pulls it all together as well as TFS 2008.

That’s right boys and girls, I’m touting a Microsoft product and have to say I’m very impressed.  In short, the support TFS has for developing with Microsoft technologies is excellent.  That’s not to say that TFS doesn’t fit other development environments, but for .NET and VisualStudio shops it rocks!

Apples to Oranges

You are probably thinking to yourself by now that comparing TFS to source control systems like Source Safe or CVS isn’t an apples to apples argument and to that I would have to say you’re right!  TFS boasts integration with Sharepoint and a work item tracking engine that can be used for almost any type of tasking.  Plus, with its slick integration with MS Project, Excel, and MS Reporting Services, your world quickly starts to come into focus.  I’m currently leading an initiative at WayPoint Technologies to roll out an enterprise class technology infrastructure and TFS is proving to be a solid platform investment.

O, and if your looking for a TFS hosted environment then contact WayPoint and mention this blog.  We are rolling out shared and dedicated TFS hosting!