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Association of Catholic PublishersAnnual Meeting
Strategic Approach to Technology
Craig A. Miller
V 1.0
3 September 2015
Bert Davis Consulting Services Confidential © 2015
Agenda
• Brief Introduction
• Expectations
• Technical Strategy
Principles
Efficiency
New Technology
Common Pitfalls
• Q/A
• Feed BackBDCS Confidential
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
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• Computer Engineer/Strategic Finance MBA
• Hardware computing (PCs, Graphics & Video Chips),
Internet Startups
• Publishing: NewsStand, LibreDigital
• Bert Davis:
Consulting: dStrategy, Publishing & edTech Systems
Retained Executive Search
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Scott Lubeck, President
BDCS, presented IT
Governance immediately
following this
presentation.
CS
Editorial High Technology
• Lumen Christi Catholic School
K-3 through 8th
School Commission
Technology Committee
Project Lead the Way (STEM) Network Chairman
• Milwaukee School of Engineering
Director, Corporate Board
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Expectations
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What were you hoping to hear or learn from this presentation?
TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
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STRATEGIC APPROACH TO
TECHNOLOGY(FOR NON-TECHNOLOGISTS)
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Define Strategy
• strat·e·gy
/ˈstradəjē/
noun
“a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim”
• Technology alone does not a Strategy make
Technology as a strategy: tail waging the dog
Where do you want to take your business?
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Strategic Analysis
• Leveraging navigation principles
• Know where you are… (Current State)
• Know where you want to be… (Strategy as Driver)
• Illuminate the terrain over which you must travel…
• Make a plan to get from here to there
• Scientific Method
• Hypotheses & Test
• No foregone conclusions
“The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they can overrule the hierarch.” Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com
Major Paths of Technology Strategy
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1. Increased Efficiency
• Improving existing/known processes and work
2. New Technology
• Cool, new stuff…
We are going to Cover both, which first?
Basic Principles
1. Executive’s Technology Right
You are smart, accomplished;
Own it, run it, manage it (insert activity here);
You have the right to understand how technology helps/impacts your business
Understanding != (does not equal) knowing how to do it
Head of House/Exec Team: You or the senior team member you designate has the responsibility to understand this
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Basic Principles
2. Articulate what you want in non-technical terms then find and understand technology to accomplish it
• Business Requirements
Define what makes this a win (ROI, improve customer interaction/retention/etc reduce cost, increase efficiency, etc)
What happens when it fails? What is the backup plan (another service, physical processes, etc)
How will we know and how will we get out when it is time to change (growth oriented, strategy is key)
Use help from peers/staff/advisors as needed
• Why bother?
Write it down, think it through, gather history for review
Collaboration
o Correct View: Communication
o Wrong View:
• IT: “The business tells us what to build.”
• Business: “We tell IT what we want (and never get it)
• Recipe for failure
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Basic Principles
3. Few (if any) Original Problems: Rent, Buy, Build
Rent It: If the function is a pure commodity and there is no
differentiation (eCommerce, Payrol, Workflow Management) should
be 100% SaaS (Software as a Service)
Buy It: Solutions that are self-hosted either on PCs (WinX and
Mac), Servers or Devices. Heavy use, most current not always
critical
Build It: Only if there is nothing in the market and functionality is
required that only you can do; an opportunity to uniquely
differentiate a product. The bar for this should be very, very high
4. Data is the Crown Jewels: Have it backed up in structures
outside the SaaS/Main system so if anything goes out of
business, you have it
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Basic Principles
5. Key components to successful tech project
Document Requirements*
Document Solution(s)
Pick who will implement the project
Pick who will manage implementation of the project*
o If you do these (*) two well, who does the rest is less important
and can be readily outsourced
6. Play in the sandbox
You can’t break it there, find out how it works
7. Relentless Drive to Simplicity
Due to lack of planning and process mapping, non-integrated
technologies tend to quickly seem complex
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EFFICIENCY
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Programmatic View of the Organization
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Process/Workflow Management
Editing
Layout
(Physical,
eBook)
Inventory
Management
Content
CalendarMarketing -
PromotionSales Returns
Printing
Content Repository
Customer/Stakeholder Interactions
Author
Management
In Out
Example
• Promotional Email Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Exact Target, etc, etc.
Marketing has one
They want a new one
• Reasoning?1. Not O.K.: ABC is hard to work with, doesn’t do what we
want, etc. I’ve heard XYZ is really great
2. O.K.: With the targeting and segmentation tools in XYZ the industry expects a 1% increase in conversion rate. We are targeting 0.5% in 6 months and expect a $NNNN increase
• Issues? Silver bullet thinking
If you allow Option 1, then some time from now, you’ll get to do this again wo/any likely impact in the interim.
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IT Governance
• Once you know what you want to do,
how do you get there
Align IT with business Strategy
• Limited resources and budget
Prioritization
There will be team members who wait
• Topic of Scott’s session, next
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NEW TECHNOLOGY
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Managing the Media Industry Hype Cycle
Gartner Hype Cycle 2013
Hype Cycle, cont.
• Avoid Magical Thinking
• Trends vs. Trendy
• Be careful about where in this cycle is good for your organization to
adopt
It is likely not too early
Don’t let the tail wag the dog…
• Identify an organization similar or slightly larger than yours who you
view as doing it right – What can you learn from observing them
• Allow time/resource for experimentation
Experiment has expected outcomes: hypothesis
• Examples now Social Media
Digital Editions/eBooks
• Don’t get on an infinite treadmill of cycling tools…
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COMMON PITFALLS
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1. Wrong tool: Don’t fall into the “buy
the best” trap!
Sailboat analogy
Common Pitfalls
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America’s Cup Racer• Crew: Former NFL players, Captain
and strategist with decades on the water
• Some of the best physical and mental athletes in the world
Common Pitfalls
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A moderately skilled crew would struggle to get this launched, efficient sailing – improbable; winning a race (e.g. ROI for a system) – almost zero chance…
Race/Cruiser: Beneteau 42S7• Will get you there in good time
with a good crew• Grow the crew• Right sized• Learn to Sail It
Common Pitfalls
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• Pick a tool that aligns with current and near term (12-18month) business and drive it.
• Plan to upgrade – especially straight forward with well thought out SaaS approach.
• A great team using an OK tool will outperform a OK team with a great tool…
Common Pitfalls, 1 continued
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Common Pitfalls
2. (Over) Doing it Yourself Industry Hypothesis: Most everything in
publishing can be done by a reasonably intelligent person who studies the task at hand over time (thus expertise is gained) o Editor: People write, but there is a big difference
between the average blogger and a great editor
o You use technology, but there is a big difference between a user and a technologist
Self assess when you need the support of someone trained and experienced in the issue at hand
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Common Pitfalls
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Common Pitfalls
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Common Pitfalls
3. Cognitive breaks in Requirements
Watch how heavily you leverage your
history in creating new requirements
o The sailboat analogy applies…
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Common Pitfalls
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If your team have been crewing a broken boat
(system, process, etc), their requirements may
emulate that
Common Pitfalls, 3 continued
3. Cognitive breaks in Requirements
Watch how heavily you leverage your history in creating new requirements
Be certain of what you are going to get - watch out for wishy-washy requirements
• Be wary of anyone who wants you to write code other than glue
Glue = use of API’s
o Often others have coded a connector between the two systems and/or
o Third party services (such as Zapier) provide pre-made, drag-and-drop configurable connectors
Surgeons perform Surgery. Developers write code. Make sure you are asking the right expert
• Know how you are going to get out.
SaaS vendors are great at telling you how to get in, not so great at telling you how to migrate out. Be clear on this from day one (their API is usually key)
If you are swapping out a solution, make sure the old one is turned all the way off – otherwise you will be hard to recognize the ROI
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Q/A & FEEDBACK
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Audience Question 1
Q“Our big questions are how quickly schools will adapt to digital applications, and how valuable is having a fully digital high school curriculum with over 200 resources in the software?”
A2nd Part of Question: I don’t know
A1st Part: Depends about which schools you are talking about:
o Leading schools: too late, they are not waiting for you.• Building their own curriculum• BYOD…
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Bring Your Own Device
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Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
• Schools can’t sustain the cost of maintaining and replacing in-classroom devices Push the cost to student’s families
• Build a culture around solving common problems (presentations, making a video, etc) with groups focused on a particular device e.g. all the iPads, Samsung Galaxy’s, etc..
• Tier to grade range
• More resources: Lumen Christi School BYOD Programo Links out to Nation Educational Technology Plan
o COPPA, CIPA
o Digital Citizenship Curriculum, etc.
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Audience Question 2
Q How can you find affordable, competent IT staff? They blow our pay scales out of the water.A Make sure you know what you want: What does
your org need to be good at in ITo Infrastructure
o Translating Biz Requirements into Technical Requirements
o Managing resources (internal and external) to accomplish projects
Focus on the Mission and Lifestyleo If your organization is missing or can’t articulate either of
these, there are different issues to solve first…
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Audience Question 3
Q Recommendations for those starting out "behind the curve"--new to technology, especially the Internet, SaaSA Sandbox to experiment and not worry
about breaking Youtube: New products have
extensive videos on their benefits and how-to
Seek advisors/peers w/more experience who you can leverage
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Feedback
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How could the next sessionbe made more valuable?
Contact Information
Craig A. Miller
224-374-1808
Scott Lubeck
212-838-4000
Connect with us on
LinkedIn to learn
more and discuss
your challenges!
More from Craig A. Miller
• See my LinkedIn
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