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Blockers and Filters
In one of our recent projects, we are mapping workflows which are no longer being used due to organizational and staff changes. In doing so, we’ve been doing some light assessing of what the organization has been doing since those workflows and methods were compromised. What we find is what’s true at every company, people find a blocker to a way of working, and like water, they seep around the walls until there’s a better route found. Continue reading →
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On Workflows
Many years ago, the word/phrase to be found around the workplace was “workflow.” Between the many folks selling workflow solutions, large companies making initiatives on top of initiatives in order to improve/measure/etc. workflow, and the various technical languages which jumped the shark into being “workflow enablers” for those who needed a bit more agency, it was a another one of those fervor moments you could only just sit and wait it out. Continue reading →
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The Appendage Conundrum
As we pulled up to the mall, Steve felt there was something he’d show me. Little did he know, I was going to use this context to show him what he didn’t understand about mobile. We walked into the mall and proceeded to stores he was familiar with. There were a few companies to which he wanted to check out due to the project we were working on. His mindset was that the TV screens were the important interface for this effort. Continue reading →
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Tools on Deck: Adobe Comp CC
The tools used on Windows and macOS machines just aren’t usable in the same manner on Apple’s iOS devices. That has required some shifts, and has shaped some exposure to some tools in a different light than what they might have been initially marketed towards. Speaking specificity, Adobe Comp CC has become that tool. And yet, it largely goes unnoticed because this type of use is not what you do on a tablet. Continue reading →
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Exploring ‘Digital Humanism’
There are a few terms worth talking about — or maybe it is just the phrase which needs to find its way beyond the unexplored shores it speaks towards — and that is the term “digital humanism.” It is a subject we will be speaking on for a few months as there’s something brewing in that space towards Avanceé’s offerings and so it makes sense to start to suss out what the term means (at least right now), and where we might see it go from being “unexplored territories” to “way of existing fully. Continue reading →
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Notes As Art
As has been the case for the past few weeks, the top of the week has been regarded as the space for the week’s long-form piece. It makes sense to put the heavier items at the top of the week where there could be additional contemplation or discussion while also allowing for the work of the past to shift the present and future accordingly. This week’s long-form will be a bit different as we’ll link to a contributed piece posted last week at the website Painfully Hopeful. Continue reading →
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Experience Last
The project is well-past the kickoff, and it feels as if there are no other successes to be pulled. The pace of development seems to have slowed. The stakeholders are getting ancy. What seemed like the right solution months ago now seems so far from the truth of how they will use it. And yet, the budget says it must persist. There are calls to trim the team and go “lean” in both focus and resources. Continue reading →
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Educating Shaping Working
Though the roster took up to 12 students, there were only a half-dozen registered for the class. However, only one showed, and now, 15 minutes after the class was supposed to start, a decision needed to be made: cancel the class, or run another 1-on-1. The student decided to do the 1-on-1, they needed the lessons for the upcoming quarterly reports. Anything to understand how this application worked better would help at this point, they were overwhelmed. Continue reading →
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The Features Trap
Asking for features but wanting better methods For a number of years, SharePoint had been a part of the toolkit for project teams. Our experience in working with these teams has given a few lessons towards what is understood about features, and what isn’t undertood about behaviors. And yet, across more than a decade, there seems to have been little movement towards reconciling these. Features — as it relates to what teams understand about their tools — can very much be a trap instead of a help. Continue reading →
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From Mundane to Tactile
A long day where you move about within about a 25ft radius yet still travel across continents, trade information, and engage various groups of people who use information technology to do mundane and wonderful things. This has been a pretty consistent piece of the story which has led to Avanceé and seems like an area most ripe for thinking a bit outside of the box. On the same day of these, Microsoft announces its Surface Hub 2 another gesture towards the collaborative whiteboard which connects to people in open spaces, and uses a combination of touch, gesture, and camera-based input schemes for interfacing with content. Continue reading →
Connecting strategy & leadership with novel/innovative technologies
