Wheat Belly
I finished the book Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis earlier this week, and I recommend it! But before I summarize what the parts I found the most compelling, let me give you a little background about how I found myself reading in the first place … We introduced oat cereal to our oldest son shortly after rice cereal (around 5-6 months), and quickly figured out that the resulting skin rash and prolific vomiting warranted serious medical attention. In working with a childhood allergy specialist at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP), we learned that he...
Read MoreGreener, happier commute
This longish blog post describes how SAP could reduce it’s carbon footprint, while achieving the company’s goals of improved employee innovation, satisfaction, and productivity. Overview One of the gems in SAP’s current strategy is the company’s focus on sustainability. I have been working for SAP for over twelve years, and for the most part I find that there are not a lot of surprises – at least, not good ones! So when I first heard about SAP’s sustainability initiative, I was admittedly skeptical, assuming that it was part of the ongoing go-to-market...
Read MoreEnd-user or business stakeholder?
[This is a modified version of a post I made internally on SAP's Lean Transformation blog. I've removed a few of the details about sales compensation, the process diagram, and the system screenshots.] One of the significant challenges we face in the User Experience work we do at SAP is working with business stakeholders who really feel that they know the end-users whom they represent in governing bodies, and that they can speak on behalf of those end-users. While in some cases that might be the case, I would argue that it’s the exception rather than the rule. If you read my...
Read MoreVoice of the Customer
[As mentioned in an earlier post, SAP has embarked on a transformation journey with a focus on Lean principles. Due to the contributions of my User Experience team into several of SAP's COO-sponsored projects (COO Programs & Projects, or COO P/Ps for short), I have been invited to blog inside SAP about our journey to becoming a Lean enterprise. To the extent that confidentiality allows, I will cross-post those entries here. This is my first post to the group blog, in which I explain the synergistic relationship between Lean / Voice of the Customer and our User Experience services.]...
Read MoreJobs for social scientists
Here is an interesting news story that I picked up from a social networking listserv and cross-posted to anthrodesign: In a recent report, “Social Science Meets Technology in Next-Generation Jobs,” Gartner Vice President Kathy Harris says that many social sciences roles will be needed to work with corporations in helping to better understand the Web behavior of customers, online communities, personal brands and the spectrum of social networking communication. Harris discusses in some detail four areas of jobs needed in the near future. She says that most companies aren’t...
Read MoreEnterprise UI Summit – prework
Elsewhere, I’ve written about SAP’s intranet (called the Corporate Portal), which runs on the SAP NetWeaver platform. In addition to our intranet, at SAP we have an instance of the Jive Clearspace Suite installed for collaboration both inside and outside the firewall. I have enjoyed my use of the ‘Collaboration Workspace’ so far, though I do sometimes find it frustrating that it exists independent of the rest of our landscape; it makes it ‘above the flow’ rather than ‘in the flow’, as Michael Idinopulos said. Nonetheless, my experience...
Read MoreMichael Krigsman podcast
This week I had the opportunity to speak with ZDNet blogger Michael Krigsman. About 30% of all IT projects fail, and his blog is focused on why that is the case, and what can be done about it. Michael runs his own consulting business that is part of the SAP ecosystem. He has become interested in how ethnographic methods might complement some of the other methods that he uses in his consulting work today. We spent about an hour on the phone, and then he asked if I would be interested in recording a podcast with him on the topic. The blog and podcast (only 6 minutes long) were...
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