And Vijay Says…

I am typing this from the beautiful city of Brussels . This is the last stop of a very busy business trip meeting key partners in Europe . I fly home early in the morning tomorrow

The weather was perfect . I very rarely get to visit Europe in summer – so this was an especially enjoyable visit . And while jet lag made me tired towards end of the day for couple of days , the intense schedule made sure that I got adjusted to the time zone quickly.

Thanks to Luca , Tug, Koby and Guillaume – I had a full schedule this week , and now can barely stand up straight 🙂 . It was totally worth it – a full schedule every day in a different country and magically it all happened in as good a way as I could expect . I am blessed to lead such an incredible team and even more blessed to have partners who are “all in” on MongoDB.

I have some work related thoughts to post – but today, I am going to focus on the amazing personal experience this trip gave me as a traveller and as a foodie .

The transport system in Europe has always impressed me . When I landed in Zurich , I walked across to the railway station and caught a train to HB , and walked to the Marriott . The tall hotel building ruined for me the beauty of a great old town .

Air travel is not always the most convenient or economic across countries , but trains and taxis compensate for that difficulty adequately . Since I don’t have elite status on European airlines – I got some pretty awful seats , and my knees are still pretty sore . Ouch !

I have more change in my pocket today than in any other previous trip to Europe that I can think of – thanks to the innumerable cab rides

The food was pretty amazing . At Zurich – I had probably the best sol I ever had in my life , and the restaurant was amazing too – right on the lake . Thanks to my pal Phil Loewen for chauffeuring me around and giving great company

In Barcelona , the tapas made me wonder how much Asian cuisine has influenced a classic Spanish thing

In Madrid – I had the best Spanish omelette I have ever tasted ( the potatoes apparently are brought from a special region) , and some most amazing red wine . And the partner who took me there also was kind enough to explain the dishes and their origins and cultural impact very well . This restaurant is worth checking out if you are a meat lover – especially the “melt in your mouth” iberico Jamon

And then there was the beautiful city of Paris . Crazy busy as always – but plenty of culture to soak in . Too bad I didn’t get time to walk around the city this time . But my local sales leader Yann took me to a nice lunch – also by a Water front – and I could sample some excellent French cuisine . It’s more art than food as always .

Since I was on 5 flights back to back till reaching France, my colleague Tug and I took a train to Brussels . Such a nice experience – I think I will stick to trains a lot more on future trips

Brussels is known for good beer, chocolates and waffles . I didn’t have any of that yet . When we reached Brussels yesterday – Tug mentioned an Indian dinner he had the last time he was here . Of course that meant we had to go find an Indian place for dinner and we did . It’s kind of ironic to come to Belgium and eat Desi Khana – but there is no denying I love indian cuisine the best . The restaurant was good – not great . The other shock was that they didn’t take credit cards !
That said – I did have a terrific lamb shank today at the restyrant at the Sheraton today where we met a large Belgian SI partner – and loved it . It was the first dish in this visit that made me remember how over sized American restaurant portions look like 🙂

I would be remiss if I didn’t call out the coffee . I must have had 6 cups a day on average to get through the meetings and remain focused . The quality of coffee in all the countries this week has been high – and exceptionally so in France and Spain

Hopefully I can find some chocolates tonight to take home for my wife and daughter . I need to get them both here on a vacation soon .

I will be back in few months – couldn’t cover UK, Germany , Italy and Netherlands this time . Not that I am really complaining – I don’t think I could have done meetings in 5 cities/countries a week two weeks in a row .

Once upon a time – when I was a young consultant – there was this thing my friends did called “change management”. I must have known more than a 100 change management consultants in my career – but I can count on one hand the number that stayed throughout the projects . Most were let go half way through by the customers .

If change is hard , change Management is harder . When a project has a budget cut – usually the axe fell on a change management consultant first . At one point in my career – I knew many consulting sales people who would add change management to a proposal , strictly as a way to take it off and make the deal look palatable to a customer !

If any term needed a rebranding – Change management was the one to beat . I have seen tens of CIOs roll their eyes if a vendor mentioned “change management” even in passing . And it became rebranded to “transformation” . The same people , the same methodology , more or less the same slides – but with a new name . It worked for a while before losing steam .

I – and customers – have asked the transformation experts on what is the difference between transformation and change management . The usual answer was along the lines of “it’s more strategic and modern” , or a smirk with “you don’t get it” .

Along the way came Hammer and Champy with Re-engineering . To match the theory to practice – ERP vendors and consulting companies started talking about “technology enabled transformation” as a new thing . Billions of dollars changed hands doing “as is” and “to be” analysis of businesses . And when that got ridiculous , some consulting companies and ERP vendors took a stance that “as is” didn’t matter any more and only “to be” mattered . This is the genesis of “best practices” and it’s CYA cousin “leading practices”.
Needless to say – I have hardly met a customer in three continents I worked in that was happy with “best practices”.

And off late , I started seeing a lot of buzz on “digital transformation” – and a bunch of repurposed power points . Sure there is a liberal dose of social, big data , predictive etc in the repurposed version , just like ERP and CRM were sprinkled on to all “technology enabled transformation” messages . I asked my old change management friends the “what is new” question – and they dutifully played back to me the “it’s more strategic and modern” line . I nodded and went my way .

And few minutes ago – my pal Jon Reed mentioned digital transformation on twitter and I had a snarky response . This post is just an extension of that . it’s all Jon’s fault 🙂

PS : I actually do think change management is a good thing and the rebranded naming is probably a minor issue that bothers only a few like me . Vast majority of projects fail – and I have seen it first hand – because customers don’t want to invest in it . And I have seen some top notch change management stuff helping customers enjoy big success .

Since it is a competitive market – vendors don’t push back on it when customers choose to ignore change management , even if they know customer will probably fail .

What is lacking in my opinion is good articulation to customers on why they should invest in it . Lofty messages doesn’t help once you pass senior leadership at CXO level . Would it be too recursive to say change management needs some change management ?

I use three social media networks – Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. I blog too – so maybe that is a fourth channel. 

Facebook is primarily for personal interests – keeping in touch with family in India and elsewhere, keeping track of what is happening in the world of dog shows and keeping in touch with friends from school. I have a handful of work peeps there, but that is just coincidence. 

Linkedin is my address book for the most part – and for the most part, I use it to get a curated list of good reading material.

Twitter falls in between – I have no intentional personal/professional divide there. But if I am forced to categorize, it is skewed more towards work than personal. 

For the most part – being active in social media has only been helpful to me both on work front and personal front. I used to think that they have very little in common though. Facebook keeps a conversation in one place, which is hard to do in twitter despite hashtags etc. Linkedin has been the least engaging for me – but that is because I don’t get into groups all that much despite signing up for a few. And twitter has been awesome for me despite all its flaws – except for a few people who just incessantly post famous(?) quotes, forcing me to unfollow them.

But as time progresses – I have realized that I was rather wrong in thinking they have not much in common. I think there are three common characteristics in social media irrespective of the specific channel .

1. “The last word is mine and mine alone” syndrome

There is an undeniable urge people have to always be the one who gets the last word in. It gets downright silly – and at least in my circles it is the same whichever way you segment (age, gender, education, country, or pretty much any thing you can use to divide a group into two). There is no denying that I have done it too.

In real life, more people try to make a point and walk away gracefully when they are heard. That is not “a thing” in social media. In social media –  a good majority stay and fight every nitty gritty endlessly and ensure that the whole conversation goes south and all relationships sour. And then they rinse and repeat. It does not matter what the topic is – if they don’t get the last word, they will keep at it with absolute tenacity. 

2. “I hate the current president” syndrome

It does not matter whether the president got elected democratically just like your guy did the last time – in social media, hate for the current president is perpetually a hot topic. While the tempo increases at election time (which is expected), it does not exactly go away after elections. Granted there is some election or other at any point .

If anyone had any doubts on whether the country is divided at a random point in time – just logon to FB and read for an hour. People – including some analysts that I think have the most balanced views on enterprise – have no sense of balance in their political beliefs. 

Now I have lists of such people that I just mute for a few months around election time .

3. “God and Bill Gates loves or hates you depending on what you share” syndrome

About a fifth of all posts on my feeds in facebook are from people who share something saying god will punish you if you don’t share in next five minutes, or from people who are convinced that Bill Gates is going to send them a big fat check for sharing something about his software or his foundation. In fact – I think there is way more of these folks than there are Nigerians promising to make me rich via email. If you don’t believe that a sucker is born every minute – check face book. You can thank me later 🙂