Life as a Knowledge Manager

Archive

White Papers – Publishing and Referencing

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 6, 2009 in Literature, Management and Research. 0 Comments

Publishing White Papers has always been of interest to me. I wrote my first white paper on “Evaluation of Digital Certificates adoption in the E-business environment” while in school at Temple University’s Fox School of Business Management.

Wikipedia defines White Paper as

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that often addresses problems and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions.

White Paper gives Scholarly advice on areas of interest. It brings the business and technology together and influences decision makers to leverage the thoughts into a business case.

My area of research includes but is not limited to the following:

Healthcare Information Systems, e.g. Electronic Medical Records, NHIN, RHIO
Applicability of Game Theory in Healthcare and Information Systems
Social / Human Aspects of Information Systems
Quantitative analysis for Search Engine Optimization
Diminishing Marginal Utility (Giffen Goods)
Application of “Consumer Centric” approach in Health care
Analyzing causes and effects of Internal Spamming

Recently I had been noticing that a lot of my White Papers were being referenced by corporate organizations, universities, standards organizations, clients and even students.

Here are some organizations referencing my work:

Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government : Government Intervention: A Necessary Evil to Increase HIT Adoption?
Medical Group Management Association, MGMA : The Purchasing Power of Today’s Medical Group Practice
University of Brussel (Europe) : Link
Athens University of Economics and Business (Greece) : A flexible model for the delivery of multi-facet information in patient–centric Healthcare Information Systems
OAISYS : Voice Documentation in Healthcare

With writing two whitepapers (Healthcare Today & Organization Security) as my 2009 resolution, I want to continue my belief that “Sharing Knowledge Helps“.

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Requirement Writing for Product Management

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 5, 2009 in Management, Organization and Technology. 1 Comment

I have been a part of the Product Management Team for almost a year and a half. Being a Product Manager, leads to added responsibility towards gaining insight on product development and communicating requirements from the consumer/client to the developer.

A Product Manager’s role for Requirement Writing includes:

Find problems and convey to development
Represent the customer
Own the Business Case

My experience has taught me that the product manager should:

Serve as the customer representative in planning and requirements definition
Define the requirements and the product roadmap for a market of customers
Support the ideals of agile development (we want process, but not to much process)

Recently I was exposed to White Papers on Requirement Writing from Pragmatic Marketing . My understanding on Requirement Writing has since then matured and I have documented the same in a presentation to share.

The conclusion that can be drawn from my extensive reading and past experience is “If we have been developing and prioritizing requirements for future products on an ongoing basis, we will have success’”.

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The Future of Video Search Engines

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 4, 2009 in Technology. 0 Comments

You Tube, Google Videos, Veoh, MetaCafe etc. are concentrating their efforts towards Video Search Engines. With our current technology, it limits us to search text which is marked as tags to the videos. This is not an ideal way of searching for videos.

Recently Google has tried to allow users to search thru’ computer generated transcripts of Election Videos. This helps in finding more focussed videos and improving the search experience of the users.

Google is also urging its users to Submit Transcripts while sharing/uploading their videos.

Search is currently text dominated. When it becomes Video dominated, it would be interesting to see which software supports video editing. Currently the market does not have a good Video Software Editor.

This means that in future it would still be difficult to find videos as they might not be precise and to the point. It might not be able to tag only certain sections of the video.

External Link for Reference: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-their-own-words-political-videos.html

Thus, indexing audio content is now a reality but the future is still no clear!

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Presentations – For Communication

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 3, 2009 in Human Behaviour and Management. 0 Comments

Presentations are used during meetings or formal gatherings to explain and convey a particular topic of discussion.

Presentations can be defined as a visual representation of something (text or picture or video or demo). Recently I was introduced to SlideShare.net (a site to share powerpoint presentations)

SlideShare.net allows you to:
1. Upload your presentation
2. Share it
3. View presentations by others
4. Tag presentations
5. Mark favorites and post comment
6. Download presentations
7. Share your presentations via other Social Networking Sites like LinkedIn etc.

I remember the days when I used to request a speaker to send his/her presentation via email. Now, I request them to upload it on SlideShare. I use presentations for documenting what I have learned and for explaining our project status. Sometimes, I use powerpoint for building a project plan. The scope is unlimited. With Slideshare, I can learn ways of designing new slide templates and it helps me make my presentations interesting.

My Favorite Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/nainil/favorites/

My SlideShare Network Link: http://www.slideshare.net/nainil/

The notion of sharing knowledge excites me. I have created more than 100+ presentations and I have uploaded many of them on my SlideShare Network.

My goal is to share knowledge by creating interesting presentations and making the audience understand what I am trying to convey. SlideShare seems to be the right tool for helping me move in that direction.

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Resolutions for 2009

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 3, 2009 in Life. 1 Comment

2008 was a year of:

Blogging
Setting my priorities
Vacation trips (Orlando, FL)
Family Gathering
Team Building
Understanding the Financial Market
Election (Barack Obama – President)

With 2008 gone so fast, I have realized that every moment that I spent touches my family, my work, my thoughts and the rest of the world.

For 2009, I choose to:

Personal:
- Spend more time with my family
- Plan my vacation(s) ahead of time
- Watch meaningful TV shows like “Leave it to Beaver” (which teach us something good)
- Work hard on keeping in constant touch with my Friends
- Observe controlled emotions
- Workout twice/thrice a week and observe a controlled diet
- Make big decisions and plan for the future
Work:
- Write a white paper on “Healthcare Today“
- Gain deeper product knowledge
- Try to optimize inter-departmental communication by developing better tools
- Write a white paper / presentation on “Organization Security“
- Try to push the concept of “Don’t Be Evil” – Both Internally (within the organization) and Externally (to our clients)
- Learning more about HIE (Health Information Exchange)

2009 is going to be very important for observing Presidential Influence in the current economic situation, managing finances, making big decisions which will affect my future and helping me communicate my thoughts out in the open. I look forward for a happy and prosperious 2009!

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Hydrating Yourself

Published by Nainil Chheda on June 11, 2008 in Technology. 0 Comments

Yesterday (Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008) the temperature (in Shrewsbury,MA) rose to 95F (Real Feel: 102F) breaking the record of 91F set in 1984. The temperature in Westborough,MA was High: 96F (Real Feel: 107F). (Source: AccuWeather).

During such extreme climatic conditions it is advised to periodically replenish your body’s fluid intake.

Unbalanced replacement of fluids causes Dehydration. Dehydration means your body does not have as much water and fluids as it should. Dehydration can be caused by losing too much fluid, not drinking enough water or fluids, or both. This in turn increases the risk for heat illness, extreme fatigue, muscle cramps, headaches, nausea, heat stroke, injury and delayed recovery.

I must confess that I am lazy when it comes to drinking water or any other fluids. However, in an effort to maintain a healthy and a balanced life, recently I have chosen to improve my hydration habits :.

1. As per FluidMovement.co.uk, Fluid intake to meet base daily needs (in ounces) is approximately half your body weight (in pounds). Everyday, I drink at least 8-10 glasses (75 OZ) of liquid per day.

2. Water alone can’t treat dehydration. Once you’re dehydrated you have to replenish salts, sugars and basic nutrients. Many common food items are mostly water. Everyday, I drink one glass of fruit juice (Orange/Carrot) and I eat a fruit to balance my nutrients intake.

3. In Summer, I like to hike nearby mountains (like Mt. Greylock – highest peak in Massachusetts). I have ordered a Hydration Pack to keep myself hydrated during the trail walk.

4. Milk contains 89% of water. I drink one cup of milk every morning. I drink a glass of water before I go to bed at night.

5. By the time you feel thirsty you are already dehydrated – you want to avoid becoming thirsty in the first place. During the day time, every two hours I drink a cup of water.

To keep hydrated, I have educated myself with the symptoms of dehydration. So, (as I have chosen) get in the habit of drinking more fluids and keep yourself hydrated.

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An Ideal Company Meeting

Published by Nainil Chheda on June 10, 2008 in Management and Organization. 1 Comment

An Ideal Meeting (5 E’s of a Meeting)

1. Efficient (Time Bound)
2. Effective (Goal Achievement)
3. Educational
4. Entertaining (Not Dull)
5. Enriching (Feeling a part of the team)

Meeting Minutes: Minutes also known as protocols, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing.

They should contain:

1. Where and when a meeting took place;
2. Attendees, i.e. the names of the participants;
3. Subject;
4. Minutes of the previous meeting;
5. Items on the agenda: the discussion held, the motions made, the resolutions carried (Proposer; Seconder; the results of the vote);
6. Any Other Business (AOB);
7. Date of the next meeting.

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Must-Do | Should-Do | Nice-to-Do

Published by Nainil Chheda on March 24, 2008 in Management and Organization. 1 Comment

Whenever I speak about Priorities, I describe it as a Cold War for “A Beautiful Mind”. Almost everyone I know is overwhelmed with work and most of them are unable to decide on their priorities.

I receive over 400 email messages each day (with virtually no Spam, so they are all legitimate). Currently I am a member of two departments; Product Management and the Network Team. I also work on at least 10+ projects under direct management supervision. Each day I attend at least 2 meetings (in-person/conference calls) and I have multiple walk-in corridor one-to-one conversations each time I walk to/from my desk.

In such a varied environment, one of the most difficult choices is to prioritize work and make sure you deliver your work on time without loosing focus of your other priorities.

How do I prioritize my work?

I make a list of all tasks and activities which I need to accomplish.
I divide my work into these three categories 1) Must-Do 2) Should-Do 3) Nice-to-Do
I give the highest preference/score to requests from the senior management and my direct reports.
If an email is sent on a “High Importance” notification I give it my attention.
If I am mentioned in the “To”, I give it my attention. If I am mentioned in the “cc” or “bcc” field I partially assume the person is trying to keep me in the loop.
I identify the areas in a task for which I am accountable for. This way I take ownership of the allocated task and prioritize accordingly.
If I am allocated an “Action Item” in a meeting, I choose to complete it before the next meeting. I also make it a point to browse through the agenda and revise the previous “Meeting Minutes” before I join a meeting.
I consider the real world limitations on execution of a work plan.
If my current skill set is inadequate for the task allocated to me I will discuss it upfront with the management and try to find an alternative replacement for the task.
If I am stuck in a complicated scenario I run down the “Prisoners Dilemma” model for Game Theory to identify the best available option which will allow me to prioritize my work.
I do not waste excessive time on low-priority tasks.
At the end of each day and the end of each week I try to reconcile with my daily & weekly scheduled tasks and I reorganize them according to meet the needs. Tasks may move to a higher priority as a deadline draws near.

To accomplish any task raw data needs to be filtered so that it becomes information; Information needs to be transformed so that it becomes knowledge. This complex environment of work prioritization involves structuring of data into relevant information by scanning, selecting and justifying data into useful knowledge.

With the idea that there should be a measure to control the work, I use Outlook’s “Calendar” and “Task” options to constantly remind me of meetings and incomplete tasks. I try to answer any questions/emails in a real-time fashion.

These twelve areas are a starter kit to appropriate prioritization in a complex organization. Work prioritization cannot be an afterthought; it is a project which must be resourced.

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A War with Emotions

Published by Nainil Chheda on March 5, 2008 in Management. 2 Comments

There have been times where I have had unpleasant email experiences dealing with conflict of interests, ad hoc meetings, communication issues, infrastructure breakdowns, unsupportive team members and inappropriate decisions which lead to a varied set of negative emotions.

It feels good to respond to such emails with a negative thought in your mind. However, every time I have responded to email with mixed feelings I have regretted it.

The CEO of Cerner Corp. (www.cerner.com) sent a very harsh email to his minors. This email killed the company’s morale and drove the stock down 20%. Link: How to kill a company’s morale in one easy memo.

To prevent such incidences I have cultivated myself into a habit of saving emails as a “Draft”. This way I re-open the “Draft” email after sometime, rethink the matter and formulate a better email which will eliminate the emotions from the email and make it a generic email.

Some suggestions to prevent you from sending a mixed-emotional email include:
* Understand the difference between a practical world and an idealistic world
* Have a Thick Skin: Always have a positive mind set for the dynamic work environment
* Have a Poker face: A face/mind without any interpretable expression
* Consulting a co-worker/supervisor during such instances
* Always remember to “Save as Draft”

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Business Myths

Published by Nainil Chheda on March 3, 2008 in Management. 0 Comments

Running an effective business takes a lot of energy, people and processes. The business manager needs to choose the right people, the right product, the right market and the right clients. In my past experience, I’ve seen a lot of people and processes come and go. The geographically dispersed work culture makes it difficult to manage projects.

With all things changing, I have seen the business myths remaining the same. In general, the business myths have been:

The customer is always right.
Every customer is a good customer
Every opportunity is a good opportunity.
Our competitors are doing it, so we must do so as well.
Everything has a high priority and must be done right away (or done yesterday!)

However, new processes and policies have been introduced which have caused us to re-evaluate these business myths. We all choose to be politically correct and we mitigate the risk of being a system which adopts what has being followed previously. For all of us change is the only constant.

If we don’t our serve our customers with respect and empathy, they will seek someone who will. While the customer isn’t always right, we will always make the customer feel important.

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Leisure

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 25, 2008 in Life. 0 Comments

Leisure has been one of the most inspirational work of Literature that has captured my mind.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

W H Davis

Wm. Henry Davis (1871-1940) is to be considered as the poet of the tramps.

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Internal SPAM

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 15, 2008 in Technology. 0 Comments

In my earlier post “Fighting against SPAM” I focussed on controlling SPAM from the external world. These (SPAM’s) were unsolicited emails often flooding a mailbox, email promotions or advertisements (and scams).

Recently in our company we started to encounter “Internal SPAM”.

Our organizational mailing list structure:

We have mailing lists set up for each department (We have 23+ departments)
We have a mailing list for each of our business location (We have 3 locations world wide)
We have mailing lists for multiple enterprise clients (Approx 40+)

In our (Internal Mails) office there were two events that occurred everyday:

Team member sending emails to Everyone.
Team member replying back to “BOTH” the person who sent that email AND to Everyone.

This means we did not have a controlled mailing list. Anyone was allowed to send emails to a mailing list. (Even those who did not belong to the email domain).

This resulted into:

Emails getting bombarded to everyone for a reply which is of concern only to a particular individual.
Each individual receives this email which causes extensive use of the email and wastage of internet bandwidth.
Each company employee spending almost 2 minutes of his time reading that email. Which results in a waste of almost 1200 minutes (2 minutes each * 600 employees).
Means 20+ hours of time is spent [EVERY DAY] in reading an email which was not intended to be of any concern to the individuals receiving the email.
On an average, we received at least 4+ such emails each day.

In an effort to prevent any further loss of man hours:

We switched to “Mailman“, the GNU Mailing List Manager.
We converted our mailing lists to be a controlled mailing list.
A moderator was set to monitor the mails which could be sent to everyone and those which could not. We set a list of policies which our company had to abide by.
We allowed only 2MB emails sent to the mailing lists. This way we do not clog the network.
We started “Archiving” emails sent to the mailing lists.

All our 87 mailing lists are being managed effectively. We have saved our employees time and we have tried to reduce our email bandwidth consumption due to “Internal SPAM” by almost 90%.

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An Online Presence

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 14, 2008 in Technology. 0 Comments

I have immense respect for Vinton Cerf – “The father of the Internet”. Vint is the co-designer with Robert Kahn of TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the Internet. Without (the Internet) communication would be the biggest issue. We would still be relying on Radio Broadcasting which would be a single mode of communication and thus a barrier towards success.

The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW).

Source: Wikipedia

In todays Internet world, it is extremely important to have an Online Presence. The ultimate goal is to be accessible to anyone from anywhere. Technology, Social Networks and Natural Technology are making Internet more visible.

I define an Online Presence as having (at least one or more of the following):

An Email Address (Mandatory) (nainil@eliteral.com)
A Website (www.nainil.com)
1. Domain Name (http://domains.eliteral.com)
2. Web Hosting (http://www.eliteral.com)
Search Engine Optimization – (Search results on top ranking search engines should return appropriate results)
Personal Blog: Life as a Knowledge Manager
Accounts in:
1. MSN
2. Yahoo
3. Google
Social Networking Accounts:
1. LinkedIn (Professional Network)
2. Orkut (Friends and Family Members)
3. FaceBook
4. MySpace

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Document Standardization

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 9, 2008 in Management. 1 Comment

Over the past couple of years, many standards for document management and control have evolved to improvise the adaptability and usability of knowledge driven data in work environments.

Our client base is broad and comprises of:

Those who desert technological use;
Those who are moderately familiar with technological concepts;
Those who depend on making the most mounting use of technology to enhance their daily work flow processes.

Internally in our organization, we identified growing concerns on:

File Format Standards
File Naming Convention
Identification of a team to act as an owner for the document
Validating the document for current updates

The main reason for these growing concerns were:

We do not have appropriate ownership for any document
Documents are stored in multiple locations
Documents are not updated regularly

A database (of indexed documents) relating to internal or external processes is something that we need. This database should be accessible by everyone in the company so that they are aware of all the documents which we have and it will make the Stake Holders more informed on process specific documents.

We had a brief discussion on a list of columns required for a database which would include:

Document Name
Owner of document (at least 2 owners)
Single Location of the document
Is this an Internal / External Document (definitions will be provided later as to what is internal and what is external)
Brief description of the document
List of Processes in which the document is being used

Appropriate naming conventions to this document index will be an added advantage to solve the documents issue.

We also formulated a process to:

Identify the owner or (as we like to call) the responsible party for the document.
Identify PDF as the ultimate document format. Maintain two copies of the same document: One document (Microsoft Word Format) for internal use and reference. Second document (PDF Format) to send to the client.
Get all documents reviewed by the Documentation Team before they are sent out to customers.
Identify periodic internal audits by the team managers to verify the sanity of the document.

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Call Center – Triage Team

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 7, 2008 in Management and Organization. 0 Comments

Everyday we have over 2500 calls triaged over the phone.

Triage is defined as: The process by which projects or activities are prioritized to determine which should be attempted first, second, etc. (it is also known as “Sorting of Grapes”)

The Triage Team (for a call center) needs:

1 To ask appropriate questions to the client
2 To evaluate the call and classify the same into the appropriate queue

When the Triage Team assigns a call to a member of our company, the member needs a clear understanding of what the client is expecting from them so that they can provide a faster and appropriate response.

In our current situation we get calls from clients on:

Regular Support Requests
Departmental Phone Transfers
Areas which need immediate attention
Uncertain areas

Out of all these 4 situations we are able to handle the first three with appropriate procedures. However “Uncertain areas” are difficult to control due to the fact that they have random occurrences and do not have the correct triage policy set.

To reduce the number of “uncertain” client call domains we defined a process for Smart Triage:

Educate various departments
Gather a list of questions from the support techs and other departments
Prepare a database of appropriate questions needed to be asked by the triage team before transferring the call to the support techs.
Ask intelligent questions to the customers.
Direct calls to the right person so that the “First Call Resolution” goal is met.

Technology Used:

A Wiki for maintaining an updated record of questions to ask for each category of call.

This now brings us to the next project of:

Defining processes to keep the questions updated in the Wiki
Assign owners for various department related questions
Keep updating and recording trends in client call response quality.

This process will allow us to control the quality of calls and respond to the clients needs in a more efficient fashion.

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Life as a Knowledge Manager

Archive

White Papers – Publishing and Referencing

Requirement Writing for Product Management

The Future of Video Search Engines

Presentations – For Communication

Resolutions for 2009

Hydrating Yourself

An Ideal Company Meeting

Must-Do | Should-Do | Nice-to-Do

A War with Emotions

Business Myths

Leisure

Internal SPAM

Document Standardization

Call Center – Triage Team

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