The Guild CIO

Ubuntu in Africa

2011-12-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb”.--Nelson Mandela

As part of the Henry Crown Program with the Aspen Institute, I had the opportunity to visit sub-Sahara Africa for the first time. This visit took me to the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa on the beautiful and secluded area of the Spier Estate, established in the year 1692.

On arrival to South Africa, we drove though the infamous N2 highway to reach the estate. We passed expanses of open lands and what looked to be shanty town (slum areas) which caught my eye and would eventually lead to an experience in South Africa later in the visit.

We arrived at Spier to a splendid reception and were overjoyed to greet colleagues that we have been working and studying with in the Henry Crown program. We spend a lot of time together and the 2-year program centered on notions of the good society and increasing ones significance. This time together has allowed the group to form bonds in very strong and meaningful ways.

As guest of the ALI “African Leadership Initiative” we were there as guests of the African leadership members, many accomplished young Africans from several countries: South Africa, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania combined with American and leaders from El Salvador, Costa Rica and Canada.

We spent the first week reviewing and discussing the readings we had completed prior to arriving.. They range from the great works of old (e.g. Plato) to more modern stories and narratives from Thomas Friedman, President Thabo Mbeki, Sayyid Qutb, Joseph Conrad, Chinua Achebe, Bishop Desmond Tutu and a wide variety of diverse political, academic and religious scholars.

We use these writing to challenge and or reinforce our own beliefs and cultural and expose similarities and difference on world-views by the attendance and countries represented in the room. With a theme of “Leading in an Era of Globalization” the narrative centered on themes in these writings coupled with current events in each of our respective countries/cultures.

Simply put, the conversations are fascinating and widely divergent due to the perspectives presented. You come away more global and more learned in so many ways.

As the first week came to a close many good friendships were forged as we shared in conversations, dinners, walks in the evening and talked about our opportunities, challenges and fears together.

I now have a stronger and more direct network of young accomplished leaders in many African countries. Their passion inspires, their commitment for progress and change, bountiful in the West, but still very elusive in much of Africa, these current and future leaders have a great deal of responsibility in the next century. They now have friends in the Henry Crown program and all our experiences and talents will be brought to bear to help each other in any way possible.

As we broke from the learning part of the first week, we then ventured into touring many of the areas of South Africa. We visited what is called a “Township”, which from my experience was a nice way of saying a slum or a shanty town. The one we visited was called Khayelitsha. It stretched out for miles and as far as the eye could see in most directions. It was filled with poverty on so many levels with a disease undercurrent as the driver told us how these areas are plagued by HIV/AIDS as well.

We visited with the people in this Township; we walked amongst them, toured their homes, played with their children and visited their humble street shops to buy small trinkets. We found them to be very welcoming, lots of smiling faces and gratitude that as strangers in their world, we would take the time to shake a hand thank them for the time and hospitality. We even had a chance to visit the self-proclaimed “smallest-hotel in South Africa” here in the Township.

The visit here was my first exposure to true sub-Saharan African poverty and it was eye opening in so many ways, but as important it was also my first experience spending a full week, with 10 hours days with a group of African leaders struggling with their own challenges, some of which are familiar to me, but many of which of foreign to my societal and cultural upbringings.

Lastly, our tour of Cape Town and South Africa led us to Robben Island, the Alcatraz-like island prison where Nelson Mandela spent many of the 27 years he was imprisoned. We walked the grounds with a former prisoner whom shared his heartfelt and real pains of this experience in captivity there. The uniqueness of this experience was the proximity to recent history. This was not some ancient struggle in millennia past, this was real and it was recent. These events and the ending of Apartheid combined with Nelson Mandela becoming President all happened when I was of age to understand and comprehend in 1994. A truly unique and treasured experience to have had the opportunity to visit this place.

In the end this experience was the first step in a journey for us all.

A step for realizing the common good in our aspirations.

A step for renewing and building friendships.

A step for sharing struggles and concerns, for having safe harbor to discuss these fears.

A step for hope that at some point the future we are united by the threads of the same human desire for good and peace that are sourced in the themes of family, faith, liberty, freedom, rule of law and self-expression.

I am inspired and humbled by the people I met and the stories I heard. That each of us has struggles at all levels of our lives, some to a greater extent than others.

I also left thinking about our American culture and the legacy of the United States and how very proud I am of our country, the history, and our people. Our citizens are the most generous in the world and our compassion and love for our nation and each other, is only outdone by our commitment to freedom, liberty and the rule of law and ensuring that no matter what walk of life you are from, you have a chance in America like no other place in the world to take control of your future and to make a difference in your life and ultimately the world.

I experienced many people with Ubuntu while in Africa. Thank you

Stephen Gillett

WETA

2011-10-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

"God Sells All Things For The Price of Labor" - Leonardo Da Vinci

Last week, I had the privilege and honor to visit WETA Workshop in New Zealand.

While most of the experience is bound in confidentially, the general theme of what I was able to observe I wanted to share. It was humbling and refreshing to experience the dedication and passion of the WETA Workshop team and leadership.

WETA (named after a native New Zealand insect) is a special effects and prop company started by Richard & Tania Taylor in 1987. They are entrepreneurial and creative, have a commitment that rivals a healthy obsession and a culture and atmosphere that is admirable and inspirational on so many levels to outsiders and to the WETA employees.

You may not have heard of WETA Workshop & WETA Digital, but they have worked on many of the blockbuster movies we know today: Avatar, Tin Tin, King Kong, District 9, Lord of the Rings, Narnia and so many others (see: WETA Wiki).

They create armor and props, miniature and bigatures. They take painstakingly time crafting and molding the gold standard of realism and quality and passion that you see in all the final products. As we visited and were taken on the WETA journey, I was reminded by the greatness and inspiration people that craft and work everyday with their hands to build and make items that go on to be used on such a global and ultimately cultural scale.

Our gracious and humble host Sir. Richard Taylor took the time and grace to show us the he wonderful part of the world. Thank you.

There is much to be learned from WETA Workshop. The energy and passion combined with the skill with the hands and agility of the artist mind and commitment to detail and quality is a good lesson for any industry and for leaders to observe.

WETA was a good reminder of this for me and I encourage you to see the latest film they worked on: Tin Tin, which premiered this week in France.

This glimpse into the behind the scenes will definitely allow me to appreciate the movie experience to an even further degree than before.

Thank you Richard & Tania for allowing the opportunity to experience this.

Stephen Gillett

A CIO Ode to Steve Jobs

2011-09-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Steve,

My name is Stephen Gillett. I am an IT professional and currently CIO of Starbucks. I write this as an IT professional, not as a digital and interactive business leader, strictly IT speaking.

Steve & Apple, we have had a long standing relationship, even if you don’t know it.

You see, Apple has always been a part of my personal world. The personal relationship with Apple is fine, healthy and goes back to my early youth.

Being brought into the world in the late 1970’s there is not a world known to me before Apple. It has always been there, the bright Apple logo in its various forms, evolving and growing like a tree planted in the backyard in youth that when visited in adulthood stands taller than the house itself.

You were in my school and in my home. As the brand evolved, I grew up as well.

When I was in high school learning to type in 1990’s, Apple was there to receive my every misguided key stroke and through the thick bi-focal lens of my instructor critiquing me for looking down at the keyboard as I typed, Apple was there to gently chuckle at me through the clicking of the keys and help me correct and get back on track.

We were buds, we were friends, we were comrades early in the tech journey and we spent a lot of time together. Each night I would put the rubbery keyboard cover back on you, as you waited for the next day of lessons.

When I started to spend time with your cousin Windows more, I still had a strong relationship with you Apple. In a way, I became ambidextrous, weaving in and out of Windows and Apple as one would own two cars, each for a distinct purpose yet unique in their own right.

All was well.

When I got my first job in corporate America, that relationship changed.

I was perplexed and confused. This brand and technology of my youth did not want to have the same relationship with me as I grew up. I was in a corporate world that had a lot of technology, but had a distressing fewer and fewer encounters with Apple.

Being a good friend to Apple, I tried to change that. I was an entry level IT professional, but I realized quickly that the feeling between the enterprise and Apple was mutual. It wasn’t just the enterprise pushing Apple away, but in equal and opposite force Apple was pushing away the enterprise. The enterprise was concerned about a bunch of things and Apple did not want to spend the time or energy to alleviate those concerns.

And so my professional relationship grew more distant and I lost that ambidexterity that I had so mastered in my youth. I lost a friend.

Apple also grew, it went through growth and decline and growth again and when Apple emerged from those years a stronger and healthier company, I also emerged from those same years an older and more seasoned executive.

Now here I am, all grown up and in the role of CIO, one of the “500” that you called an “orifice” to the end users of an organization. I was not offended; I know we can be a hard lot to work with as we have to care about things that are not as cool as the consumer elements of great technology.

In that, no hard feelings. It’s all good--for real.

I am inspired by Apple and the work you have done over my lifetime. You have a great product and service and pride of ownership by your customers. It is aspirational and commendable.

On the personal side all is going fine and on the professional side, your technology, brand and service have made me a better technologist and a better CIO in so many ways. Your leadership has inspired those of us who lead technologists and drive business innovation.

I hope one day soon we can get back on great terms, this time with Apple and enterprise IT. I am working on just that now actually and can't wait to tell you more about it.

I hope you will not hold any hard feelings to me now that I am a CIO. I don’t hold any towards you.

Your old friend,

Stephen, The IT guy

Fortune Brainstrom Tech 2011

2011-07-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of sharing the panel with GILT Group and Facebook executives. Topic is digital, mobile, commence and innovation.

If below link does not work: Watch it here

Stephen Gillett

Contextual Retail

2011-06-16T01:03:00.000-07:00

As a Silicon Valley web and software leader transplanted in recent years into the world of retail and cpg, I am continually amazed to see the various opportunities that present in this dynamic and data-rich environment.

I have long supported the notion and first hand observation that big internet and big software (as industries) has worked through innovation cultures to evolve and solve a lot of issues that big retail has yet to overcome.

Much progress has been made in retail in recent years with the influx of consumer-enabling offerings, like our Starbucks loyalty and in-store payment capabilities, mobile apps, location-based services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook places, merchant opportunities opening up with GroupOn and Living Social and Google Offers. It is less about what retailers have done and more about what is being done to/with them. This is now changing as retailers start to lead the way in these offerings.

Also noteworthy are the new emerging offerings in social commerce, such as Walmart’s recent announcement of their social commerce initiatives, which will aspire to tailor your retail experience with the analytics surrounding your social graph motivations.

What would a virtual end-base filled with products relevant to you, inspired from your Facebook and Twitter friends and discussions, delivered in a daily-deal format look like? Just to give you a sense of the power here.

Despite all of these recent advancements in retail from mobility, payments to group buying, location based and social-aware commerce, we are really only seeing the beginning of what I have called “Contextual Retailing”, which is simply defined as merchants and retailers on an opt-in and secure fashion broadly knowing who you are, what you like, what is important to you how you want to be engaged with, your need for value, quality and individualized texture to in-store offerings important to you. When you layer in gamification, loyalty and social currency you really start to unlock and completely transform the modern retail experience. Retailing in essence, becomes one to one engagement vs one (merchant) to many (customers).

Differentiation in the future of retail will come as much from product and quality offerings as it will from personalization and relevance. This again, is contextual retail manifest. These disparate activities now: payment, group-buying, mobile, location-based, loyalty, currency and social will start to converge and they will converge in a big-way that benefits the merchant and the customer alike.

This is just a few of the high-level dimensions that can be fitted into a contextual-retail experience. There are indeed hundreds that can and are being explored.

As retailers move in various ways into a “contextual retail” enabled environments, the rigid and anonymous interaction you have with many merchant and retailers today evolves…and it evolves significantly in new a relevant ways to the consumers. Surprise and delight experiences become the new normal of retail.

Get ready for the exciting era of a smarter and consumer friendly retail experience. It is upon us.

Stephen Gillett

What I’ve learned as a CEO working for a CIO

2011-05-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to cross-post a friend and colleagues post, Adam Brotman. The original can be read here.

I’ve spent most of my career as a CEO and entrepreneur. I founded, built and ran as CEO a $40M/year venture-backed digital media company for 9 years, from the time I was 27 until I was 36. In the 5 years since, I’ve been an SVP of a $300M/year digital media company, briefly was CEO again of an eCommerce company, and for the last two years have been a VP at a Fortune 250 company. But in my heart, no matter what my title, I’ve never stopped thinking, and trying to act, like a CEO/entrepreneur.

In my current role as VP/GM of a business unit, I work for the CIO. That’s pretty unusual – for a business unit GM to report into the CIO. But, this isn’t your ordinary CIO or situation. We worked together previously as colleagues; where I was SVP and he was SVP/CIO. We realized then that we shared the same view towards innovation and strategy, and the same passion and approach towards leadership. We agreed back then that we wanted to work together for quite a while, and either of us would work for the other, it didn’t matter. When he left that company to become the youngest C-level executive of a Fortune 500 company, he was the one that suggested to our current company that we create a digital business unit under his leadership, and then he recruited me in to lead that unit. He would be my boss and partner, not in his role as CIO per se, but as a senior leader of the company.

But his “day job” is still as CIO, and much of the way he approaches his work is shaped by his years of working his way up through the technology ranks at various publicly traded Silicon Valley tech companies. CEOs and CIOs approach their work very differently, and I’ve become a better “CEO” by letting my CIO boss rub off on me.

A CIO runs a function, not a business unit. A CIO must understand the latest in technology trends, be able to build products on time and on budget, scale up economically to support the needs of the business, problem-solve how to build new solutions in a world where he/she has inherited a number of legacy systems, and be able to hire tech talent in labor markets where such talent is almost always in high demand. A good CIO will develop a mental framework around “optimizing” for scale, whether that be through organizational design, where to place talent, and how to best support the business’ needs and priorities. Especially at a multi-billion dollar, multi-national Fortune 250 company, the CIO has to do all of this at a scale and pace, and under a level of scrutiny and pressure, that is nothing short of world class.

By contrast, a CEO builds and runs an entire business. Generally a good CEO is focused on articulating a vision, and inspiring a leadership team (and the entire company) to accomplish that vision. A CEO usually is good at viscerally understanding how their vision should be experienced by the customer and seen by the world, and how it is differentiated from the current landscape and the competition’s offerings. Vision, passion, leadership, and tenacity are the skills and mental framework for the effective CEO.

Rarely does a CEO get the chance to work for a CIO. Something interesting happened to me when I did. I was forced to learn new skill sets; not in lieu of those that I developed or brought to the table as CEO, but in addition to those skills. And I feel that it has made me a much better “CEO”. Now, when thinking of how to build an organization or bring a product to market, there are new “synapses” firing in my brain that never used to be there. I start thinking right from the get-go about the market landscape, speed to market, scale and organizational roles around building and supporting that product in a way that just wouldn’t have entered my mind so early in the visioning process.

And, surprisingly, the initial vision and passion I bring to the table as “CEO” for these initiatives doesn’t get watered down by adding this “CIO-like” framework to the equation. In fact, it’s the opposite. Now, built into my vision for an innovative product, platform or customer experience, I am more apt to layer into that vision a point of view around how to implement, scale and maintain a competitive differentiation. Usually CEOs have to confront these realities around implementation and scale a bit down the road after they have used their sheer passion, vision and leadership to get investors and employees to invest money, time and effort in their initial vision. And many would say that if the CEO wasn’t a little “naïve”, the original idea may never have been presented quite as passionately. Many times that’s true. But after working for a CIO for two years, I’m here to tell you that when you can combine the CEO-like raw vision and passion with CIO-like detailed planning around implementation, scale and design, it’s a much more powerful initial vision and one that’s even more likely to succeed. I know it has forever improved my abilities going forward.

Easter [History Channel]

2011-04-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Starbucks Journey: ONWARD

2011-04-06T17:02:00.001-07:00

Howard explains the tone of the book, the transformation of the company and the highs and lows of how we got there.

The IT Merchant

2011-04-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." -M. Ghandi

As Information Technology professionals, we provide valuable insights to business through the mind and perspective of a Technologist. Whether you are a Software Engineer or a Network Administrator, a manager in QA or the CIO, you bring a unique perspective and service-delivery to this organization.

Working in the retail world, I am surrounded by merchants. These merchants are the professionals that from a very distinct and trained eye, with skills either learned and or innate have the ability and desire to view the business through a very distinct lens.

A lens of empathy for the customer experience, a lens of the narrative of the product, a lens of a service orientated culture and state of mind and lens of pride in what service and product they offer. They are traditional merchants in the classical sense of the word, service orientated and storytellers with a “customer-first” mind set.

As I reflect on the role of the Technologist in this merchant culture, I look at our charter and our role in the organization and I asked a simple question.

Is IT as a function, the enterprise version of the traditional merchant?

As an IT professional, we have a passion for building solutions, we form narratives about the proper application of Technology, we have instincts we rely on to develop good products, we are service-orientated and we have a “yes” and “Get it done” culture for our clients. We aim to please and drive results. We take extreme pride in seeing our work being used to the betterment of other parts of the organization through productivity, increase revenue or overall efficiency. We solve problems and identify issues to focus on. We are service-orientated to the core, but we do strive to be partners as well and tell the story about how our “goods” can indeed be used for better.

It would seem that the modern IT professional, does have a characteristics similar to the merchant, but of the enterprise.

Stephen Gillett

What's your Starbucks Signature?

2011-03-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite Starbucks stories being told through a commercial. Enjoy!

Humanity of Leadership

2011-03-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

“Our mission statement about treating people with respect and dignity is not just words but a creed we live by every day. You can't expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers if you don't exceed the employees' expectations of management.” ---Howard Schultz

This week I received an advance copy of our CEO Howard Schultz new book “Onward” How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul that will be available later this month. It is a must read for anyone wanting to learn both the hard talents of leading an organization through a transformation and the soft skills of holding true to company values and mission, when faced with mounting tribulations. It is the journey of a company infused with clarity and emotion, culture and a strong desire to be a company with a social conscience. It is a story of Starbucks.

Having joined Starbucks on the Executive leadership team in 2008, having the honor and privilege of living through this last three years and it has been an experience unlike any I have had in my professional lifetime.

This morning our company turned 40 years old. The leadership team had the privilege of going to the first Starbucks store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market (est. 1971) and talking to partners and media about what this means for the company. We finished this morning by a live-broadcast to New York City, where Starbucks rang the virtual opening bell to begin the trading on NASDAQ. It was truly an honor for our company, our partners, and our customers and for me.

As I reflect on these last few years, there are many lessons learned and refined. The teachings are around business leadership, handling extreme adversity, global economics and being an active part of team and not just a passive member of one. There were no bystanders on the three year journey.

The most important teachings were around the reinforcement on how to make the right decisions for countless thousands of people and their families that work hard every day and count on you and the leadership you provide. I am confident, having witnessed and been an active member of the leadership team here, that late at night in the conference rooms, with the lights turning off and the night crew cleaning the offices, and a strong amount of pressures all around us, with adversity and trials paramount, that the team made the right decisions by our values and our mission, if not always the easy ones.

The path of a business transformation or turnaround is fraught with peril. There are many influences that weigh in on a company and a leader, regardless of what area of the business you lead. There are times when difficult decisions need to be made that modify the overall business direction and more importantly at times, impact people’s lives directly. This should never be underestimated and as a leader, to never forget that we are chartered with ensuring that the lives and souls of the people we are privileged to lead every day are not lost in the maelstrom of business.

There is one lesson that has held true for our team here and for myself and that is one of the most important characteristics of a leader, it is the Humanity of Leadership. This is how one ensures that every decision, every large scale change is embodied with humanity and a conscience. This humanity of leadership is not a written policy. It is not something they train you to do in business school. It is not something you get readily from reading a book. It is something inside. It is something that transcends your position, your company, and your job. It is the very essence of ones humanity that needs to be front and center when in a position of leadership, especially when the decisions of the leader can impact others.

In time, the historians and business stewards will evaluate this company over the last few years and over the last 40. They will cheer the successes and they will critique the challenges. Time will pass and the story will be set about what was done here. I believe as Howard has said, that our best days as a company are ahead of us. We all feel that viscerally and it is almost tangible in many ways here at the company in all we do.

For our partners (employees), we could not have done this without the daily hard work by so many of you every day in so many parts of the world. It is only by your hard work and grace do we have our organization. We are humbled by your dedication and inspired by your fortitude. Thank you.

In the end, I know one thing to be true. That each of the leaders and partners whom were a part of journey of the last three years did their best to preserve our values, guide us through adversity and with a passion and humility, made the very best decisions for our company, our partners and our customers.

And they did so with Humanity.

Stephen Gillett

Soul Catcher

2011-03-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

"We think too small at times, like a frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view" Lao-Tzu

I was recently in a brainstorming session with a colleague, really thinking deep & creative about a business challenge and trying hard to generate a solution and idea to overcome that challenge. In our discussion, we filled up our white board a couple times writing over each other with different marker colors challenging our thoughts as they flowed somewhat freely and in a safe harbor of trust.

After several dozen minutes pass, I started to ask myself if we were taking the wrong approach and as this thought entered my mind; I asked “Are we looking at this the right way?”

I recalled in my mind a novel I had read in my youth called Soul Catcher by Frank Herbert

In the book I remember the Native American talking about the hunting of animals as he escorted the captured boy. He explained that the human eye can see the movement of game animals much better if one looks slightly off-center vs. directly down the path. This allows the peripheral vision to spot this movement more efficiently than that of the direct gaze of the eye. This caused me to think if there is a minds-eye version of this that can be used in an “enterprise-corporate” sense to allow for an indirect solution to be generated for the problem at-hand.

I explained to my colleague that maybe we are not seeing the answer because we are looking to directly for a solution i.e. let’s focus in on some of the peripheral challenges we know how to solve and see if that by solving for those, the larger more elusive answer would emerge and we could spot it.

The evening did not yield the full answer to the challenge, but we did make progress before we realized it was past time to head home. We learned quickly that focusing on the details in many ways does lead to the bigger opportunities presenting themselves particularly when referencing joint-experience, simply did not probe a worthy answer i.e. a very difficult problem indeed!

The lesson of ensuring you have enterprise peripheral vision as brainstorming and troubleshooting method for me, warranted further exploration and awareness.

Going forward with challenges that don’t readily present solutions, ensuring I am using my mind’s eye peripheral vision will be a new tactic I employ.

Let's see if Soul Catcher in 1987 indeed held lessons, long dormant now surfacing these many years later.

Stephen Gillett

Business Jujitsu

2011-02-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

People in their handling of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure. -Lao Tzu

In business, there are many forces. As corporate citizens responsible for business, growth, talent development and market engagement, we must learn to navigate and succeed in these currents, even when they may seem overpowering or impossible to navigate.

On a recent trip to several of the high-growth Asian capitals, the opportunities for citizens and business leaders is palpable. There are many forces in play, organic growth, geo-political, government, citizen affluence, technology adoption and the aggressive competitive landscape across all industries.

It is the successful person whom learns to overcome these energies and forces by learning to use redirect them for ones business goals. This means once must be skilled in the art of the business version of Jujitsu, and learn where possible to use these natural occurring forces, redirected to further the means of the business.

This can take the form of business deals, hiring talent, nudging a competitor or expanding into new market segments. Once one has mapped out the existing forces at work across the measurable dimensions then the ability to navigate these through skilled negotiating techniques, the outcome and energies can indeed be harnessed in new ways.

More to come on this topic.

Stephen Gillett

Controlled Burns

2011-01-25T17:02:00.000-08:00

"...The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it.."

Laurence Peter

There are many processes and procedures in any enterprise. They are prescribed methods for getting work done, completing projects, generating business relationships, starting new ventures and overall day to day operations of the company and/or department.

From my perspective, these broadly defined "activities" take on a distinct set of characteristics. These characteristics are either controlled and flow from a source of competence realizing the vision or objective of the business unit or function, or they go awry and do uncontrolled damage, much akin to way a forest fire spreads.

During the long flights of the last couple weeks in Asia, I had the chance to catch up on some reading of some case studies on failed leadership or large programs and some of these patterns emerge clearly.

When dealing some some individuals and teams, these activities (burns) are random, do uncontrolled destruction, drive all the nice animals out of the forest (enterprise) They leave nothing but a scorched earth for others to later come along and live with and ultimately clean up. These are teams that are either careless in their execution or simply lack the skills to do the level of engagement they are tasked with. These individuals go through the motions they deem to be successful but in the end, the structure is one of chaos.

It is important that you have qualified and competent leadership in these key areas of your business. They must have the learned and innate skills to reach the desired business outcome across teams and companies in a particular discussion or negotiation process. The leader must have the ability to manage multiple work streams, negotiations, personal relationships all with expert navigation and precision, setting controlled areas or activity that ultimately grow to also support the outcome. These concepts in the enterprise to the rational actor in a geopolitical engagement.

Stephen Gillett

Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review

2010-12-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Very nice 2010 Year in Review video, through the lens of Google search. What a year. We are all connected indeed.

Where Do Good Ideas Come from?

2010-12-03T12:41:00.000-08:00

Thought this was a great video from Ted about good ideas, the historical role of the coffeehouse for the age of enlightenment. Enjoy

One Hand Clapping

2010-11-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"--Confucius

How does one celebrate success to the degree they are acknowledging achievement, yet not telegraphing satiety or complacency?

How do you ensure that the criteria you setup initially is well-executed and that success is clearly defined both by the measurable (hard) dimensions of business (e.g fiscal) and the more difficult (soft) areas to measure (e.g trust, culture)?

As organizations move through the gyrations of business, as new activities come to being in the enterprise, as projects complete and customer engagement remains paramount, how does a leader know when the time to take a breath and offer a modest celebration is warranted?

One of the challenges with this, is that in order to truly be successful an organization has to meet and exceed all of the variables of success, not just some.

Did you meet your financial target, but decline on customer service? Did you hit your expansion plans, but shatter confidence and trust in your culture? Did you expand into new product lines, but dilute your core business mission in the process? Did your project complete, but many of your key employees are fatigued and left behind?

At a recent industry event, where many executives from a wide-variety of industries were present, there was often a discussion around the table as those whom have been able to navigate the economic and consumer sentiment over the last couple years, give sage advice to leaders that have had more difficulty.

As I listened to these leaders, I heard a lot about the hard measurable criteria for success. They discussed non-organic M&A growth, cost-controls and overall financial measurements. I heard little in the way of soft measures such as engaging with customers in new ways and expanding their product offerings in a brand congruent way or new ways to honor the work by key employees in the organization. The discussions and success portrayed focused little on soft-measures on more on the hard ones.

In business, it is key that you celebrate success but do so on the full 360 degress measurements of success. This is truely something to be applauded and teams/leaders should indeed be praised.

Treat your employees as you would treat your best customers and ensure that neither audience is left out of the measurement for a successful celebration.

To celebrate only one aspect of real success, one must also be warned:

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Stephen Gillett

Validation Networks

2010-10-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

"More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject" --Peter Drucker

As leaders we influence and are influenced by those in our networks. The term network is used in the broadest sense. It can be expanded to include co-workers, managers, peers, mentors and anyone you regularly check in with outside your organization.

These influences can come formally or informally, they can be long conversations, quick calls or even short emails.

Baked into these influence circles, I have seen over my professional life a notion of what I call the "validation network".

Simply put, the validation network is the network of people you choose to engage with when validating an idea that needs your support or the folks you talk to when you need to make a decision on strategy or direction and want an opinion outside of your own in strict confidence, by someone you trust.

As a leader one must be aware of the validation networks of the people around you. The people you need to support and the people you need support from. You should have these mapped out mentally and it should influence the work or proposals you hope to gain their support with.

If you know the kinds of questions people in their validation network will be asking/probing them when your idea is presented, you will know what questions and issues you need to have covered before you ask for support or decision on a matter. It saves time and ensures a quality well-thought out request for support or decision in the end.

Everyone has a validation network, they just vary largely in degree and intensity. It is also important to note that a great idea or strong request for someones support may largely come only through their validation network vetting it with them first!

Understanding first the concept of the validation network will help you navigate and garner support through mapping and solving for it up front.

I have had to navigate some very intense and inspiring (leaders) validation networks myself over the last 10 years or so and these learning's helped me refine my requests for decisions and or supporting a new idea.

Know the validation networks in your influence circles and you will know how best to navigate your enterprise rapids for decisions and support.

Stephen Gillett

Starbucks Digital Network Launch Day!

2010-10-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we launched our Starbucks Digital Network in over 6,800 store in the US.

I was in NYC at a Starbucks in the Empire State Building meeting different folks that cover this space and did a few hours of demos and answering questions. It was great as the energy and excitement internally and with the customers very much reminds me of my start up days in the silicon valley earlier this decade.

Here are a few stories covering the launch as as well as an audio Interview with Robert Scoble 10/20/10: Empire State Building Starbucks

Please do reach out with any questions and will do my best to respond in a timely fashion! email is here: Stephen Gillett

You can also join the twitter dialog where I answer lots of @ inquiries, you can find me on twitter here: @stephengillett

"Starbucks Digital Network"

Yahoo Search: "Starbucks Digital Network"

"Starbucks Digital Network is here"

Stephen Gillett

Flag of Convenience

2010-10-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

"It is important to not just look at the flag (résumé) one is flying, but also take scrutiny of the ship (business) they have captained"--Stephen Gillett

In the press in recent days has been the highly visible news of the the new CEO of HP. As an IT professional, HP's future and success is very important to the world I live in professionally. This post is about general searches for Technology company leaders.

The term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship.

I want to first clearly state that I am personally a proponent of HP as a company. Their story, culture, product and engagement throughout my professional IT career has been second to none in many aspects.

When looking for the CEO of the largest Technology company in the world, the first place to look for this leader may not initially be apparent.

I am no means a professional search consultant, but tasked with advising on this search, the first place I would have looked is to the key customer base of HP, the enterprise CIO.

Formally surveying (or private interviewing) select CIO's as the first step would yield a very powerful result set. I would ask CIO's through survey/interview questions like:

What enterprise Technology companies do you admire (big or small) and why?
What Technology companies have proven to you as CIO to be strong partners and not simply vendors?
Describe what Technology companies you think have provided you the best product (software, hardware, services) to help you achieve your strategic business objectives?
What companies do from your purview to mirror the culture and values of your own IT/Business teams?
List the Tech organizations you engage with that show a strong entrepreneurial spirit with customer first mindset?

There is a 1/2 dozen more that are relevant, but I think the point is made here. The goal of this starting point survey would be to really identify the attributes in the company’s first that are doing very well with your customers, THEN take that information and formalize those attributes into the profile of your leader search.

If you ask yourself only the résumé and background of a potential leader and not thoroughly examine the company(s) they have led and the customer set they serve, then you are really selling your customers and your employees short.

This is truly an opportunity to hire someone that can chart the future successful course of the company and bring along the customers when doing so. Reflecting your customers voice in this search is a strong and somewhat unprecedented move.

...find the aspirational characteristics in the company(s) from your customers point of view and you will find the aspirational characteristics in your leader you want to hire.

So how does SAP fair in the mind of your customers? Well you may just have to do your survey.

Stephen Gillett

Enterprise Tetris

2010-09-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

"Be around the people you like, because you will become like the people you are around"-- Sean Reichle

In recent weeks, I have had the opportunity to talk candidly with leaders across various industries on leadership and influence. It has spurred my thought process to really try and identify how I think about these areas and how they ladder up generally in the enterprise.

The corporate forces that exist in any enterprise be it: large, small, public, private, for-profit and non-profit. These forces exist and are real to their varying intensity. These enterprise forces stratify into what I personally classify into strong and weak forces. The strong forces are the pillar forces by which the weaker ones meander and radiate from. The primary enterprise forces are: people (talent), strategy, influence, leadership, relationship, culture & history. The last one history is both the history of the organization itself, but also mixed in with the history that each of the the people in the enterprise bring to their respective roles.

The weaker forces tend to radiate out from this strong forces and I identify those next, this is by no means an exhaustive list, but used to illustrate the concept. They are: confidence, sensitivity, citizenship (corporate), competency, capability, engagement, authenticity, skill, aptitude, emotion, transparency, and ambitiousness.

As a leader or enterprise citizen, one inevitably is immersed in a sea of these strong and weak forces, pulling the organization in a certain direction and instilling the very foundation of the company culture as it moves through time and existence. It is important as a leader that one know how to engage with these forces both to be aware of their own in general and those of others and to understand the source of them. This will allow one to identify ones own characteristics and as such serve the greater good of the organization and its shareholders in the process. This is not mandated conformity by any means, but is in a sense the very core of corporate self-awareness.

I often tell new leaders that to have their desired outcome in the enterprise, "one must be molded as much as they expect to mold others".

In this corporate world of tetris, everyone brings a unique shape to the table, are you a leader that can bring harmony and thus keep the game on, or do you allow your strong & weak forces overcome so that you cannot bring unity and cohesion to a team to the point the shapes stack and game is lost.

It is indeed a game of skill.

Stephen Gillett

A Glimpse Inside Starbucks IT

2010-09-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) Details

2010-08-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

You may have seen the article last night from our Mashable interview or the Starbucks press release relating to the Starbucks Digital Network which we discussed a bit with our free wi-fi announcement in late June.

The Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) is in proud partnership with Yahoo! and will launch in the Fall of this year.

The SDN is in-store portal experience (see homepage screen frame to left) that you can access while on our wifi. It will be brought to our community through the use of great navigational design elements and be easy to use and engage with. It will have several categories such as News, Entertainment, Business & Careers, My Neighborhood, Starbucks each filled with the best paid-wall internet content and offerings, combined with other local, neighborhood and community experiences.

We were proud to announce several new content partnerships,that bring fantastic original digital experiences and paid-wall relief though our in-store SDN.

Among the partnerships and content partners announcements so far: WSJ.com, ZAGAT, Yahoo!, The New York Times, Rodale, PATCH.com, Donorschoose.org, Apple ITunes, AT&T, USA Today, Starbucks and as a father of four young kids, one I am very excited about announced last night, Nick Jr's Boost!

One of the funnest and most innovative offerings will come from our partner Rodale, here is the summary:

Rodale is the media company whose offerings include, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Prevention, Organic Gardening and Eat This, Not That!

"...In addition to providing content from its brands, Rodale's section will feature the Run, Ride and Walk finder online application for local community relevance. The Run, Ride and Walk Finder online application will provide access to geo-targeted maps of more than 300,000 routes that highlight Starbucks stores along the way, and customers can upload their own trails that begin or end at their local Starbucks..."

The SDN is truly about creating unique enhancements to the millions of Starbucks customers that use wi-fi every week in our stores.

Our customers can engage with the SDN as they choose and/or navigate out directly to the web to complete the many tasks online a good wi-fi connection allows them to complete.

I get a lot of questions over email and the blog, so please feel free to email directly or post in the comments section below and will do my best to engage & answer what I can!

You can email me at Starbucks here: Stephen Gillett
or follow me directly on Twitter

Stephen Gillett

Framing The Role of Gaming

2010-07-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks there have a been a few articles written about gaming and learning's, here are a couple that did some profile work, calling out my MMO & professional journey. The first one was in WIRED magazine in 2006, that was during my time with Yahoo: "You Play World of Warcraft, You're Hired".

There were a series over the last few weeks, but the pickup really started this month with Forbes & Yahoo doing stories as well:

Forbes 6/2010: "Entrepreneurs Get an Edge from Videogames"
Yahoo 7/2010: "Fortune 500 CIO Learned from Gaming"

While everything written by these authors is true, even if the headlines can be a bit sensational, it is important to know that it was not any one element alone that led to any measurement of success outlined, but a series of internal and external forces that guided me along my life path.

(Read the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell to get some real insights here)

Of course, I did not learn everything from MMO's, nor did I ever interview with that as the tag line. I had a strong education, amazing wife & partner, solid experience, great opportunities and a series of mentors and leaders that took a chance with me and coached and taught me, much of which is outlined in other posts here on the guildcio blog.

Gaming itself is an artifact in my personal development and professional style that has typically surfaced after I was hired on more traditional credentials and is a part of my view of teams, leaders, strategy, opportunities and assessments.

It is safe to say gaming significantly influenced my leadership style and many of the characteristics in my style and personality that attracted employers and leaders have roots in gaming. I think another dimension that interests many is that I openly discuss it (MMO gaming) as a key learning tool and that combination is what garners the interest and study from what I can see.

In 1998, I started in my MMO Ultima Online, which was the first real MMO in the modern sense (no offense MUD players!) and laid the ground work for the massive titles in the space that we see today.

From 1997 until 2010, my journey took me through the realms of: Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Lineage, Everquest, Starwars Galaxies and World of Warcraft

Ultima was an epic world with hundreds of thousands of players, using dial-up, ISDN or early forms of broadband to engage with and play in these virtual realms together with other people from all over the world. I was still at the University of Oregon at the time and while I was finishing up my degree, there were many early learning's for me that I experienced in the virtual MMO world, long before I encountered them in the real professional one.

Areas I feel MMO's gave me my first real significant exposure to: Recruiting talent, building global teams (guilds), team conflict resolution, cultural diversity, financial management, talent retention, strong motivation, strategic vision/planning are all areas that could be explored when I reflect on MMO learning's that have been directly applied learning's to the real world.

The analogy here would be lessons learned from athletics. If one was to look back on the life lessons learned, from that special coach you had, or a group dynamic you learned from being part of an athletic team, you can get a similar concept for the MMO world learning's that is trying to be captured. Nobody would ever question that learning life lessons and traits used in both a personal and professional realm could come from sports, there is more skepticism when making the same equivalency for MMO learning as they apply to real world personal and professional situations.

While each lesson would be a much longer post, you can see some of the lessons matured and cataloged in some of my posts, I have summarized them all here: "Learning & Gaming" so you can engage and see for yourself.

It is fun and informal analysis that represents a new generation of how individuals learn, measure, engage and ultimately succeed or fail. The fact that we have a dialog around this is indeed the real strength of the analysis and value of the discussion.

Stephen Gillett

Enterprise Ambidexterity

2010-07-12T07:48:00.000-07:00

"Don't get an MBA just to get one, let your professional career drive you to need one. That is the best way to ensure retention of the knowledge" --Stephen Gillett, advice to a new undergrad.

In 2009, I wrote a blog entry around "The Professional Talent Spec". The notion of this is that you must develop yourself, your skills and your passions in new ways and then find the time and resources to better align to them in your career.

In a modern view of this, I have found that on top of having a strong talent spec deep into the corporate tree of your discipline (IT in my case), you must also learn as a modern corporate citizen to truly develop the ability to be ambidextrous, i.e. it is not just a primary skill/talent that you have, but must develop the ability to use other skills equal to your primary one and often at the same time!

This "Enterprise Ambidexterity" is more of a mental capability then the traditional physical one, most associated with the word. I describe it akin to a secondary talent spec in World of Warcraft, for the gamers that follow, you must be able to switch between specs seamlessly.

As CIO, leading enterprise IT efforts is my primary spec but I continually work on having a strong Business Strategy secondary spec and when the RAID (company) needs me to switch specs (e.g. strategist, duty expansion) I can do so and feel comfortable that I have the talents and gear (experience, education, exposure) to play the role needed and that the others in the organization trust in these abilities as well.

As the role of the CIO continually evolves and plays a larger part of key enterprise initiatives, the notion of being more than just the "highest ranking IT person" becomes key. Having a primary and secondary skill set near-equal to each other and being able to move between them seamlessly is the first step in truly attaining this enterprise ambidexterity.

I start imagining a corporate trade channel with the words: "LF1M to run new daily business review heroic premade session" right after we see the CFO spamming for more gold!

Stephen Gillett

Learning & Gaming

2010-07-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

In recent years, starting with the 2006 WIRED Article titled: "You Play World of Warcraft, You're Hired!" and most recently from last week in Forbes "Entrepreneurs Get An Edge Playing Video games" I thought it would be helpful to put into a single post, all of the blog posts related to gaming and the professional world.

If you were to look back over the last couple years, you will see many blog entries discussing the various themes around how I connect virtual MMO skills and learning to that of the real world.

Here is a short re-list of some of those key entries related to gaming from the blog over the last couple years for those interested, although there are many others related to all aspects of business, leadership and technology.

There are indeed many lessons I first learned in the MMO world long-before I experienced them in the corporate one.

If there is a particular question you have about this link between gaming lessons and professional lessons, do post a comment and will do my best to respond!

Stephen Gillett

The IT Behind FREE

2010-07-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

As many of you have seen, today we announced the launch of free wi-fi in both the US and Canadian company led stores today as of July 1st 2010.

As the CIO and GM of Digital Ventures, I have the honor to view the offering both as a business & consumer experience offering as GM and then the logistics and delivery as CIO.

I have to say it is a great vantage point as both a Technology and Business leader!

I wanted to take a moment and pay tribute to the IT behind FREE!

Internally, the way this works in our stores is we have a secure and converged network that handles much of our in-store communications (POS, Security Systems, etc..) and also has a segment of the network carved off through an access point that we provide wi-fi to our customers over.

This "converged" network allows many store operational benefits, but because of the robust AT&T (US) network, it allows us the ability to segment bandwidth to use for things such as wi-fi and to power the Starbucks Digital Network in the Fall.

The IT teams at Starbucks and with our service providers have alerting setup to watch for bandwidth usage, spikes in activity and stores that need upgraded circuits/bandwidth due to increasing needs.

Much like a big web company would watch the utilization of their network and servers, in this same way we have to watch this from an IT perspective to keep the network moving and the access fast and reliable.

The IT behind the scenes to make this work to the scale of Starbucks is indeed a great story. The technology teams behind the scenes work hard to ensure this is a seamless and great customer experience and as CIO and GM my hat goes off to them.

There is indeed a lot more on the IT side that goes into this, but will save that for a future post!

There is no "I" in FREE but there is definitely some "IT"!

Stephen Gillett

Free WiFi and Starbucks Digital Network

2010-06-14T12:31:00.001-07:00

Here in NYC at the 2nd annual WIRED Magazine hosted "disruptive by design" business conference.

In the conference, we discussed two key Starbucks announcements. Here is the official Starbucks news alert.

As the leader of these initiatives, I wanted to discuss a them individually and ensure that there was an online source from the source to discuss both of theses efforts. Please do feel free to ask questions directly in the comments section and I will do my best to answer them!

Starbucks Free Wi-Fi:

Beginning 7/1/10, Starbucks will move from a complimentary wifi services for registered card holders to full one-click and you are on. The current wifi today is for cardholders and has some hurdles such as free registration, balance minimum and 2-hour limit. In the new offering with AT&T, we will move to a full free, no limits. You get to a click to accept standard notice, then you are in. We are also excited about offering this in other company led markets soon after the US.

Starbucks Digital Network (SDN)

The Starbucks digital network is a online content experience only available when you are on the Starbucks WiFi. In partnership with Yahoo, we will bring across a series of categories e.g. news, local, entertainment, careers, business and several others.

We expect to launch this offering in the Fall of 2010.

In this experience we expect to source the best paid-wall content on the internet but available ad-free and a no-cost to our customers, while on our in-store wifi.

The announcement today also shared some examples such as WSJ.com, Zagat, Apple/Itunes. These are just a few of our partners that are designed to illustrate the model of the SDN.

We will also have highly relevant content in all categories, that is not usually behind an external paid walls and that content will be blended in as well. In certain areas such as local and weather, a paid wall is difficult to find externally, so we partnered to bring the best of those premium experiences as part of the Starbucks Digital Network.

The partnership with Yahoo! is strategic on many levels both for their technology and content-management leadership as well as their premium content offerings. We are very proud of this relationship.

AT&T continues to be our strategic partnership providing the secure,high-speed store network infrastructure that enables the wifi network.

I would be happy to answer any questions, just post them in the comments below or on twitter @stephengillett

Stephen Gillett
CIO & GM, Digital Ventures
Starbucks

Corporate Incumbancy

2010-06-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running; if you stand still, they will swallow you. --William Knudsen

Having recently spent a good amount of time with leaders from a wide-variety of industries and at all levels of other organizations, I found it interesting that I was asked consistently where innovation comes from and how I get inspiration for change albeit organizational, functional, or intellectual.

I was asked on several occasions how close I pay attention to competitive forces, both for competing in the marketplace of ideas or from other companies whom we are engaged with in looking to source the same technical talent.

My response:

Have you talked to your own teams about your concerns?
Have you fostered a culture where ideas and solutions to your challenges can surface easily and without fear?
Do you personally engage with as many aspects of your team and organization as possible?
Do you have the right talent?

I was concerned at times that leaders in these other organizations may be suffering from what I call "Corporate Incumbency Syndrome" which means in ones thought process for how best to innovate, adopt new products, build great high performing teams, build trust and transparency or a host of other business or talent.

The immediate tendency by these leaders is to look outside of their own teams and capabilities and make broad assumptions that somebody else has to be doing it better than their own resources.

What I found interesting is if the leader put the energy and effort into building their own highly capable thought-diverse teams of their own, then taking that talent and applying it towards you organizations most difficult challenges with a healthy dose of trust and transparency, one can often yield high quality and more consistent and empowering solutions vs immediately bestowing credibility on another firms ideas and operations...simply because it is another firm.

Make no mistake. It is important to stay abreast of the latest trends both in your industry and at at the market level at large. In fact this is a critical component of any strategic thinking process. This however is not a substitute for the ability to brainstorm and solve even your most difficult challenges, wherever they present themselves.

But when it comes to challenges you face in your specific team/organization, when it comes to leveraging the talent you already have and aligning that talent against your most difficult challenges, when it comes to letting the strongest ideas surface, regardless of where they come from on the org chart and when your culture is concerned with results and solutions rather than with receiving credit. You have a full robust team ready to help you as a leader.

Don't think that because you have a wealth of incumbent talent that their ideas and solutions are of a lesser quality than another firm's talent, realize every team is someone others incumbent.

After all, I am sure someone else is looking over the fence to see and learn from what you are doing.

Stephen Gillett

2010 Forrester IT Presentation

2010-05-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

"Business Technology (BT) is an evolution of good IT, not a substitution for it..."
--Stephen Gillett

This week I had the privilege of being the day one keynote at the Forrester 2010 IT forum held in Las Vegas. I had a lot of requests to share some of the elements I discussed, so in an attempt to share the themes of my presentation, I tried to capture the key items below. Enjoy!

On Information Technology & Business Technology (BT)

IT has a strong past, but an evolving future. As IT leaders, we must take an active role in what the future of IT becomes.

We have to honor our enterprise role first and foremost as a service delivery organization. It is only on this success should IT ever want to expand and evolve their contribution overall.

IT can lead innovations across the enterprise, through the technology mind.

A successful IT organization is the precursor to a Business Technology (BT) ability.

Business Technology (BT) is an evolution, not substitution for good IT.

IT & Business partnership can/should manifest in certain ways. Inclusion and engagement early to business challenges.

On the Role of the CIO

The CIO is first and foremost the enterprise IT leader.

IT represented a most ubiquitous business discipline.

The role of the CIO is going through a corporate role "renaissance". As the view and need of Technology permeates most aspects of a business, the CIO role also evolves.

The CIO is not simply "the highest ranking IT person".

Expanded CIO leadership to other parts of the overall business & quality of leadership with IT are not mutually exclusive enterprise forces. Your CIO can do more.

Three CIO types: Strategists, Transformers & Operations. Need to be a blend of all three.

There were other themes around digital business, social media and new thinking paradigms. Will be sure to share the full video of the presentation when it is made available.

Stephen Gillett

A Soldier's Return

2010-05-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

A video of soldiers coming home to surprise their families. Very powerful and happy tears when watching. Even big, tough CIO's tear up in a good way, so I've heard :-)

Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting.

Leadership Medusa

2010-05-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

-George S. Patton

As leaders we are often engaged on very complex and challenging activities in the professional world. This can manifest in many ways and especially at times when leaders are looked to for having answers, clarity of direction, purpose, humility and a sense of stability when seas are turbulent or uncertainty exists. This can be said of both corporate, political and other positions of leadership in our of society.

We are often guided by experience and instinct but they are companions with analytic and influence by those in proximity. In many cases these direct and indirect expectations of leadership stress the intellect and shake the internal pillars of stability so often on display.

Leaders can be challenged by many aspects of their environment and it is in the face of these challenges and uncertainties that one see's the potential paralysis effect of the leadership Medusa, which explained is the notion of not having the will, capability or humility to engage with and act on changes needed to overcome adversity or improvements within the environment or within ones self.

The Medusa of adversity, uncertainty, humility, reflection can and will face each of us as individuals and as leaders.

The question is do you engage and overcome these...

Or do you turn to stone.

Stephen Gillett

Coin of the Realm

2010-04-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.

-Jim Collins

In recent discussions, there has been a reoccurring and emerging theme about how culture in its many corporate forms (department, company, geography, product etc..) is created, nurtured and formed and to a lesser extent managed.

My personal experience having been a part of great and not-so-great company cultures is that rumors of the elusiveness in one's individual ability to harness, shape and ultimately steer a culture is true; it is indeed elusive and lurks in the history of an organization, the legends (I loosely call greek hero's), its tragedies and its social mores and norms. I collectively call these dimensions of measuring and immersing in a company culture the "Coin of the Realm".

In your realm, you will have many quantitative and qualitative measures to your culture and it will exhibit itself in many ways. It will govern decisions in the enterprise and the hiring of talent. It will influence direction on initiatives and often stand in unemotional judgment of company activities. It will be your ally in many of your endeavors and in extreme cases will be falsely usurped to further agendas.

It is important that as leaders one take note to learn the currency or coin of their realm as it relates to culture and to exhibit the attributes and behaviors that one wishes to see in the enterprise. It is only through a critical mass of people exhibiting this collective behavior divided by a period of time, shall one hope to change or evolve a company culture to a new state.

This is not a process that can be governed or mandated by committee. It can only manifest and change through the commitments of the people that indeed make up the very culture itself.

Are you a champion or a profiteer of the coin of your realm?

Stephen Gillett

Rate of Change

2010-03-20T04:10:00.000-07:00

"When you are finished changing, you're finished"
-- Ben Franklin

As I end the European leg of my EMEA journey and en route to Kuwait for the Middle East visits, I am remembering the many conversations in the last week with individuals, teams, leaders of many functions and disciplines.

I am often asked about the last couple years and in particular the many internal and external company changes that we have experienced and the role I had in those changes and the role of IT in them as well.

As I navigate the many accents, light up the dark corners of my Arabic and French speaking skills and engage in those discussions in an honest and transparent way, I find myself closely drawn to the concept of change as a reoccurring theme and encapsulating concept.

Change in this regard is multi-dimensional. When I distill it down into the basic concepts of the last 20 months, simply put we as a department and as individuals, we had to change.

Change our role and value proposition in the organization...

Change our perception by the other groups in the company...

Change the way we managed and deployed our best talent...

Change the way we look at our global markets...

Change how we challenge authority in a respectful and honest manner...

Change where the best and most productive ideas in the team come from...

Change the way we partner with other aspects of our business and their roles/teams...

Change how we define ourselves, our goals and our values...

How we achieved and are achieving this is the subject of a more detailed post, but the concepts are important in to grasp in this regard.

It was once said that "when the rate of change external to your organization is faster than the rate of change internal, the end is near".

I firmly believe that this also applies to your team, your charter and your division.

As leaders we must never stop the evolution process change brings. We must challenge ourselves and our teams to be increasingly innovative while at the same time delivering exceptional quality support, products and services.

Off to change flights.

Stephen Gillett

Update Social Media Channels

2010-03-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let all of you know you can find me on Twitter in between Guild CIO blogging!

@stephengillett

International vs Global...They're different!

2010-02-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

As small start-up in the Silicon Valley raises a $2M series A round of funding for a great new social media collaboration platform, the newly minted CEO of the company looks out on the 5 team members and wonders how they are going to maximize the runway that the $2m gives them to develop, market & sell the product before having to work on raising another round of funding.

She decides that the best use of the funds would be to ensure a strong off-shore development model in Brazil and to hire a small development team in Rio De Janeiro.

What the new CEO has now in its most basic form is an international company,which is still under 10 employees. In this model the majority for thinking from sales, marketing, technology combined with leadership, decision authority, culture is all developed and managed by the headquarters in the Silicon Valley. In fact, the final software product the company is making will not even be solid in Brazil according to sales plan in the next 5 years. This authority, direction and influence all resides in the headquarters.

Now we contrast this with the framework for a global company.

On the surface one may think it is the same as an international organization on many key dimensions they could not be more different. I will cover only a few key differences as there are many.

In the international company example above all of the efforts of the satellite int'l market is geared around supporting the corporate environment and the key markets corporate serves, in this case the USA or Silicon Valley.

In a global company, the satellite offices/regional hubs are setup to support that particular market or region. This means that if you are to transpose the international mindset on a global office you are bound to seed confusion, dis-empowerment and reduce competitiveness for that market.

In the international company example above, centrally managing and supporting the headquarters and the strategic selling markets is first and foremost for that office i.e. they exist simply to support the mothership. The primary concerns of the local market are to acquire the best talent and ensure the most efficient cost model.

In the global office pushing out a certain level of autonomy, talent acquisition, decision making and empowerment to ensure local activity and outreach is relevant for local markets is key. There is a much healthier dynamic, where the global market is a larger part of a global strategy not overwhelmed by a corporate presence but instructed and engaged to support the needs in that regional market which role up into a global strategy.

This balance takes clear strategic leadership, appropriate empowerment, decision authority and a good dose of common sense. If these latter key dimensions are missing, you will not be setup for success and growth.

Leadership, strategy and vision set forth for the global organization may emanate from a central authority, but bringing on the right goods, services and talent in any one particular market to deliver on their portion of the strategy should be decisions that are regional/market dominated. This is an equilibrium and requires a trustworthy and transparent discussion between headquarters and non-headquarter leaders.

There are some economies of scale (functions) that are market agnostic and some functions that are hyper-local in terms of sensitivity and delivery. These company good and services must be mapped out and then applied to each market to determine the optimal structure and go-to-market strategy for that regional leader, keeping in mind the well though out overall company vision and strategy will always influence the decision.

Do you work in an international company or a global one?

Stephen Gillett

Thoughts from New Hampshire

2010-01-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

"Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out gigantic shoes; jewelers, a monster watch; and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show"
--Daniel Webster, 1782-1850 New Hampshire Congress

Today, I was a guest luncheon speaker at a New Hampshire event put together by a gov't fiscal watchdog called STEWARD. The event audience about 600, was a cross section of local New Hampshire citizens, state political office holders and aspiring political talent. I used the Daniel Webster quote above to harness the fierce independent streak of the folks I met in New Hampshire and the spirit is as alive and well today. I am/was not used to experiencing that as a native west coaster!

It was a personal visit to New Hampshire, not an official business activity and was my first time to the "Live Free or Die" state.

The theme of the event for my section was grassroots communications in the 21st century using new forms of technology and social media. I was able to share the story of both the company transformation activities over the last 18 months and some of my personal insights into the leadership and direction needed to successfully navigate key transformation activities. My hope hope was to relate corporate transformation to that of any movement whether political or corporate and draw the similarities in talent, leadership, focus and values in both.

I had the honor of following the former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Media entrepreneur Andrew Brietbart former researcher for the Huffington Post and Matt Drudge. I filled the luncheon hour competing against a warm lunch in the 2 degree Manchester weather!

From the business cards I received and from the speaker line up the event was targeted towards the center-right & libertarian view point mainly centered around financial discipline and transparency in Concord, NH and in Washington, DC. The STEWARD mission is to use modern tools to hold accountable both local (state) and national (DC) politicians, particularly focused around fiscal issues with theme around spending and waste. I spent time with sitting state and local gov't officials from all sides of the spectrum. They range from moderate democrats, fiscal conservatives and libertarians.

Overall it was the first time for me to both visit the great state of New Hampshire and to talk in a non-corporate or university setting about the traits of leadership, values and guiding principles. The message I delivered was a relevant to this audience as it would be for an MBA class or a campus visit. The response was fantastic! There were some tough questions and great engagement in the Q&A section.

The message I shared was about universal attributes that as leaders whether company or political should adhere and connect with in our own form and our own way when making decisions. I shared the message about meaningful connections and using new technology to reinforce those connections with your audience(s).

I hope to do more personal events like this in the future. It is a great way to give back and help new talent reach their goals in either public or private endeavors.

You can see more on my twitter feed @stephengillett

Stephen Gillett

Sundance Film Festival 2010

2010-01-25T12:30:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of my second visit to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It was a blend of business and personal as I also celebrated my birthday as well and Mrs. Gillett was able to accompany me on the visit this year!

We had a packed schedule that started with an evening gondola (spelling?) ride where we had waiting snow tractors that pulled 30-40 of us up the side of a large ski mountain to have dinner and drinks in a lodge at the top of the hill. It was simply breathtaking both from the cold but more from the views and the experience!

The evening we attending the first screening of the Afgan war efforts in the film "Restrepo". It was powerful and moving in so many ways. This movie is in a category of its own.

The visit then led us to seeing several other films: "Animal Kingdom", "Boy", and "Company Men". The best for me was seeing the film "Boy", which was the life of a kid in New Zealand Maori town. It was fantastic, with a strong kids point of view by the 34-year-old director Taika Waititi.

The visit ended with visiting a lodge that offered snow mobile trail rides, dog sledding and Clydesdale horse sleigh rides.

Overall it is great to see the snow, films, director/actor Q&A and Park City. It is interesting to watch folks on the lookout trying to figure out who is who and if there is a movie star in their midst. I chuckled at that a bit! We did see Kareem Abdul Jabbar leaving a restaurant and getting into a suburban. He was after all, very hard to miss!

Stephen Gillett

Origin Trip Report: Guatemala

2010-01-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

At Starbucks, it is highly encouraged that when possible certain leaders make one or more visits to one of our coffee producing regions of the world. These visits allow you to connect to our coffee culture, experience the farms and environement where the products come from and truly connect with the coffee spirit that permeates everything we do and believe at Starbucks.

I had the pleasure of spending last week in two such regions, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

If I had to report back on did it help me connect with coffee?

Did it enrich my knowledge of the product, the crop, the farmer?
Did I learn something about Starbucks Ethical Sourcing?
Was I able to make an emotional connection with the farmers that produce the finest coffee's?

Answer: Overwhelmingly Yes!

The picture below is one of the areas we visited a few local small farms. It is is of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala one of the many destinations of the Coffee origin visit I did for Starbucks last week. The lake has around 100,000 Tz'utujil people living around it. They are one of the 24 peoples that make up the remaining Mayan civilization that live in Guatemala.

The farmers in Guatemala are one of the hardest working people I have seen. The pride, work ethnic and knowledge of their discipline was humbling and inspiring.

We traversed active volcanoes, survived torrential downpours, camped in a lodge deep in the forest and farming region, sipped coffee with the farmers, participated in the harvest and interacted with the indigenous farming natives on many levels.

A heartwarming experience also came when I learned first hand what Starbucks as been able to do through the Ethical sourcing initiatives as well. This included talking with global volunteers building a Hospital in Atitlan, bridges built by Starbucks after Hurricane Stan in 2005 and the CAFE practices we have created to ensure the highest quality and most ethical and sustainable farming methods available. To literally see the lives this has impacted, but increasing yields and ensuring the highest quality, the efforts by the Starbucks Agronomy teams is second to none.

Overall I have to say that it gave me a new definition, depth and respect for all that the farmers do on behalf of Starbucks and other coffee buyers around the world as well was what Starbucks does for these regions, without a lot of fanfare or public awareness.

"Its not what your buying, it's what your buying into" has a whole new meaning for me now.

Stephen Gillett

Happy New Year! 2010

2009-12-31T22:38:00.000-08:00

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man..."

~Benjamin Franklin

Is your MMO, OOM?

2009-12-14T12:12:00.000-08:00

"The Cake is a Lie"

-Portal

The business of gaming is big and the gaming of business is even bigger. I am not quite sure what the latter means, but with such a theatrical intro it sounded good.

This post is a direct response to the latest 3.3 patch with World of Warcraft and the underlying tension I am beginning to feel for the 5+ years now invested in the world of Azeroth and it reminds me how I felt in the late 1990's about a former MMORPG affair I had, with Ultima Online.

Now don't get me wrong, I love WoW and enjoy it as my #1 gaming hobby, but as Blizzard works to appeal the masses, the core gamer with the longest tenure and highest engagement is continually feeling more and more alienated by the direction the content and the experience is going. What took us years to get players can now get in weeks, what took us months of strategy players can now watch a how-to guide and the list goes on.

To capture the spirit of this post, here is a song from Third Eye Blind called Jumper. If the game could talk to me, I think this is the song it would be singing trying to talk me out of bailing (jumping).

I hope that in time Blizzard puts a recognition & reward system in place to allow the masses great access to the content, but also recognizes that although a minority in terms of player count there should be some great visible rewards for those that have put in the grind of 5+ years!

Stephen Gillett

Good Guild, Dead Guild

2009-12-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

"Opportunities are never lost; they are taken by others"
--Unknown

In the online virtual world gaming environment there are many measurable dimensions that allow for guilds to compete on. They can be talent, wealth, progression, culture, retention, loot and the list goes on.

It is in this quest for these rewards, that as individual gamers and guilds we see what makes good guilds thrive and bad guilds die.

What makes a community successful, makes a guild successful. If a guildie loyalty resides in any one individual in the guild then you have future stress fractures waiting to happen. The goal is to have the loyalty reside with the guild and not specifically to any one person in it.

In the end, my personal belief is that the guild culture and sense of community in gaming trumps all others. I believe you have several player types in the virtual world, much like you have in the real one. I think if gamers & guildies on a continuum of selfless to selfish and we all (myself included) reside somewhere on that continuum. Are you the kind of person that goes out of their way for the betterment of the guild or do you cringe when asked to give a particularly valuable item to another guildie or the guild bank.

For good guilds to thrive, you need strong hard focus on things like leadership, progression, transparency & access, but you also need to be focused on soft things like culture, friendship, sharing and generosity.

The best guilds I find are not the short-lived ones that put together a bunch of self-centered individually loyal players. They may have much faster velocity beating content and getting gear, but the glue that binds them is missing. This leads (usually quickly) fracturing. To build a successful guild those soft skills end up being the hard skills with guild leadership!

The "destination guild" is one of longevity & leadership, culture and history or progression and friendship.

What kind of guild do you belong to?

Some of my fellow guildies may not be the best geared or equipped, may not be able to recite every move of a boss encounter, but I would take them into a dark dungeon any day of the week!

Stephen Gillett

The Five Dysfunctions of a Guild

2009-11-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

"Wearing the same tabards doesn’t make a guild"
---Stephen Gillett

In the great story-read narrative by Patrick Lencioni that we all eagerly read a few years ago, I am reminded yet again about the corporate similarities between running successful teams and running successful guilds.

Experiencing some recent guild activity, it sparked the memory of this book and much like the corporate team world, I wanted to share what I believe are the five dysfunctions of a guild.

While these lessons can be applied most MMORPG communities, I am writing them from the perspective of World of Warcraft.

The Loot: If the guild culture is all about the loot, you are setting yourself up to fail. Players that are attracted by this attribute primarily in my experience have short tenures with guilds and will likely hop from guild to guild looking for the best way to attain the best loot rewards. While having a structured and fair system to manage loot from progression/raid experiences, making it the sole focus of the guild is not an optimal route to building longevity & comradeship in the guild ranks.

The Leadership: In a good guild you have a presence of leadership, but not a domineering force of leaders. For each of the respective roles (Guild Master, Officer, Raid Leaders, Class Leader, Recruiter, etc..) it is important that leadership and direction are given and that leaders are there to ensure momentum and forward direction. In the absence of clear leadership even the strongest of guilds with the longest of tenure will fray and ultimately fragment. Leaders in the virtual world have critical roles to play ensuring the overall health and direction of the guild activities and its members.

The Progression: It is important that even casual and high nepotism guilds that leaders and players should work to keep the start of conquering new content high in the priority list. This is not to be confused with working to conquer the games most difficult content. What is one guilds progression victory can be anothers daily farm. Knowing the interests and capabilities of your overall guild members can/will help to reach you progression cadence.

The Talent: As in the world of the real, the virtual one is based around talent. The better players know how to play their characters, their skill sets and work together in the team and guild environment the better the integrity, progression and culture of the guild will reflect that. Ensuring that these attributes are manifest in the ranks of the players you add to your guild will ensure that continual stream of new & quality talent. Adding folks en masse to the guild or lowering the bar for admission will soon be reflected in other parts of the guild.

The Culture & Tenure: I have found that having a guild and guild members with tenure in the guild helps the overall culture and cohesiveness. I believe that players that have a frame of reference "I remember when you were lvl 45" or "Remember when we used to wipe on that boss" type of interactions allow for other newer members to see the history and guild culture and then strive to be included in the new chapters being written of the guild. It is somewhat of the glue that holds it all together. Guild leaders must know who their "Glue" players are that bring the characteristics above to teh culture and let them know how important they are!

Stephen Gillett

A Tale of Two States

2009-11-06T12:33:00.000-08:00

"...yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole, many natural dualities..."
-Chinese Philosophy

in 2004 I worked at a web company that was struggling to control costs and grow market share and traffic. We had finished a merger of an equal sized company a few years before so together with those redundancies and the need for profitable growth, the pressures were significant on all divisions of the organization to reduce costs, eliminate staff, renegotiate contracts, close properties (web), increase performance and the list goes on.

In this environment there are many tests for leaders and for teams to endure and survive and adapt the business model for survivability without the corporate jettison of the values and vision that made the company what it is both for the customers and the employees. Needless to say, when companies are in this state, much like many Web companies earlier this decade, the pressures are real and daily.

It is easy for external observers to assume that downward trends in a business are the only source of these corporate stresses, which is not the case and it is herein we have our first state, the state of decline. (note: company eventually recovered and was acquired).

When a company is successful and in an upward phase, there are many of the same pressures in existence, but in their yin form. They inevitably get introduced by the reversal of fortunes, herein likes the state of growth.

While the stress and pressures in the state of decline: eliminate costs, force reductions, efficiency measures, velocity reduction are real and tangible, so are they in the state of growth: hiring, lack of qualified talent, growth of market share, expansion which in the end results in the same types of stress in the opposite direction.

It is in these two corporate states that leaders and teams must adapt and align.

Don't make the mistake to think that only companies in decline are present with these corporate pressures. It is in the tale of two corporate states that we see the ebb and flow of business both equally unique and challeneging in their own regard.

Stephen Gillett

Statue of a Committee

2009-10-17T20:12:00.000-07:00

"You never see a statue of a committee..."
[when talking about decision making] --Unknown

When it comes to organizations and decision making, it is important that as leaders we get the feedback from individuals near and far on key decisions that need to be made in the organization.

It is important that whatever governance structure that an organization, department or team need to implement effective flow in an organization and ensure cross-functional involvement and collaboration that one does not lose site of the decision maker.

The decision is designated before the process even starts and is ultimately responsible to taking the feedback of the process they choose into account before making a decision. In many instances, this process will involve a "steering team" or "committee" made up by a set of individuals that either have functional responsibility for ensuring whatever decision is made is implemented and those that have vested interest in the activity.

Decision making in my experience is two parts art and one part science. There are some leaders who make decisions on little data and strong instinct and those that make them in the reverse order (lots of data, little instinct).

Regardless of the style by which a decision maker operates, it is key that the decision maker is identified and empowered.

The old line "You never see a statue of a committee" rings true with decision making! there is always that one person whom is heralded as the decision maker throughout history!

Stephen Gillett

Enterprise Gear-Score

2009-10-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

"Looking for 2 healers and 1 dps for pug 10-man ToC. Gear will be inspected, please have 2300+ or higher" --LFG Channel, World of Warcraft

In the last year or so for me, an emerging cultural change has been introduced to the virtual realm of Azeroth in the form of the calculations on a players "gear-score" which is the total value of the the quality of their gear and enhanced gear (gems, enchants) giving them a number which the other players game use to the judge the accomplishments and (wrongly) the capabilities of the player of that character.

A player can quickly use an in-game addons tool or website that will check the gear-score of other players and allow one to discriminate by only adding players with high gear-scores to group.

This has allowed for a very swift and divided culture to emerge in the game that while it existed in previous years to a small degree has never been so pronounced as it is in today's World of Warcraft game play and that is those with gear (high gear scores) and those without.

The problem with judging the entirety of ones playing ability on gear-score numbers is wrong and inappropriate. While it can be a good initial indicator of the kind of player you will be grouping with there are many aspects of a players ability and potential that are not captured in that number. In many ways it is changing the game play style for the worse, but that is another post.

The key topic I am looking at is asking myself if there is a equivalent of a in-game "gear-score" that we use in the real world, corporate setting.

As I ask myself this question I realized that the closet thing I could find is a combination of education (degrees) and certifications (achievements) and that if I tried to judge all potential talent on ONLY their degrees and achievements, then I would miss a significant amount of talent available for any given position due to this short sightedness. While education and certs are indeed important and valuable there are many other dimensions to a potential new hire that one must consider before adding them to the team (think raid) or passing.

If we were to use the same criteria for picking talent in the real world for positions (raid/pug slots) that we use in the game, the overall real world team would suffer greatly, as will the company (guild) and guildies (team).

It is on that premise that I will personally look to bring people on the raid that have average gear-score's coupled big desires to top the charts and an eagerness to learn new encounters and content, after all, that attitude makes for the best guildies.

Gear-score an the end, is a problem that will take care of itself must like i can get you a certification if you are great at your job...

(Disclaimer) I have a wow-heroes 2611 gearscore at the writing of this blog entry..

Stephen Gillett

Corporate Lessons from the Universe

2009-10-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self.
--Aldous Huxley

In the last few months I have been watching a series on the History channel called The Universe and have been amazed by how many lessons there are in the cosmological properties of our Universe that can be applied to the corporate setting. Hear me out!

Aside from the jaw dropping notions of magintars, gamma-rays, dark matter, inflation, string theory, quantum mechanics and a whole host of topics that I can barely find the mental capacity to fully grasp and my spell checker thinks are misspelled words, there are some lessor topics on location & equilibrium that are more capable to draw similarities to.

I will look at the concept of equilibrium and how in our Universe and more importantly our solar system, the alignment and orbits of our planets have allowed for some that are too close to the sun to be devoid of life and too hot to support complex biology and those that are too far away that are too cold and suffer the same fate.

Each planet and our sun also exert a gravitational force on each other and those concepts indeed have their corporate counterparts...

Enough with the astrological-physics here are the parallels in a corporate world:

In a corporate role, it is easy to substitute planets for departments in a sense. Think of Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Earth as Finance, HR, Sales and IT for example. Each of the departments have a corporate version of gravity meaning they exert influence and direction on the outcome of other departments willingly or not and on the company overall.

In some organizations the Technology-Engineering functions have a disproportionate gravitational pull (think technology/Web/Software companies) and as such you see the alignment, power structure strongly influenced by those departments with strong corporate gravity and less so by those departments with less corporate gravity.

As a leaders of these various departments it is important that you understand the role of your particular function in the greater organization and the corporate gravity ability of you as a leader and of your department.

It is important that much like Earth has a reached an equilibrium not being too close to the sun to get burned up and devoid of life and not being too far out to be an ice planet, so should you strive to reach this same corporate equilibrium with your own leaders and other departments.

You must maintain a healthy partnership with your peers and your leaders in this corporate gravity sense and be aware of large pull from other functions or leaders and ensure that you have the fortitude and the ability to counter this pull in a productive and meaningful way.

Lastly, we must deal with the Sun. In a corporate world there are executives, leaders, boards, investors and a whole slew of potential corporate "bodies" that can play the role of the Sun. It is important that while you are managing your corporate gravity ebbs and flows with your peers and other groups that you are also aware of your orbit with the Sun, ensuring a healthy and sustainable orbit that allows for autonomy and credibility, without getting to close to get consumed or getting to far to be marginalized.

I think I am watching too many episodes of the 'The Universe!!"

Stephen Gillett

Destination Employer

2009-10-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

Talent may win games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.
--Michael Jordan

The concept of a destination employer should be a part of the vernacular of any company in battle for the worlds best talent. In this case I am advocating for success in instilling a new culture of trust, transparency & values, a leader and team must first become the destination employer (department) within the four walls of your company setting first, before expecting to achieve this success externally sourcing the best new talent.

What does this actually mean? How can a multi-discipline group possibly attract other talent? Its not like a sales professional can move and start writing software!

Let me explain...

In a transformation, it is important that you have the right leadership and talent to begin to change the culture and tone of your division. This will involve learning from what has come before both in terms of leadership and culture and more importantly what has succeeded and failed in the past. It is from these learning's that a new strategy for the teams you are responsible can be forged and mapped.

When a department has fallen out of favor with the organization as a whole, it is imperative that the leaders and the individuals are in tune with that and the reasons that over-time led to that poor departmental rating. More often than not, it is because of what the department was asked to do rather than it being a systemic accounting of systemic poor performance.

As the new leaders begin to institute the new values, direction, vision and behavior the new culture begins to form and take hold. In time confidence will be restored and what was once a department out of favor is now a bright spot in the symbolic transformation at hand.

When you are a part of a corporate team (department) that has confidence, purpose, strong leadership and a fresh renewal in a corporate sense, you then begin to see that the first few resumes you will have for open positions may indeed come from other departments in the company.

You have become the "Destination Employer" within your company, leading to a strong ability to become the same for the talent in your industry.

Stephen Gillett

Starbucks VIA & Lady Gaga

2009-09-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

As you know and have seen the news today, we launched our Starbucks VIA Ready Brew today!

When you look at the entire process about how the coffee is made, sourced, handled, packaged with an insiders perspective, you have an entirely new appreciation for this category and product and is something you can be very proud of!

I thought I would share a direct-from-our-store-partners (employees!) take on the launch! They did this on their own in Texas! LOVE IT!

Enjoy!

New Starbucks Apps Launched!

2009-09-23T10:55:00.001-07:00

Today we launched our first two official Starbucks IPHONE/IPOD Touch applications today!

The first is the general MyStarbucksApp that has all the features you would want to have in a first generation Starbucks App: Store Locate, MyStore, Drink Builder, Email drink favorites, Coffee Information, Nutrition Info and a whole bunch more!

The Second we are piloting in 16 stores (Seattle, Bay Area California) the ability to pay with your IPHONE. It also has the digital card functionality to manage your Starbucks card, check balances and reload your card when you get low!

Get detailed information here: Starbucks Mobile-Apps

Wall St. Journal Coverage

CNET News.com Coverage

Stephen Gillett

Spectacular Failures

2009-09-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms,the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat

--Theodore Roosevelt

I started this post off with an unusually long quote from the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. He used these words in a 1910 speech in Paris, yet the tone and message of it is extremely relevant in many aspects of life, including the corporate and enterprise world of 2009.

In the corporate world as I discussed in my previous post "Competency Draws Responsibility", it is incumbent upon those being asked to expand and take on new enterprise problems, challenges, teams and responsibility to play a role in knowing their own capability & limitations and in the end knowing when to step up and take on additional responsibility and when to not set themselves up and others around them for failure in doing so.

In an informal mentoring session many years ago, a leader told me of their spectacular failure taking on more then they could handle and letting ambition and a healthy dose of immaturity and inexperience set themselves up to fail in leading a highly complex project and team.

It was through this lens of a mentors first-hand experience that understanding your own capabilities, limitations, strengths is paramount in the enterprise. I have learned as a young executive that there are simply things that only time teaches you and even with an accelerated career and trustworthy corporate ascension, you must frequently look to engage with those around you that may indeed have learned the lessons that time has taught them. In this engagement, one must look for some modicum of learning i.e. make their lessons your own.

Taking risks are encouraged, but asking for help and being clear on the resources you need to be successful does not show signs of weakness or fortitude of thought.

So whenever I am working with or mentoring a highly talented individual, the talk about the Spectacular Failure experience is likely to come up. It is through these stories and learnings I hope to share the experience of others.

And when I am asked to step into new roles, take on new teams or start new initiatives the echos of those same discussions ring true for myself and the lens of my own self-reflection on my capabilities, strengths and ares for improvement need to be factored in before I accept these duties.

We are all destined to have had and will have failures. The best of us learn from these dust ourselves off and move forward to the next challenge.

Let's just try to minimize the spectacular part!

Stephen Gillett

Competency Draws Responsibility

2009-09-05T18:16:00.000-07:00

"I must do something" always solves more problems than "Something must be done." ~Author Unknown

Are job descriptions a thing of the past? I don't think so quite yet, but the notion that competency draws additional responsibility is alive and real in the enterprise of today.

As organizations grow, change, evolve and retool to meet the challenges of the marketplace, it becomes critical that the organizations best and most capable talent be put against their most difficult challenges.

Often times, one may be asked to engage in or lead activities that are not readily congruent with their job description or historical duties. The individual may be assigned to tackle a new corporate challenge or become a key member in a cross-functional team contributing and leading in ways that expand their exposure and horizon.

It is key that this identified talent rise to the occasion both able to continue their current duties and carve out enough capacity to meet the needs of the organization in this new way. They must expand their understanding of the adjacent challenges in the organization and use both honed and new skills to bring the issues to resolution.

In this modern enterprise talent is key and leadership, regardless of position in the organization chart, is paramount.

As the most competent talent in the organization is pulled into addressing the most difficult challenges, it is important that the flow of ideas and of new opportunities identify the next generation of problem solvers.

The old adage that "I must do something" always solves more problems than "Something must be done." is a call to action for those looking for opportunities to make an impact, solve a problem and expand to where you personal and professional horizons will take you.

Stephen Gillett

Blizzcon, Gaming & Community

2009-08-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

I arrive back into work this morning after spending the last three days in sunny southern California at the annual (and my first) Blizzcon.

There was over 30,000 tickets solid in the first minute the became available online and as such the Anaheim convention center was bursting at the seams with gamers and fans of the Blizzard franchise: Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft.

The first 24 hours was visiting in center attractions from artist booths for in-game content, game play of the new releases of Diablo & Starcraft, raffles, drawings, realm meetings, charity auctions and meeting with guild friends whom one has played with for years but has not met face to face.

The evening was waiting in long lines with friends and reminiscing about years past, old guilds, members, quests and server firsts. It made the time pass fast. It was akin to a blend of a high school reunion combined with an athletic team reunion. For many of us, we have been playing ~5 years together and have not met!

The second 24 hours were about watching tournaments, having lunch with guildies, finishing up visits to areas of the convention simple too numerous to visit the first day and the grand finale the Ozzy Osbourne concert with an opening by the Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain rock band!

In the end, for me Blizzcon was about meeting old gaming friends for the first time in person and making new ones, it was about community and common interest, about hobby and passion. There were 30,000 folks in this center and I experienced nothing but the most polite and considerate behaviors from everyone around.

This was the ultimate sense of community and fun sharing a common interest in what we do in our evenings together.

I was a bit surprised by how loud the "For the Horde" chant was compared to that of "For the Alliance", but outside of that we are brethren!

Stephen Gillett

Should the President meet with CIOs too?

2009-08-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.
--Steve Ballmer, CEO MIcrosoft

As the President of the United States Barack Obama meets with various CEOs (my boss included!) and I can't help but think that there is another C-level suite in the organization that is a great fit for meeting with the President and his staff?

As I pondered this, I realized that it could be a very different picture of private industry if the President met with CIOs as well.

In the corporate world Chief Information Officers are just that, custodians of Information. They use of Information & Technology to provide an increasingly strategic input into the various internal and external workings of the company.

The Government and the role of Information Technology in the enterprise have a very similar role in some respects and similar reason d'etre. The role of the CIO & IT, is to facilitate not to dictate, to insure the information technology and system capability is there to support the enterprise, not be the enterprise and to stay out of the way of business i.e. don't do IT projects just for the sake of IT. The IT group should provide the information and the transparency for making business decisions and provide the tools needed to assess accountability and return on investments made. In this respect, the role of the gov't should play a similar role to that of private industry IT function.

The CIO input helps create the organizations view of customers, trends, analysis, market share, business intelligence, technology, security and various other activities at the very heart and cross-roads of an organization. The CIO is somewhat akin to the corporate canary. They have access to the information early and before it is sanitized. They touch every part of the business and the customer and they have a distinct and native global impression of the organization.

While CEOs and other C-level positions have somewhat industry specific strategy and thinking, the CIO challenges are somewhat of a universal language of sorts. Talk to a CIO in China and odds are outside of the linguistic translations, a CIO in California will be facing the very same challenges and alignment issues.

Technology is truly the universal language and your corporate professor responsible for that is your CIO. When you add the global CIO duty, the similarities are even more pronounced.

The Case for the meeting with the CIO:

...Through their global view, they interact with every aspect and every corner of the organization in every country they operate in.

...Through the Global Infrastructure discipline, they deal with laws, compliance, audit, risk and geopolitical uncertainty. Ask a good CIO about the region (county, state, country, continent) they have a Tier 1 Datacenter on and you will get an earful about the local challenges, power, tax, talent, logistics and many other unique perspectives akin to the CIO purview.

...Through their Business Intelligence & Data Warehouse understanding, the CIO can help craft trends and customer behavior, they can help visualize problems facing the organization and help (using Technology) alleviate those issues. They can offer unique perspectives to traditional thinking patterns and allow for the raw ingredients present to have breakthrough business thinking.

...Through their Application & Software Engineering experience they can help you automate and integrate, they can help you improve transparency and design tools to get others the information they need. They can engineer out complexities and help reach scale and help introduce new automation.

...Through their Supply Chain Technology knowledge they can give you insights into logistics and bottlenecks to supplier relationships and integrations into unlocking company efficiencies that can be introduced by appropriate Technology. They can direct you where to apply automation and where to rely on manual work-around. They can help you look for good areas to invest and areas that business process needs to change to realize true value.

This list can go on to cover compliance, gov't rules & regulations (Sarbanes-Oxley), security and many other areas of the corporate Information Technology function.

Maybe the President should get a few CIOs in there for a meeting!

I will let you know if I get an invite to go have a beer with the President!

Stephen Gillett

The Aspen Institute

2009-07-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

"When the student is ready to learn, a teacher will appear"

--Buddhist Proverb

This month I was asked to attend the Aspen Institute in Colorado and lead a session on Communications & Society. I was in a small group about 20 or so and it was a mix of CEO's, Executives, Professors and other leaders in various parts of society at large.

Here is the Aspen Institute's mission:

"...The Aspen Institute mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues..."

With that kind of summary, I was not sure what to expect. Would the discussions be structured? Will they be intellectual or practical, or both?

As I met the various other participants and discussed a wide-variety of issues, in a structured format, yet open session. I came away from the experience pleasantly surprised and delighted to have had the experience.

The session(s) were just as advertised, a group of curated leaders put in the same room for a few days to discuss the various issues facing the corporate, government and society, each drawing on unique experiences and understanding that fostered a diverse and robust discussion.

There were no grades, no summary and no judgments. Just discussions and learning.

I hope to attend a future session and I am glad that as a society, we have institutions like the Aspen Institute that have their charter and the support of the people that attend. It is place to learn and to instruct, a place to share ideas and advance discussions. It is a place that one can go in with a construct of thinking that if given the chance may come away with new learnings and new perceptions.

As the great philosopher Aristotle said "Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.."

I was able to come away knowing a little bit more and also able to teach some of those learnings to those around me both professionally and personally.

Thank you Aspen for the chance to stretch a bit.

Stephen Gillett

Skilled or Gifted

2009-07-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

Leadership is not magnetic personality—that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people"—that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

--P. Drucker

In assessing leadership potential and ability to be successful, I have found it useful to use two overarching categories of classification to help with deeper evaluations. Is that leader tremendously skilled in the art of what they do or is that a gifted leader of people?

I have found that to be a great leaders one must score significantly high in one or more rare, both of the categories. Of course, these are not the only two dimensions of leadership, but these help give you the information you need to help grow potential leaders around you and put them in roles that play to their strengths above.

Let's take a closer look at each of the characteristics above. With the "skilled in the art" leader, you tend to find someone, regardless of their discipline as an expert in their industry and through this sheer expertise can galvanize people around them to follow their lead even in the absence of strong interpersonal or extroverted skills. I typically classify here people that work in disciplines highly structured for this type of leader to flourish. Some of these areas in my experience (IT included!) are Tax, Finance, Accounting, R&D, System Programming, Analysts, Facilities, Security and any role that would seem to be more of the "science" in an organization. I have typically found leaders here, so skilled in their art, this is enough to do very well organizationally.

The second trait I have come across, but a bit left often are those leaders that may not be particularly skilled in the art of the function they lead, but are tremendously gifted in leading others. These are your Swiss-army leaders that can be put against your department or your organizations most difficult challenges and usually triumph. They will need to "Hire to Their Weakness" if they lead a highly science based function to ensure alignment and knowledge access, but overall they tend to galvanize support and following from their people skills and their extroverted nature that those skilled in the art that report to them readily follow.

The last version of this assessment if identifying leaders that are both highly skilled in the art of their discipline AND are fantastic leaders of others. It is in this combination leadership traits that one sees some of our strongest leaders in many sectors of our lives, including industry, education, government, etc...

While this last combination of leadership is rare and infrequent, one can recall those points in their lives when they encountered such a combination. It is powerful and humbling and something to aspire to be.

Each of us has parts of these trait pillars by which our other lesser leadership traits are exhibited. It is wise to try and build those that you have naturally and be aware of the methods by which you lead others.

Stephen Gillett

Wisdom & Innovation

2009-06-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

"Science is organized knowledge, Wisdom is organized Life..."
--Immanuel Kant

I first heard of the notion that Wisdom can hinder innovation from a friend and luminary, Dr. John Seely Brown in a talk he gave a few years ago.

The notion is simple and yet very powerful and I encounter it often in the corporate world as there are many knowledge brokers, skilled in the art of their respective disciplines: "The smarter you are, the more you know something can't be done".

You can find experts in most any field in the corporate world: Design, Technology, Marketing, Finance, Operations, Human Resources, Recruiting and the list goes on. In the organization of ones particular discipline you see a corporate version of the Scientist, i.e. one whose energy is focused on the organization of knowledge as the introductory reference from Immanuel Kant alludes to.

If that skilled in the art scientist is accumulating knowledge, who is the organizationally counterpart accumulating corporate Wisdom? Herein lies the role of Leadership.

It is the role and responsibility of all leaders do be both skilled in the art of organizing corporate knowledge and leading in the efforts of ensuring organizational wisdom. If the scientist with his data shows why something "can't be done", it is the Wisdom of Leadership that adds the dimension of organizational (and/or life) learning to the discussion to ensure both the "science" and "wisdom" of decision making are playing their respective roles. This balanced approach ensures both data and knowledge are represented in the organization.

A last and key thing to note is the term Leadership, is not defined by title and organizational chart, in fact it is completely opposite of the traditional visuals this term invokes. This form of leadership can arise from any part of the organization and or any/format for expressing either the data or the knowledge aspects for the discussion.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that a title or org chart gives anyone a hidden key to information any more or less valid than you have access to yourself. Of course, one must respect the traditional structures and adapt this advice to their particular situation but in my experience expressing leadership traits is something all good and secure managers will honor and encourage.

Stephen Gillett

Learning From Experience

2009-06-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

"An Investment in Knowledge, always pays the best interest"

--Ben Franklin

Over the last 15 years or so, I have done my best to get exposed to some of the greatest business thinkers and leaders of our time. This exposure primarily comes from reading their best work and spending time with them (when possible) at events or luncheons or in the crowd listening. You don't need press level access to learn from the greatest minds around you.

Add to this some formal training from my business school alum San Francisco State University and you have a great farm league by which to harvest thoughts and learn through the experience of others.

Through the experience of others, one can accelerate the learning of life and of business. At a young age of 16 I recall talking with my father about what do to with $1500 that I had saved up. At the time, I very much wanted to upgrade the sound-system in my car. It sounds silly now, but to a 16 year old with a new ride, that was all the rage. I wanted the nice deck, the CD-changer, the cool screen and the big speakers in the trunk.

My Father, an immigrant to the US from the Middle East and one of the hardest working people I know, sat me down and gave me the talk about learning from his experience that is the very foundation of how I view the world today on the subject. The net of the talk, was there was many other more important things I could do with the $1500 than upgrade the sound-system in my car. The internal tension I felt was compelling. The youth in me was screaming to get the new system, but the instinct in me was compelled to learn from my father in this particular case and invest the money so I can use it for something more important later in life, when I would need it more.

In the end my Father's advise proved sound. I was able to invest the money and in a few years withdraw it to fund many of life's expense while in college. There were many more examples after that on relationships, jobs and a host of other activities that listening to my Father gave me a decidedly advantage in the realm of time and expediency.

There are many ways for one to learn from others. I still ask my Father his view on some of the most difficult challenges in my life and there is always something I learn to help me in my own process of resolution.

In having the humility (and good sense!) to learn from others more experienced than you, you can indeed help accelerate the journey of both your personal and professional life, by not having to make all the same (and sometimes silly) mistakes on your own. Of course, there is still plenty in life that will cause you to learn from your own mistakes.

I am sure glad all these years later I did not invest in that sound system!

Stephen Gillett

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start

2009-06-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

"Computer Games don't affect kids. I mean if PacMan affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music..."

Did blowing on the games, really help them reset? How much dust can you really get out by that method? I think as a youngin in the 1980's and 90's when all of my interactions with Technology were formed, a lot of the experiences I still carry to this day. I think I still blow all the dust out before putting in a new video card or removing a computer case!

While I did have an Atari 2600 for under $50, but my true love really was the original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) pictures above. I spent many many hours playing the classics. I would move between the Nintendo at home and the arcade with a particular favorite of mine being the 1985 release of Gauntlet. I remember being fascinated by the arcade multi-player format with engrained classic terms like "Elf shot the food" or "Warrior is about to die" as quarters being pumped into the machine to increas life and prevent the eventual trickle down on one's health. What a model!

I remember learning about trust from the arcade, when players (playing 4 at time) would stack the quarters in full public view on the small ledge on top of the gaming console to signal they were interested in playing when a spot opened up. It was not uncommon to see dozens of quarters up there and players came and went in the arcade coming back occassionally see where they stood in the quarter line.

I don't ever remember theft of quarters being an issue and gamers "code of conduct" even in this earlier pre-mmorpg world, gamer honor was relevant. As an 8-year-old, these are powerful lessons of trust and community I learned from the gaming world.

It is these early experiences with gaming and the gaming community that shape my view of that world today!

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start...can you name that game unlock code?

Hint, 8-BIT NES...

Stephen Gillett

CIO is a Raid Healer

2009-05-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

I have long been fascinated in the MMORPG world in looking at the correlation between your virtual identity and your real-world one.

In this case, the class/profession that you play online can be an echo of what you do in your professional life, at least it can for me!

While I personally have multiple characters online, I have always been attracted to the less visible of the classes and the ones that do their job with little or no recognition. During my Football days, I played Offensive Guard, a highly critical position but not one the team is putting on their shoulders after winning a game as they would the star quarterback or running back.

This is in part due to the size of the guard (300lbs), but more importantly that the job they play, however critical to the overall teams success, "just gets done". The Offensive line do have a tight relationship, figuring and learning each others strengths and weaknesses, speed and agility and ability to learn multiple blocking duties...sound familiar?

In my virtual world I have assumed a very similar role. This is coined in the WOW world as a "Raid Healer". The healer can be derived from many classes, but the end goal is the same. Do not deal any damage, do not look for any glory and most importantly keep everyone alive so the stars (damage spell dealers and melee classes) get all the glory! Of course there is an occasional "nice healing" thrown our way in kindness.

The healers stand behind everyone using spell casting, analytical software (addons) and good instincts to know when to heal, who is in critical need of support and who needs to brought back to life after a poor showing. The healer does this without saying a word, even in exhaustion just keeps things going, while bonding with the other healers...

Now as CIO, I play a very similar role (in a corporate sense) to that of the Offensive Lineman and the Raid Healer...

Take a look at the Priest Healer definition directly from the Blizzard Website:

"...Priests are the masters of healing and preservation, restoring their wounded allies, shielding them in battle, and even resurrecting their fallen comrades. While they have a variety of protective and enhancement spells to bolster their allies...They are a diverse and powerful class, highly desirable in any group, capable of fulfilling multiple roles..."

This could almost be lifted right from the corporate job description of a CIO!

Have you /hugged your raid healer lately? (or your CIO!?!)

Stephen Gillett

Leadership & Storytelling

2009-05-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

This week I had the pleasure of being invited to speak at the 2009 Graduating MBA class at UC Irvine in Southern California. The course Professor invited business leaders to come into the course titled "The Edge" and give a personal account into our journeys into the executive ranks and in the case with other speakers, the role they took in becoming entrepreneurs. While I have given plenty of large room talks, this is only the second time I have spoken to an MBA cohort.

Watching the season finale of 24 the night before the talk (and flight), I was trying to finalize what I would talk about and how I would engage on a difficult subject to talk about, myself! I am pretty good at talking about Technology, Leadership, Mentoring, Business but this was a invite to talk about me and my journey, which is always more introspective and difficult.

I had the last few slides to finish and as Jack Bauer laid dying on his bed, I decided that to tell the class about my journey using storytelling and ancedotes, I would have to tell them about my story and the opportunities I was given, the other leaders that took a chance on me, the mentors I had along the way and the bit of luck & timing thrown in, all in a narrative that was open and honest and direct.

I talked about leading guilds in Ultima Online and World of Warcraft and how that contributed to my confidence levels long-before I hit the executive ranks. I talked about challenges in my career and I talked about the work life balance and how to ensure that however hard you work on building your career and your professional success, one must not sacrifice what is infinitly more important on the home front to care and nuture for.

I started off my presentation with "everything you would know about me if we were friends for the last 10 years". In this you have all the intimitate details from age to current compensation and current insecurities. Talk about an intimate ice-breaker, I think it worked!

The interaction was great with the cohort and great dialog and Q&A happen afterword. They are using a Social Cast system for their class and the dialog and discussion has been ongoing most of this week.

I hope to keep in touch with this young group as they enter the next stage of their professional careers!

And on 24, I am still really upset at Tony Almeda!

Stephen Gillett

Positive Energy....Drink

2009-05-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

"There is just not enough celebrating going on at work—anywhere."

--Jack Welch

In a strange twist of internal happenings at Starbucks, I had the rare opportunity (as a CIO) to lead a short project that allowed us to support two "up and coming" local Seattle drivers in the annual "International Motor Sports Association" races aka IMSA. In a very grassroots & low-cost effort, with a few hours of time, we were able to get the cars sponsored and wrapped! The drivers are in both the green and orange teams and are racing from March 2009 to October 2009. You can visit the full schedule here 2009 IMSA Challenge. The IMSA & cars will broadcast on the SPEED Channel so check out your local listings.

The cars are wrapped with the Starbucks DOUBLESHOT ready-to-drink espresso beverage that is a perfect fit for a fast paced Porsche GT3 race car!

As a true gamer I am also working to make the car available as a custom download in a new race car console video game, more details to follow soon. Last plug, as part of the design I put "Starbucks IT" right on the side of the car. When you see it on TV, see if you can spot it!

We brought the cars to our Seattle campus recently and very low-key allowed our staff in the building to see it and engage with it on their way to lunch. Quickly a buzz spread throughout the building and we snapped hundreds of photos of people getting in the car, asking questions, learning about the modifications and just lots of smiles and fun on a rare sunny day in April Seattle!

The organic energy around this at our HQ and as our racing team visits the local Starbucks in the cities they are racing in, with their "pit crew" gear on is just great. It is simple fun and very low-cost excitement!

A final note by Jack Welch:

"...Celebrating creates an atmosphere of recognition and positive energy. Imagine a team winning the World Series without champagne spraying everywhere. And yet companies win all the time and let it go without so much as a high five. Work is too much a part of life not to recognize moments of achievement. Make a big deal out of them. If you don't, no one will..."

Enjoy the races!

Stephen Gillett

Corporate Functional Stereotypes

2009-05-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
--William Bernbach

Would you ever ask your finance accounting resource to weigh in on a manufacturing issue?

Would you ask your IT professional their ideas on a creative marketing piece?

How about involving your enterprise risk management teams’ advice on M&A activity?

In my experience, the answer to most of these questions hovers from “maybe” to “no-way”!

The reason for this is in the corporate world everyone has a primary discipline and one does not think to ask for advice or direction from a skill set outside of one’s primary (and public) discipline! This is effectively a corporate version of a functional stereotype.

It is true that the Accounting, IT, Marketing etc… resource may not have specific discipline knowledge to add to a specific cross-business function problem, but often times challenges facing specific units in the business are about process, relationships, organization, competition and history, all of which any smart person can weigh in and advance the discussion on, regardless of their primary functional role!

One only does the organization a disservice to not create a mechanism and/or discussion forum for the smartest talent in an organization to weigh in against the most difficult challenges across the overall business. With this mechanism you create a collaborative work environment and ensure a strong culture of decision equity and participation in the overall business you are in.

I have continually been surprised by how solution orientated discussions can surface real action-items, when a group of random discipline talent is weighing in against a particular corporate challenge internal or external to the marketplace. The diversity of thought offered by various disciplines is something to be harnessed in a modern enterprise, not shunned.

To not support this type of cross-functional collaboration, is a dramatic under usage of a company key resource, its people!

Stephen Gillett

The Professional Talent Spec

2009-04-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

In the gaming world, one is often able to select from a variety of attributes namely: class, profession, race, gender, skill set, and overall in game role.

Do you want to heal people or fight bad guys with a sword and shield?

Do you like to stand in the back and cast spells?

Do you want to lead people in a guild or be a rank and file guild member?

Overall, these attributes define who you are in the world and what route you will choose to experience the game. The way gamers think about this is to look at an overall specification that allow you to maximize game play as an individual member of the virtual world and when combined up with other players in the guild to ensure enough diversity in specs to accomplish group tasks.

There is a visual representation of this in World of Warcraft called the “Talent Tree”. The Tree is fixed at any point in time and with a financial penalty to change "spec", however one change the course of their in-game spec and role as defined by game play.

As a long-time guild leader, I often encouraged players to adopt certain specifications (talents) to ensure that the diversity of the guild was able to more easily meet the challenges we faced in content. I would usually subsidize the financial penalty (from guild funds) of a player switching talents as it was a formal request of the guild that the person do so.

As a CIO in the real-world, I am often asked by younger people, just existing college or high school or career professionals about how best to reach certain achievements in their career. “How do I best get into the IT field” or “How do I get a management promotion” or “what advice would you give to getting an MBA”.

It is in these questions that I triage and respond, very much the same way to the virtual world guild leadership. I mentor these individuals to learn certain skills in college or in a post-college world to work on certifications and unique experiences that are highly rewarded in their line of work. I often suggest that if they are passionate about a new industry or a new line of work to take a calculated risk and go after what they are excited about or feel a calling to. As CIO, I often have the ability to subsidize these changes in "spec" as well with training and other educational corporate funds to ensure the IT teams are setup with the right skill sets to meet the demands put on us as a department.

While some attributes in the real some attributes in the real-world are more fixed than in the virtual world, the concepts are very similar. What are the demands of the game and what are the demands of your industry? What are the skills and talents you need to be a strong guild member and what are the certifications and education you need to be successful in the professional world? What experience and achievements do you need to be a successful in the game and what experience and achievements you do need to be a strong manager in your industry?

Soon enough I can see a job ad posted with the intro “LFM for new senior postion…”

Stephen Gillett

Netflix, Where art thou?

2009-04-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

I am a loyal Netflix customer, or at least I thought I was. I worked with one of the many founders of Netflix in 1998/99, I have been a member of Netflix for over 9 years and I have watched and reviewed hundreds of movies over the years finding some quiet time here and there to go in and restructure my queue and look for new shows & movies to watch.

Organizing my queue and the soft red glow of netflix.com was just a part of my online time and soothing to the soul like a gentle piano song playing on a Sunday morning at a country home with a hot cup of coffee..(ok point made). I remember racing the return notification email to ensure that my best and most thought out selections were first and ready to go. I recall getting many DVD'S at a time and over the years taking the plan down to the current 1-at-a-time-I-am-to-loyal-to-cancel-it program that they are offering.

In recent months, I have noticed an alarming and disturbing trend emerging. In light of all that is happening in the world: the war on terror, a new administration, an economic recession and all of the other doom and gloom, there is one event that surpasses all of these combined

...my little red netflix envelopes sitting atop the cabinet are dreadfully and ashamedly not being opened for weeks at a time!

Why is this you ask? Well I decided today, on a sunny Seattle lunch break to figure out how two-lovers have grown so far apart, and to no surprise I realized I am the guilty party. I am seeing other movie & content providers on the side and it is fantastic, like the early days with Netflix...

Since upgrading to DirectTV HD with their built in DVR, I noticed I am able to more easily find my shows and movies and download and store them for long periods of time. I can search, sort, filter and watch them as I choose, in HD!

If that is not enough, I use Hulu.com as well, when my fling with DirectTV on the side is just not enough. Catching up on missed episodes or even missed minutes of a bad recording or new series.

So I ask myself, "will I ever go back to a Netflix only life!?!" and at this point I would be hard pressed to.

Lastly, I have an RCA (non-HD) device ROKU, but that is fighting for an RCA connection against my 1980's best of atari games device that I have hooked up to that port...

Netflix, I scream inside, where are thou!?!

Stephen Gillett

Chapter 1 Leaders

2009-04-22T19:36:00.001-07:00

"History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes a lot"
--Mark Twain

I have always been an ardent fan of augmenting ones knowledge with the experiences, both of success and failures, of history and politics, of great achievements and learning of others. I usually consume about 1-2 books/month ranging from business, technology, politics, leadership, marketing, historical fiction or classics, oscillating between each genre to suit my palette. At any given time I may be reading a hardcover or consuming a book through my Iphone audio book collection.

It is through these books and written experiences that I am able to consistently add to my toolkit as a person and as a leader. If I encounter a particular subject or area that baffles me and I need or I need to learn more about a particular area, I find a strong publication on that area learning about the key aspects of that realm to add to my own knowledge and experience.

As a leader, it is key that one continually work to improve ones understandings in both their personal and professional lives. The ability to read and internalize others experience and learning through books, is one of the best tools for doing so.

It is important that you get into the details and triangulate your knowledge gaps and don't try to fake it. If you don't know something go figure it out, don't pretend that you are an expert, it is often times the person that does not have all the answers that I gravitate to listening to. The ability to research and get current on a topic foreign to you is something all of us should the ability & humility to do.

And for those that read the first chapter of a popular subject, never finding the time or inclination to finish it and truly understand the content, yet feel compelled to share your new found knowledge then you are officially...

A Chapter 1 Leader!

Stephen Gillett

Hiring to your weakness

2009-04-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

As leaders one of the most important duties we have is that of building world-class teams of many disciplines to lead the various functions in our domain. In building strong global teams to lead any function albeit business, technology, support or any other organization, the humbled leader must first make an honest and self-reflective assessment of all of the tools in their leadership kit as a manager.

As an individual contributor particularly in the Technology realm, it is important that in a room of business & technology leadership, you as the technologist have all the answers. The answers to why the integration is not going as planned, or why we have to move our data center all come readily to your lips as the questions are asked. As one ascends the ranks of leadership, it becomes less important that you have all the answers and more important that you have all the questions.

In building world-class teams, the ability to ask direct, probing and discovery questions must first be directed internally at ones self. The leaders must ask themselves many questions, some of which I have listed below:

What are the areas I am strong in?
What discipline is my core skill set and what are further out from my core?
What are the areas I am weaker on?
What challenges will this role give me and the team?
What does the business need from me to be successful?
What will the team need from me to be successful?
What challenges have leaders in this role had prior to me?
What experiences in the past have I had to prove/disprove these assessments?

As you build this fresh inventory of your skill set, your strengths and weaknesses as a leader and you assess your organization and overall business needs of you and your domain, it is important that you then steer your key hiring decisions to hire to your areas of weakness. The notion of hiring to your weakness is that of a the true leader, who can assess themselves in an honest and transparent way and ensure that the team they lead and build over-time, is equipped to handle what the overall business will ask of them.

It is important that one work to hire and retain the best and most diversified talent base resisting the urge to hire those in their mold and look to branch out to ensure that all expertise for a given domain are represented in any given leadership forum.

It can be challenging to self-reflect on your weaknesses particularly as an accomplished leader. If you have issues coming up with a list, ask your team, ask your significant other. I am sure between the two, you will develop quite a robust list!

Stephen

ذي ورلد إز جتنغ فلت

2009-04-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have had a small hiatus from this blog as I spent the last three weeks doing a full EMEA immersion for Starbucks, visiting dozens of stores in many of regions of Europe and the Middle East. The countries I was able to visit were: England, France, Austria, Holland, Greece, Kuwait, Dubai and Lebanon as well as dozens of diverse cities within each of these countries.

The first thing that struck me was that the world is indeed getting flat as Thomas Friedman wrote about a few years back.

In the Gulf & Middle East...countries like Lebanon, the native home of my father and current home to large part of my extended family the changes were amazing to witness. When I last visited 10 years prior in 1999, the changes in terms of global company presence and brand ubiquity was stunning. With these global brands (and services) comes a higher quality of life and world engagement. This can be in the terms of fashion or in technology. While the country for example still struggles with keeping electricity to the inhabitants 24x7, they have a faster 3G wireless network than my home town of Seattle!

In Dubai, which has a stunning array of modernity for any world, let alone the more traditionally conservative Arab one, the visit was a refreshing and engaging one to witness firsthand. I felt the tilting balance, that increasingly more unites us than divides us in this part of the world, economically speaking.

In Kuwait, one of the more liberal of the gulf states I was able to experience a blend of the ultra-modernity offered by Dubai, but the calm Arabic-Gulf influence native to that society and region. The people were engaging and supportive and I was able to glimpse the internal struggle between traditional sacrosanct norms and mores mingled with emerging cultural liberalism. Where else can you see this manifest by walking into a shopping mall in the afternoon or a Starbucks in the evening and experiencing Bluetooth or SMS to talk with people in the surrounding area in order to bypass cultural no-no's of being seen with strangers of the opposite gender!

Lastly, the European markets while full of their usual splendor and grace were riddled with civil unrest during my visit. The Athens trip was marred by downtown protests and pseudo-riots, England was racked by G20 protests that were turning violent and France had a nationwide strike in effect the hour I landed. There were however all the trappings of a fantastic world that is Europe and I am reminded of the history and grandeur anytime I am able to spend a good amount of time in Western Europe.

So that is a three-week summary of my visit.

Glad to be home and glad to be blogging again!

Stephen Gillett

LFM for Heroic, Corporate Style

2009-03-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

In World of Warcraft, there is a concept of taking ordinary content and amplifying the difficulty of it by allowing players to turn on the a higher level of difficultly via the "Heroic" button. The content is the same visually, but usually has slight variations in speed hostile engagement difficulty and sequence timing. Simply said you need to know what you are doing in a group in order to play with a setting on Heroic.

In the usual gaming world the achievement of the crowds tends to be average. In this sense players can randomly group into 5 or 10 player activities and usually do average during in world events and runs. These can be random tanks, healers, damage providers and support classes of varying types. In the virtual world, trying to put a random Heroic run together with players you don't know or have not played with can often prove a challenging task. The group will get defeated often and group frustrations will mount exponentially causing the random group to either become quickly disheartened or disbanded.

There are many things you can do in the virtual world to ensure that a very difficult (heroic) level engagement will be successful and is in this in-world player assessment that one can extrapolate to the real world talent assessment.

Here are some similar skill assessment questions applicable to Virtual & Real world

Virtual World: Does the player belong to a reputable Guild? (having the achievement of a reputable guild will often carry weight and be a strong indicator you know how to play your part)

Real World: Does this candidate come from a strong industry or successful competitor? (if you have a strong working role at a reputable company, odds are good you know what you are doing)

Virtual World: Does this player have the gear (experience) to run this heroic instance? (if someone you don't know has the gear to prove they have the experience to have earned that good, another good sign).

Real World: Does this candidate have the achievements and business experience to be successful in this role? (often times looking and talking about a candidates achievements in his/her career will be a good indicator of their ability to succeed).

Virtual World: Is this player good with a group. do they know their role and play well with other experience raiders? (Often times, being good on your own in a MMO does not ensure good group success. Being a successful guild member, means first and foremost you see the bigger Guild picture!)

Real World: Does this candidate have a proven track record of working well with teams, being collaborative on projects and ensuring group is successful? (having a track record in business of working collaboratively with teams and ability to ebb and flow the rapids of compromise above self-interest is a good corporate trait.)

There are numerous parallels in this area, but the point is that skills learned in assessing new talent in the virtual world has a direct correlation to talent assessment in the real one.

As companies in today's economic climate are taking ordinary business challenges and turning the setting to Heroic, in terms of difficulty, it wil be key that real world talent leaders are tuned into what is takes to build and be successful with a team.

Let's just hope the experience of the real world candidate is not all BOE in nature.

Stephen Gillett

Juan Enriquez: Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science...

2009-03-04T11:02:00.000-08:00

I am starting to watch some of the presentations from TED and five videos in, I ran across this one from Juan Enriquez on a wide-variety of topics. His presentation is told in a manner that is compelling, innovative and direct. Enjoy

Stephen Gillett

The Modern Gyges

2009-03-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

In the mythical legend "Ring of Gyges" , Gyges a shepherd discovers a cave revealed to him in the mountain next to where he is feeding his flock after a large earthquake.

When Gyges entered the cave, he discovered an ancient tomb whose corpse wore a golden ring. Gyges took the ring and later discovered he could become invisible by adjusting the ring on his finger.

Through the story of the ring, the parable discusses whether a person would be of moral and honorable mind, if they did not have to fear the consequences of their actions. Plato argues that Gyges indeed did not have the iron will to hold morale when his actions had no consequence.

In 2009, many years after Plato and the story of Gyges, the human condition he analyzes takes on a modern form. We see a reemergence of a Modern Gyges, not enabled by a magical ring that renders the identify of someone neutral and without consequence, but by the anonymity offered by modern technology and web based systems as we see in that of anonymous comments, emails, postings and other medium where people have the ability to mask or completely hide their true identities. In this we see the modern Gyges manifest. As a Information Technology professional it is often our discipline that is asked to solve for this activity.

In modern times, people will often act in a manner online when their identify is masked "anonymous" that they would never engage in openly. When this activity is malicious and masked, the individual does not have consequences that can not be realized for their actions. We see this manifest in the attack and disparaging of others, leaking of corporate sensitive data, publication of others personal information and a whole slew of other activities in this realm that we are all familiar with.

It is important for us to be aware of this social phenomenon and to respond accordingly with activities in the enterprise that allow for others to feel safe harbor for sharing opposing viewpoints with each other in a productive and professional manner, without having to resort to covert Gyges activities online.

Stephen Gillett

Intrapreneurship

2009-02-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

The concept Entrepreneurship and Intrepreneurship is a great and powerful one and in this current economic climate, what difference a vowel makes!

In a time of economic uncertainty organizations must do more then just survive the recession. They must continue to drive a culture of innovation and risk-taking especially in areas they want to create profitable growth and new market opportunities. A recessionary economic climate stifles the competition and puts uncertainty in the competitive marketplace in ways you could never generate on your own. It is key to act on these forces in a way that is reasonable and prudent for your particular business. Taking advantage of this opportunity, however counter intuitive it may be, will be key when the recession ends and everyone comes to their senses.

If the organization allows itself to drift from a culture of innovation and risk-taking in to one purely of cost reduction and constriction activities, those organizational traits of innovation and risk taking are difficult to recapture when times do get better, and they always get better.

If one were to look across the years with the 20/20 hindsight, during previous recessions you see many successful organizations taking advantage of difficult times. In 2001-2002.5 for example, during the last recession with the dotcom correction, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and a new and unproven President, a certain company was taking advantage of that time period to innovate, take bold risks, and ensure a post-recession survival strategy. That company was Apple.

While the rest of us were hunkering down and worrying about cost-control and burn-rates, (I was at a small start up then that was acquired by Sun Microsystems) Apple we now know, was working on retooling their business and driving innovation with ITUNES and IPOD. They emerged in 2002-2003 with a new offering that both transformed an industry and provided a devastating offensive against to their competition.

Just 7 years prior to 2003, Steve Jobs was somewhat booed on stage for announcing that Apple due to masked financial difficulty was taking a $150mm investment from Microsoft. Steve Jobs 1997 Macworld.

Amazing what Apple has done in 11 years in terms of where they were in (expressed in that video) and where they are now.

So as someone inside your organization, as you work to manever and surive the recession, what can you be doing to be more Intraprenuerial?

What is your IPOD & ITUNE equivelant?

Stephen Gillett

Corporate & Gaming Content

2009-02-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

In an interesting twist to understanding retention both in the gaming and the corporate world, I am inclined to propose the power of content, both gaming and corporate in nature.

Stick with me here...

When someone is engaged with an MMO like World of Warcraft, one key aspect of retention but by no means the only one, is the notion of the game content, current and new in nature.

In the game, what are the challenges, the bosses, the guild, the gear, the achievements, the rewards, the honor title and so forth. These aspects of a game all culminate in a rich and rewarding experience as a gamer. The better the content in terms of engaging with you keeping you challenged and feeling rewarded, the stronger your loyalty and the longer you are retained.

Now project those same dimensions on to your career and company. Do you feel that the challenges in the workplace are engaging, diverse and rewarding? Do you feel you have the support and the resources you need? Do you have the title and comp (aka gold) you deserve? Do you feel that you have real business challenges that you and your co-workers (guild) are equipped to handle?

It would seem that enterprise "corporate" content and "gaming" content both play a key part in retention of both employees and gamers.

Now what if we just gamed at work....

Stephen Gillett

The Art of Linguistics

2009-02-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

As Technology leaders, we are often immersed in the nuances and vernacular of the IT view-of-the-world. This manifests in what we do every day in terms of system integrations, application development, project management, returns on investments, business cases, analytics and global infrastructure to name a few. As CIO's we think in ones and zeros either learned or trained and reinforced over time. We have teams of Technologists reinforcing this in daily interactions, summaries and PMO managed activities.

It is safe to say that Information Technology, in all of it's glory is our native business language.

But much like a like a young person backpacking a different continent in the their younger years, using hand signs and the few years of middle-school language education to traverse a whole new world, so must the emerging Technology leader, not skilled in the art of corporate linguistics.

To be a successful 21st century Business & Technology leader, it is key that one learns other business languages outside of their primary one, that of IT in this case. This is the language of business, finance, marketing, supply-chain and operations and their various dialects such as strategy, planning, modeling and forecasting. It is also key that as an IT leaders you help to create a bi-directional language dictionary as well, helping to educate your business unit leaders in your primary language.

Much like spoken language, learning corporate languages requires repeated proximity. This language can be learned by immersion or it can be by formal training (e.g. MBA), but however one acquires this language it is key that you speak it often to ensure that you retain it. Dabbling is not sufficient.

As CIO, one must venture outside of their world with the proverbial backpack traversing the enterprise encountering new dialects and new refinements to your language skills. You must also be strong at translating your primary language into these new found languages, learning over time what aspects of IT are relevant to your business unit partners. It is also key that you stay in hostels, learning about the core of the business from the very grassroots, not just from five-star hotels.

It is only with the skill of enterprise linguistics can Technology leaders hope to attain sustained and substantial support for your business supporting Information Technology initiatives.

It is how one effectively communicates the business value of IT and ensure that non-IT executives have decision & ownership equity in the IT project portfolio.

Stephen Gillett

Impressions from Sundance 2009

2009-01-26T09:27:00.001-08:00

During a Technology briefing last week in Park City, UT I had the chance to visit some of the Sundance Film Festival events taking place nearby.

I was pleasantly surprised by my trip to Utah in general. The cities were clean and nice and the people friendly. The snow was great and so was the outdoor sense of the community that was everywhere. As we were driving over Parley's Summit. We were able to see several Moose grazing on the side of the road. Not something you see everyday in Seattle!

I had the chance to catch several Sundance films but the two worth noting were In The Loop a British Sardonic comedy starring James Gandolfini that was a great witty R rated film and PUSH based on the novel by Sapphire that was emotionally draining and sad, but worth seeing once.

The atmosphere of the movies, the actors and directors and the general climate, reminded me of the athletic area and college athletics in general. I had a sense that the casts and directors of these Sundance films have a renewed interest in the art of film making and story telling without profits driving every move, much like the world of collegiate athletes, where athletes compete for the love of the sport.

The Sundance film makers and actors would love for the film to win acclaim and be sold to a big distributor, but I did not sense this in talking and interacting with them directly. Their love for acting, directing and producing was sourced in a love for the art with the "big-time" sense of going global only a distant echo to the emotion and action of the night and the engagement with the audience.

This is was the same feeling I had interacting with Collegiate athletes whom compete for love of the sport with the goal of making it to the big leagues as a real, but somewhat distant goal second to that of the sport.

The overall experience was good and refreshing. Some of the crowds were a bit Hollywood for me, but overall I recommend attending it if you have a passion or even a strong-like for the art of film making.

And who knows. You may even meet someone you least expect! See who here...

Stephen Gillett

Hope and Ultimately Change

2009-01-21T07:54:00.000-08:00

On January 20th, we welcomed our 44th President of the United States, Pres. Barack Obama.

On a more personal note, it was also my birthday. Imagine reflecting on your life and family on one of the most politically and socially important days of in the history of our great country!

As I wind down mentally and emotionally from the last 18 months of the campaign culminating in the wonderful inauguration ceremony yesterday, I am reminded of all the arguments were made, the passion that flowed and the opposing forces engaged in passionate discourse. The Web 2.0 network captured and archived it all.

It is now, after it all settle down and I talk to people in my life, I am reminded of what Hope really means to them and to me.

For me, Hope is believing that something, however unfathomable in terms of possibility at the time, has a chance of coming to pass. Through hard work, involvement, self-reliance, community, persistence, honesty and passion one can change the outcome and direction of their lives, their family, their community, or in the extreme...a country.

People receive this Hope and inspiration from several sources. It can be from their family or it can be from a parent. It can be from a mentor, a priest, a pastor, a rabbi or a celebrity who chooses to do good with their access. It can be from someone at work whom you admire or from someone on TV that you follow. It can be from a spiritual calling or from the solace of nature and everything around you.

The message is the same for Hope, but in whatever form and in whatever quantity, channeled correctly as we have seen, it has the ability to move mountains.

It is in this message that you see Pres. Obama inspiring the people. In the 2008 campaign, millions of Americans chose Pres. Obama as their vehicle for Hope and ultimately the change deriving from that Hope. While those of us worked hard to clearly define and ascribe attributes to what his message of Hope and Change meant, others did not have to. It was manifest. President Obama became a canvas for his supporters to project their versions of what Hope and Change would look like on to him as the deliverer. This was no small feat and is commendable.

Nobody can or should diminish that. For those million of fellow Americans, to degrade that is to degrade any other vehicle for Hope in ones life albeit a Priest, Parent or a Teacher.

So while I did not support President Barack Obama in the primary, he has my support now as my President and I want him to be successful over his term. There are a lot of challenges in our country and globally that the influence of the Presidency will need to help correct. Dissent and opposing positions needs to remain strong and encouraged in our political centers.

We sat around the dinner table last night, reading a note that President Barack Obama wrote to his daughters. It was given to my eldest daughter in school to take home and read. It was a message about why he ran for President addressed to the children of this country. I read it to our Children and explained to them the importance of that letter to each of us.

I am clearly in the Loyal Opposition politically, but it in this structure that the the power of our system and our Republic is realized.

I wish him all the success in leading our country through a difficult period and if I am every called to help our country be successful, I will answer that call.

And on a notable tone difference than what emerged after the 2004 election...

President Barack Obama is my President.

Stephen Gillett

Starbucks & Volunteering

2009-01-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

Thought I would take a moment and share a new Volunteer ad coming out from Starbucks! I am proud to be a part of the team with this kind of message!

This is a great way to get involved and in today's economic climate would be a good time for each of us to spend a few hours of our time, helping others.

You can sign up & pledge your time here!

Stephen Gillett

Recruiting Top Talent

2009-01-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

In the paper I wrote "Guild Building is Skill Building", I discuss as one of the top skills of building a successful guild is to recruit the right talent and to keep it.

Today CIO magazine online released another interview I did with them regarding the recruiting methods and style I use to recruit talent in a highly competitive marketplace (Seattle) combined with overall style and philosophy of recruiting in general.

They were seemingly uninterested in how one does it in World of Warcraft, go figure!

The article can be found here: Starbucks' CIO Stephen Gillett Seeks "Pillars of Strength" During Economic Storm.

This was an adhoc interview, done without any of the questions sent prior. My responses are literal and verbatim. It will give you a stronger sense of my interview and what technique I have found to work best in recruiting Technology talent. I hope it will help you if you are currently on the market for an IT job.

For those job seekers, this can be a difficult time to differentiate yourself in the stacks of resumes any hiring manager has. I hope this gives you some insight on how to be unique, but more importantly how to be yourself, which in many ways can be the most differentiated strategy of all.

Stephen Gillett

Is est non totus fortuna

2009-01-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

This week I am humbled by an article that came out in CIO Magazine: "Starbucks' Next-Generation CIO"

I received hundreds of inquiries across many mediums ranging from getting connected, selling products, asking for advice and general congratulations.

All of it was heartfelt and appreciated. Thank you

The result of this spike of publicity was to really force me to answer question that was readily asked me to reflect on the last 13 years or so to really chart out my professional career.

As I reflected on this question over the last few evenings. I realized that my career trajectory however fast or slow relative to others, really had key pivot points that allowed for others to take a chance on a young leader with energy, expertise & potential.

While having an extremely supportive and determined high-school sweetheart, Mrs. Gillett and four beautiful and healthy kids is truely the foundation in my life with emotional support from mom & dad, there are professional forces at work as well when one looks over the last 13 years or so.

Whether this was Ted Cahall, now a President at AOL who promoted me to my first VP level position and help me become a strong technical leader or Dr.John Seely Brown who gave me great advice and mentorship over the years or the many other team members, peers, and executives that took the time and effort to impress upon me their ideas, expertise and styles. They know who they are!

It was one event in particular that stands out for where I got "my chance" to step into a leadership role and really take education & instincts and apply them to a professional career.

I was working part-time while at the University at Oregon at Office Depot trying to supplement my college income and keep exposure to Technology. It was nearing my junior year ending in early 1996 (remember a year is a long time to a Net-Gen'er, think of it at a "Net Year" = many regular folks years!) and a group of us kids that fixed & sold computer equipment, software, peripherals and everything else an Office Depot IT section sells today, just 13 years ago.

There was one customer in particular who used to come in with a lot of questions but never bought anything.

He would rummage through the aisles, bring in his laptop, talk about cell phone plans, ask for free MS Office support and a slew of other things that really annoyed the rest of the IT support staff in the store.

I never really felt annoyed with him and I used to do my best to take the time to answer his questions or walk him through how to reinstall his operating system, add memory or whatever it happen to be that day. Most of the of the IT staff used to chuckle at me wasting my time (except you Dave!).

One day John came in and did not look like the John we had seen over the last year. He was dressed very well and he had his wife with him! I remember thinking "Wow, John is actually married?!?"

His wife came up to me while I was stacking copies of Internet Explorer (in those days it was sold in stores as software, next to Netscape!) She said "John, Stephen is over here" looking at my name badge and then John came down the aisle to talk to me. John walked up and said "would you be interested in a job?". I said "What do you mean John?" already off-balance because of meeting his wife and his unusual dress up. He said "I need someone to come to the Hospital and run our MIS support effort". I was frozen.

Come to find out John was the Executive director for a local hospital and was in need of hiring someone to run the Information Systems support team at the hospital!

Keep in mind at this time, I was above average in technical dimensions related to computers, software, troubleshooting and online services but I did not have a strong background enterprise applications, MIS, Networking or anything that one would encounter in a hospital!

I told John of these issues and he said "We can train you on all that MIS stuff, but you have what we need that we can't train. Did I mention you get your own office and parking space, why dont you come down and take a look this week"

For a 21-year old junior in college you can imagine the look on my face.

Well, John was right. They trained me on AIX flying up the guy who wrote the book from Arizona, Novell NDS, Windows, Networking, Hospital MIS systems and slew of other things I was not even remotely learning in computer science courses at the Uof O. They paired me up with my first mentor (Thanks Mike!) and I ended up taking the job until I graduated.

I only went back to that Office Depot once that year to buy the new desk for my new office. You can imagine the look on the face of the folks there!

So to answer that question "How did you become the CIO at Starbucks?"

Is est non totus fortuna (it's not all luck).

Stephen Gillett

Sword of Damocles

2009-01-06T19:07:00.000-08:00

In the early days of both my professional career and my guild leadership I used to wonder what and why/how the actions & decisions at the top of any given company or guild were made. I used to think "when I get to the executive ranks, I wont make those types of decisions" or "I will do things so much differently..."

While I have had the opportunity to indeed do things differently, it is not as straight-forward as it seemed while I was looking up.

Throughout my professional career as I went from Manager to Director to VP to SVP to CIO and in the virtual world from new guild member to Class Leader to Raid Leader, to Officer to Guild Master I started to realize several things or better said a whole new world began to open up.

First, the person at the top or a company or a guild is making very complicated decisions with many dimensions of complexity that became more and more understandable to me as I ascended the ranks myself. In the professional world decisions about vendor agreements, promotions, budgets, team structure, organizational decision, product decisions etc... all became much more understood from my new vantage point.

In the guild world, why do we use a DKP system, why do only raid three nights week, why do we have a guild-alliance, etc... again all became much more clear when I was sitting in the seat having to keep a guild progressing and retain talent.

A few years ago to remind me of this experience. I hung up on my office wall a picture characterizing the parable about Damocles.

Damocles was a character of Greek Mythology (legend) whom the Roman orator Cicero read about and retold the legend in which a courtier in the King's court that the king whom was blessed with riches, power, authority and access to all aspects of the kingdom was truly fortunate and had he be given the chance to live that life of power and authority he would do things differently and live to that fortune much more robustly.

The King agreed to make Damocles the king for a day to have a taste of that fortune. That evening as King, Damocles was at a large banquet in his honor. Damocles was very pleased with being waited on like a king.

One issue concerned Damocles, which after every bite of food, after every kiss or conversation he looked up to see a shiny sword held by a single horse hair above him and immediately lost taste of all the good fine, wine and banquet offering the king his title and kingdom back.

Suddenly the position of power and authority and life that he observed as courtier was not so glamorous and easy living.

While a bit extreme taking it literal, this story and office visual is to remind me that people both virtual and real in positions of power are often dealing with these vectors of complexity that make leading and decision making a very difficult task often not fully understood by people, family, guildies and friends around them.

It sits to this day on my wall now, just above my phone in my office.

Imagine the story people get when visiting my office ask "What does that mean"

Stephen Gillett

Leadership & Adversity

2009-01-03T13:48:00.001-08:00

As I took the last week off from both work (kind of) and gaming (kind of), I had some time to ponder how to address the business challenges all retailers and most businesses are facing in this holiday season and how a new relative unknown Obama administration coupled with downward pressure on the global economies will test even the best leaders in the corporate world.

In prosperous times weak leadership can be hidden to a degree. They can hide behind allocation of promotions, pay increases, titles, merit raises, bonus, additional equity grants and all the things managers very much enjoy giving to employees i.e. rewards.

Managers in essence love to be loved and great economic times, anyone can hand out rewards of these sorts and win admiration. That is the easy stuff.

In more difficult economic times when adjustments of this sort are more difficult to come by, poor leadership often get exposed for their lack of ability to handle adversity. Adversity in the sense that leaders must now look for team efficiencies, reduce costs, raise the bar on reward distribution and reign in spending. It is not the old adage "do more with less" it is "do less with less" and that less has to be narrowed down to the absolute critically of what the overall business needs to be successful. It is this adversity that strains the very business and industry weak leadership operate in and they do not have the professional or personal tools in their manager toolkit to deal with these challenges.

It is in times like that good leaders emerge and confront directly these business adversities. They focus in on the issues they can control or influence and not the issues they can not. This confrontation is not of a hostile sort, but is more focused around ensuring all of the employees in your company and your department have a strong working knowledge of the current climate that your business and your industry. This manifests with the terms of inclusion, transparency, accessibility and candor to the realities of the position your business is in and what you must do to overcome those challenges...together.

It is absolutely critical that in times like these a strong leader focuses on the soft skills. Taking the time to meet with concerned staff, engage in open and direct dialog with all levels of the organization and ensure that each of your team members know exactly what he/she can do to help ensure a strong-healthy contribution to the overall betterment of the company are some of the actions leaders must take. Org charts don't apply much in these times as everyone is in it together and one day you may find yourself at a casual lunch with a Vice President and the next week at a office meeting with a individual contributor in town from a remote office.

Accessibility is key.

In the end, these soft skills are end up being the hard skills. Without the air-cover of the usual good-time reward systems and scarcity of resources, strong leaders make up the gap with perseverance and transparency.

I have been reminded over the years that teams however large or small respond very well to this level of inclusion into what is happening with the overall economy and industry.

In 2009, as we all face uncertain economic times and uncertain non-systemic business challenges, whether an individual contributor, lead, manager, director or executive leader, it is important you work together to not only survive these times, but to retool and emerge stronger then before.

Stephen Gillett