garykoelling

Steve Bendt and I are going to be presenting at the Computer World’s Premier IT Leaders Conference in the beginning of March. The presentation is called "Fight Club. How we built a social network at Best Buy and how it built us. Using DYI software to have fun, piss people off and solve business problems." Nice huh? Steve said I must have been angry when I came up with the title but I think it'll actually be an interesting look at user oriented app design. Here's our final slides with our presentation notes attached. Please post any comments, questions or critiques.

When it happens once or twice or even three times you feel recognized. At first this feeling is good. The feeling I'm talking about is that feeling you get when your boss tells you she's going to a little conference and is doing a little break out session and she'd love to talk about the work you've been doing and do you have a couple slides. Cool.

But as you get asked more and more the feeling turns into something else. The conferences are getting bigger (ones you've actually heard of) and a couple slides has turned into a near complete presentation. Then suddenly you start getting requests from your boss's boss and feeling starts to turn.

Then one day you get the first email from a muckety muck you don't even know, who heads a department you've never heard of. And you think, "How the hell does this person know me." You Google yourself but the results are the same as they've been for months. You ask the guys sitting next to you if he's ever heard of Mr. Muckety SVP of Never Heard of it and guy sitting next to him and the admin for your group and no one has a clear path of understanding of what the guy actually does or who he is.  And that cool feeling you had at the beginning dissolves like a pissed on snow ball.