Risky Business

Guy Kawasaki keeps his ear to the ground and often picks up on some very interesting material. This week, he evaluates an article in Stanford Magazine, “Effort Effect.” Read the article first, then his take on it. Interesting.

For my part, this bit of the article popped out at me:

Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine—and avoid the sorts of experiences necessary to grow and flourish in any endeavor. Students with learning goals, on the other hand, take necessary risks and don’t worry about failure because each mistake becomes a chance to learn.

It was obvious to the researchers which students fell in which category. I wonder if some of the work we do is sometimes as transparently “safe” to our users. For instance, I can tell right away when a web site, web service, or even just a piece of software is crappy. And I’m not necessarily talking about quality, but the needs it addresses, its distinctiveness.

“Playing it safe” crops up everywhere, though. The ‘B’ movie, for instance, is a vintage plucked from the vine of mediocrity, except for when it’s not. In those cases, they are works of great imagination, draped in an ironic patina of ‘B-ness’.

We’re all guilty of playing it safe at one point or another. I certainly am, and even in some of the work I was doing in my last days at AADL felt like B-work: not by anyone’s behest, but simply because we all get into ruts.

So it’s within that striation of thought that I applaud the SirsiDynix decision to punt on Horizon. You’ve got to admit, that took a serious gut-check. I can’t, in good conscience, join the cacophony of hems and haws over this news after, myself, espousing the need for vendors to tear it down and build it back up. This is precisely the type of thing we ought to be expecting from our vendors every ten years or so. I wish them the best of luck with Rome.

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As far as I’m concerned, the punt certainly doesn’t benefit the libraries that use Dynix/Horizon nor the users of those libraries.

Change is good, but sudden upheaval is bad.

I’m guessing from your “tear it down and build it back up” comment you weren’t actually aware of what Horizon 8 was? We will certainly continue to see the commercial vendors tearing ’em down, but I doubt now we will ever see one build it up again from scratch.

I too wish Sirsi the best of luck with Rome and I’ll eagerly wait to see what miracles they can perform with Unicorn and lipstick.

Davey,
Not being a SirsiDynix customer/user, I don’t fully appreciate the significance of Horizon 8. That’s not the same as not knowing what it is.

And I think it’s far too premature to say that punting on 8.0 will not benefit libraries and their users. Perhaps in the short term, users will see and feel some groans of pressure and things move toward an equalized state.

My “tear it down and build it back up” doesn’t refer to a literal rebuild, but a reevaluation of their entire process, business model, and yes, software.

So, I can understand that Horizon users will be uncomfortable for awhile, but it’s the long run we need to look at. If we think in terms of news cycles, we’re really not doing ourselves any favors, we need to account for the next 15-20 years when we consider what our course of action is. That’s why I applaud and admire risky decisions with uncertain outcomes when, behind them, is a desire for fundamental change.

Gem03.16.07 / 12pm

Our library is on Horizon (though fortunately not the infamous 7.4 series). Horizon 8 was touted as being a completely new system. It was going to be more a migration than an upgrade for existing customers. I’m disappointed that it didn’t work out due to all the nice features that allegedly were going to be in the system. It’s also a little exasperating that it took years after the project was suppose to be released to scrap it (when we migrated to Horizon in 2004 we bought our hardware on the understanding Horizon 8 would be out within a couple of months).

I agree that scrapping the Horizon 8 project may have been the correct decision. No matter how fancy a system looks, I don’t want it if it doesn’t work. However, I’m very skepticle that SirsiDynix can deliver a reasonable solution by the end of this year like they claim in the Rome press release. From what I’ve read, it looks like Rome will be based on existing Unicorn code with a little smattering of Horizon code thrown in. I’m afraid Rome will end up like another 7.4 debacle.

In the end, this announcement may be good as it’ll encourage us to look around and make sure there isn’t another ILS that meets our patrons’ needs better. If only I could find OPACs that don’t require extensive hacking to work the way I want . . .

Gem,
Thanks for the comments. I think it’s all just speculative talk right now to try to predict what Rome will be like. Again, I’m not defending the product, but the decision itself.

Somewhere along the line, the decision was made that 8.0 was either not sustainable or not in line with the company’s long-term vision of the product. The result was that a tough choice was presented and they took the more difficult path because it could potentially lead to a much better product.

It really was a huge risk for Dynix but, apparently, one that made them attractive to the other vendors. After the buyout, Sirsi hired Gartner to give them a full evaluation of the work done on Horizon 8. As customers, we were told that Gartner not only gave the development work a “thumbs up”, but they positively gushed about the potential of the product and the methodology being used to create it. If it was a white elephant, why didn’t Gartner spot it?

Two years on from that and everything the company has said continued to be positive. Yes, it was delayed, but you’d be amazed if any software project of this size was on time. Heck, I’ve seen a senior Sirsi manager at a conference swear on his children’s lives that they (the company, not the children!) would continue to develop Horizon and Unicorn for the foreseeable future. If the reality was different, why continue with the deception?

The company message had been clear — both Dynix and Sirsi customers knew that the long term plan was to merge Horizon and Unicorn (Rome was being talked about in 2005), but we were all told that that would happen 5 to 10 years down the line.

And so we enter March 2007. Numerous libraries around the world are running the pre-release version of Horizon 8. Many more new customers have signed contracts based entirely on the strength of 8. Even more are well down the preparation path for moving to 8 this summer. Public libraries, many of which had to fight to get the funding, have spent tens of thousands of dollars getting the recommended hardware in place. The company has said that 8 is just a few weeks away from general release, with many of the modules now classified as bug free. Potential new customers are still being wooed with 8.

Are we to seriously believe that all of the above is allowed to continue at a time when (presumably) Sirsi have known for at least a year that the project is either failing or is going to fail? To announce to the world that 8 has become a white elephant would be a huge risk to the company and its credibility… but apparently that’s not a risk the company is willing to make. Has the company mismanaged the project so badly that it’s now beyond recovery? Is the company not prepared to risk further money to complete the project? I don’t know the answers to those questions because, as loyal customers, we’ve not been told and probably never will be told.

It would seem that the company (or perhaps specifically the new owners Vista, as their money had not been used to finance the develop) decided to “play it safe” and stop everything and everybody from going any further. Yes, that kind of decision takes a massive set of balls, but (presumably) they’ve done their calculations and can afford to lose X% of their customer base and Y% of their credibility in order to secure the required short term gain on their investment.

So, where does that leave us? Anyone already in the migration to 8 is up the creek. Anyone who’s already spent their hardware budget on new servers may well be up the creek. Anyone who has spent the last year preparing for a summer upgrade is up the creek. Anyone who was really looking forward to the new functionality (and needs it sooner rather than later) is probably up the creek. Anyone who has just signed a contract for 8, typically after going through a lengthy tender and evaluation process, is up the creek.

To my mind, it would seem the risk lies entirely with the libraries. We took a risk when we decided to continue with Horizon after a year long tender process …all the functionality that we wanted would be there in 8 …all the functionality I wanted was there! Heck John, we both know that all those cool new features we added to our respective catalogues were done in spite of our ILS rather than because of it! But, with 8, I could see a world of opportunity opening up for some really major and seriously “cool” new stuff (thanks to the APIs and web services).

But that was all soooo last week…

I’m sure Rome will be beautiful, but that fact remains it will just be the “same old same old” — another legacy ILS that’s had a few more features bolted on and a little more lipstick applied to make it look pretty.

Well, there’s a lot to be said for continuing to build on a stable and mature platform, but that will always be the safe option for the vendor.

I should make it clear I bear absolutely no grudge against fellow Unicorn-ers (and never have) — I always regarded the merger as an opportunity to build new relationships, make new friends, and to share best practice. My grudge is entirely with the company and the way they’ve gone about this whole sorry saga.

At Huddersfield, we will have to totally re-evaluate Unicorn. We closely scrutinised it when we went out to full tender just over 18 months ago, but it scored poorly against our criteria. It lacked core functionality that we needed in our day-to-day operation as an academic library.

So, what should we do? We are at a crossroads and which is the safest path for us to take? Should we wait for Rome or should we try and apply for funding to go out to full tender again? The latter simply isn’t an option — the University would never fund a second tender in less than 3 years. Plus, we already know that the other systems are like — we fully evaluated them all during the last tender.

Perhaps the time has come for us to take the difficult path — the stakes are high, as the ILS is designated a “mission critical” system for the entire University.

I know for sure that we’ll be seriously looking at Evergreen and Koha Zoom (both Open Source) and I already know that dozens (maybe even hundreds) of other Dynix and Horizon sites have already begun talking to companies like LibLime (“safety in numbers”?).

A jump to an Open Source ILS is indeed a very risky option, but might it be the safest option for us all in the long term?

p.s. sorry, I don’t normally post such long comments, but it’s been an emotional week ;-)

After reading what you’ve said here, I do appreciate what you’re going through and I learned a little more of the back-story behind the move, which I’m glad of.

But you’ve got to admit that a fair amount of what you’re saying here is speculation into what SirsiDynix did or did not know and when. I also disagree with you that libraries are the only ones bearing the brunt of the risk. Even those that recently purchased server hardware and software. Those systems are not going to disappear overnight, they will continue to exist, and the company will eventually help them ease over to Rome (whenever that may materialize).

So you can’t say that those purchases were a waste because, you know as well as I, that hardware is mutable and can be re-tooled and reconfigured to accommodate new software and services.

Have you seen the movie The Prestige? it’s a 6 or 7 out of 10 in my book, but there is a scene where one magician talks about a trick “double”–a person who looks like the magician, but isn’t. He says, “be very careful giving someone that power over you”. He goes on, “When I incorporated this bloke into my act, he had complete power over me.”

Well, the same thing happened to libraries when we cast our lot in with ILS vendors. So you can’t let this sort of thing get you down and discourage you. It’s also why, Dave, that folks like you and I, (and Casey, and Ryan, and Art, and Ross, and Dave Walker, and so on) work furiously to build the features that we want.

So, I think you (and Andrew Pace) are correct in predicting that something like this will drive users toward open systems like Evergreen (and to a lesser extent, Koha). Perhaps SirsiDynix was aware of this possibility, perhaps not. But in the larger scheme of things, I still believe that their ‘sooner rather than later’ approach to this move will benefit both them and their customers in the long run.

So the short-term is going to be very hard for you. Especially you, Dave. But you’re a resourceful guy with a solid head on your shoulders and you’ll be riffing on Rome (if and) when Huddersfield upgrades/migrates. So I feel for you because you’ve been cast into a period of limbo where you feel like if you develop for Horizon you’re wasting your time, but if you don’t develop at all, you’re losing a part of yourself.

So start developing platform-independent tools–a practice I’ve been starting to adopt myself. I’d be glad to join in with you on this. Don’t let it matter which system comes your way.

And whatever you do, Dave, don’t stop hacking.

Susan03.18.07 / 9am

More importantly, as Dave points out, what would Gartner’s analysis the *current* plan to use Unicorn as the platform as? Or do we dismiss Gartner’s credibility as insignificant? It would appear that SirsiDynix (read: Vista Equity Partners) have indeed considered Horizon 8 to be “a distraction.” Pity that the “distraction” of the sound of thousands of feet leaving the room is “insignificant”.

Perhaps a better question is who is actually even managing SD now that Pat and almost all the exec team are gone. You can’t even blame Jack Blount any more. No one from corporate Huntsville is left, are they? Who? Who *are* the VPs of SirsiDynix today? Seems like Vista did a great job of gutting the executive team as well, not to mention 8.0

Hoosier Librarian03.19.07 / 10am

The quote from the Standford article took me back to my junior year of high school when a friend was denied her rightful place as valedictorian at her graduation.

She had taken all of the most challenging classes that our high school had to offer, then took college courses to fulfill the requirements for the lame required classes like economics, government, American history, etc. She graduated a year ahead of schedule, and was the only person in her class with a perfect 4.0 – including the college courses. The next highest GPA was a 3.97 held by a guy who had taken the some of the challenging classes, but had also taken lots of “easy A” elective classes. When my friend was announced as the valedictorian, his parents threatened to sue, and my friend was replaced.

Me

A father and a library geek.

I work at the Darien Library in Connecticut as the Assistant Director for Innovation and User Experience.