"iTunes for business" – file storage, sharing and gathering tool
"as easy as a iPod" – key differentator (said by many companies about many different products)
One neat idea - Podcasting as a way of sharing information – record calls, make them available from the knowledge management system. So you translate the speech to text, allow for search on the text, but play the speech when you click on the result.
Another neat idea - for each member of the firm you track the number documents submitted, posts to discussion forums, times their submitted documents are read, downloaded, number of documents they have downloaded, and so on. Keep track of their collaboration. Then present the number in their profile, like a Microsoft Gamer tag. This would give a visible social score to make visible the impact they are having on the community. It would reinforce positive behavior, without requiring additional compensation.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
From the Labs - notes on two presentation
BrightCom:
Bob from Brightcom
Immersive Telepresence
Serial Entrepreneur
BrightCom demonstrated how they could use rendered work environments to match the two environments into a single environment. Weird, very clunky Second Life plug in to show. The concept is interesting. In real time take the person’s movements and emotions, translate them to animation, that is photo realistic, and add a rendered office background to create a environment that gives a better experience for telepresence.
IBM – Irene Greif - Many Eyes
Simple dynamic user experience
Use the blogs to talk about the results
Many easy to use visualization tools
Discussion through bookmarks and annotation
Leverages the blogosphere individuals have a personal incentive: users upload data for visualization.
This tool gives users the ability to upload a data set and then create multiple visual representations of the data. It fills a need that Excel does not answer – good data visualization. They include a blog & discussion function to allow people to discuss the results. The results can be bookmarked and sent to others for further discussion.
Bob from Brightcom
Immersive Telepresence
Serial Entrepreneur
BrightCom demonstrated how they could use rendered work environments to match the two environments into a single environment. Weird, very clunky Second Life plug in to show. The concept is interesting. In real time take the person’s movements and emotions, translate them to animation, that is photo realistic, and add a rendered office background to create a environment that gives a better experience for telepresence.
IBM – Irene Greif - Many Eyes
Simple dynamic user experience
Use the blogs to talk about the results
Many easy to use visualization tools
Discussion through bookmarks and annotation
Leverages the blogosphere individuals have a personal incentive: users upload data for visualization.
This tool gives users the ability to upload a data set and then create multiple visual representations of the data. It fills a need that Excel does not answer – good data visualization. They include a blog & discussion function to allow people to discuss the results. The results can be bookmarked and sent to others for further discussion.
KrawlerX
Krawler – integrated social networking software suite. Publicly available tool at http://www.krawlerx.com/
The tool is based on a peer to peer network. Tightly integrated environment that includes people profiles, network analysis, project based teams, email, presence, RSS reader, RSS feeds, discussion and document sharing. The tool set is built to leverage Office features and functions. This could be a GAMx replacement. Because it is tightly integrated, and doesn’t have built in capability to leverage existing infrastructure, I am not sure it is good for the CBK as a knowledge management tool. I’d like to explore this as a possible method of plug and play for our vision. They offered to allow us to install the product for a small team environment and see how we leverage it. They are open to creating a specialized implementation that solves our legacy integration concerns as part of the deployment.
The tool is based on a peer to peer network. Tightly integrated environment that includes people profiles, network analysis, project based teams, email, presence, RSS reader, RSS feeds, discussion and document sharing. The tool set is built to leverage Office features and functions. This could be a GAMx replacement. Because it is tightly integrated, and doesn’t have built in capability to leverage existing infrastructure, I am not sure it is good for the CBK as a knowledge management tool. I’d like to explore this as a possible method of plug and play for our vision. They offered to allow us to install the product for a small team environment and see how we leverage it. They are open to creating a specialized implementation that solves our legacy integration concerns as part of the deployment.
Future of Enterprise Search – Taxonomy versus Folksonomy
This was a vendor pitch from Connectbeam. They have a appliance product that supplies folksonomy and tagging services for your enterprise search. Not really what I was expecting, but interesting. We went to their booth after the presentation. The booths are the WORST vendor area I have ever seen. They are tightly packed with no room for discussion. They are also over crowded, as this is where the drinks are in the evenings. The amount of noise in the area is phenomenal, adding to this, they scheduled classes in a "vendor showcase" at the rear of the room. This was one of the vendor showcases.
The product does look interesting, in that it integrates with your existing search result, providing a "bump" to relevancy based on tags, number of times tagged and number of times added to favorites. The product looked interesting, and was not insanely expensive.
The product does look interesting, in that it integrates with your existing search result, providing a "bump" to relevancy based on tags, number of times tagged and number of times added to favorites. The product looked interesting, and was not insanely expensive.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
How to make a Enterprise 2.0 platform that works
This was a panel discussion with two people who are implementing this technology now, and one analyst studying the market. I think Toby Redshaw, from Motorola, had the best anecdotal evidence of success with these products.
Toby Redshaw – corporate VP IDEAS Motorola
Oliver Young – Enterprise 2.0 researcher for Forrester Research
Mike Fratesi – Cisco’s unified communications group
Toby: it really does work. Whole company runs on Intranet 2.0 (75,000 users per day). Previously they had a very large knowledge management platform – very useful to the scientific users of the company. To this existing environment they added Wiki’s and Blogs. At this point they have 4400 Blogs & 4200 Wiki. They did not tell anyone, did not train anyone. Just gave people the opportunity to create and update data. Since these initial deployments they have implemented social tagging (folksonomy) through a product called Scuttle.
Started out very skeptical about folksonomy sees it as “Arlo Guthery doing IT”. He found that it does work – it lets people see new relationships, heat maps of what other people have done. They also are implementing Social Networking with a product called Visible Path.
Key to all of these is that the technology has to be so easy to use that the adoption curve is vertical. He does see an interesting usage curve – less often used the higher you go in the organization. This is good. Collaboration needs to happen at the worker level, not at the management level.
Oliver Young: bit of a dichotomy on the market. One set of people very excited about how to use this material. IT sees this as a big nightmare. Command and control mentality. Keeping a lot of the CIO’s up at night.
Among the companies taking a look at using these tools are in a experimental phase. Far less common to see a company turn on a dime and redo the way the whole company works.
Mike Fratesi from Cisco. Recently purchased WebEx. Trying to show the value of unified communication within a enterprise 2.0 environment. Seeing a ad-hoc growth of wiki’s and blogs. Now undertaking a multi million dollar project to re-architect the intranet incorporating presence, blogs, wiki’s, etc – with a collaborative model, not the classic command and control.
Question – 4400 blogs, 4200 wiki’s – that sounds like a mess. Who is deciding what to roll out, when to do them?
I own them, with a small team. It is run by a manager and 4 people. 250 knowledge champions around the company. They are selected by the group they are part of to be the wiki shepard of the knowledge. He basically ignores the people concerned about the possible bad content. You have to let it go. If you censor them, you will kill the whole project. You don’t beat the competition by having better buildings; you beat them by having better people. A smarter collaborative platform gives you the ability to jump ahead of the competition. If we play chess, but I get to make two moves to your one, no matter how good you are, I’ll win.
Question – Oliver, you talk to the security needs of the firms – how are companies reacting to this?
All security is paranoia. Most companies need to be prudent. It is absolutely true that these tools are making their way into your system. Asked companies about how many people are using blogs & wiki’s for business purposes? On average 20% - you need to have a code of conduct that addresses blogs, wiki’s etc. For $20 I can launch a wiki in Social Text, and IT will have no idea it exists. If you are not supplying these features, people will go elsewhere to develop them. Figure out what you are going to do with these tools, and help your employees.
Question – John Chambers is a big proponent of these tools. Can you talk to how this is working?
Mike: Senior support has been excellent and very helpful to implementing these changes.
Question – Generational, Old folks don’t get this?
Toby: build it as a platform, searchable across all environments, structured in the same way so you can move content from one area to another. You would think the old school pre web folks would not adopt this, but in fact they jumped right on board. They have the most to offer, it is easy to use, and it provides value. Pretty much even usage regardless of age, more about how close they are to the actual work.
Oliver: I see this as the ability to see it as useful, and the older users who are not tech savvy do not use the tool as much. The consumer numbers are 18-21 37% creating content, 41-50 12% creating content. This creates a learning curve.
Question – How are you seeing improvement?
Toby: It has become a virtual campus, where people meet and talk more often. Seeing less email and more alternative versions of communication. Believe that this results in a higher clock speed.
Oliver: Hard to measure. One example – created a database with standards we use, don’t use. Moved it to a wiki, no longer needed to have a 2 FTE dedicated to updating the product.
Toby: You can tell lots of stories about this. Look at the Sales Wiki’s. See how they have been able to update the presentation quicker. And so on, it is often anecdotal evidence not hard numbers.
Question: making it useful, making it searchable, tagging it – how did you help make that happen?
Toby: Only have 2600 users of the Scuttle. Simple one page description of how to do it. If you can’t explain it in one page, it is too complex. If you can’t feed the team on two pizza’s it is too large.
Question: Did you investigate reverse mentoring?
Toby: No, but I have heard of it happening. Nothing structured, nothing top down.
Question: Does this augment Project Management, or replace project management?
Oliver: it can be. Nothing replaces technology, they augment what is already in place.
Comment from the audience – ask if they are aware of and use these tools, invite them to groups for future work.
Oliver: Evangelists will find you.
Toby: We use open text live link. This works well with the Microsoft product line, so people “steal” from other projects, but it becomes a richer environment.
Mike: Needs to be an extensible environment.
Toby: IT for grownups is the way we handle the rogue sites. We give them both a carrot – cool tech inside, and a stick – you can’t do this.
Question: How has the culture changed?
Toby: One of my big goals is to turn Motorola into a unselfish group of people who team well. Why should I wait 3 days to get a email to get approval for something, when I can interrupt you now and get an okay? We changed the culture by creating carrots and sticks, and using them. “In order to change management, you have to CHANGE management. We let go 40% of the managers to get the remaining people aligned with the new culture. This happened as part of the work. Sr management is supposed to lead, the workers are the ones who need to collaborate. You need examples. Single best business process is the face to face conversation.
Oliver: there are a certain group of employees who will never change.
Question: Can you discuss some of the difficulties in rolling these out as pockets versus rolling it out as a platform?
Toby: I wish I could talk to that, but all we did was build a really good platform and then release it.
Toby Redshaw – corporate VP IDEAS Motorola
Oliver Young – Enterprise 2.0 researcher for Forrester Research
Mike Fratesi – Cisco’s unified communications group
Toby: it really does work. Whole company runs on Intranet 2.0 (75,000 users per day). Previously they had a very large knowledge management platform – very useful to the scientific users of the company. To this existing environment they added Wiki’s and Blogs. At this point they have 4400 Blogs & 4200 Wiki. They did not tell anyone, did not train anyone. Just gave people the opportunity to create and update data. Since these initial deployments they have implemented social tagging (folksonomy) through a product called Scuttle.
Started out very skeptical about folksonomy sees it as “Arlo Guthery doing IT”. He found that it does work – it lets people see new relationships, heat maps of what other people have done. They also are implementing Social Networking with a product called Visible Path.
Key to all of these is that the technology has to be so easy to use that the adoption curve is vertical. He does see an interesting usage curve – less often used the higher you go in the organization. This is good. Collaboration needs to happen at the worker level, not at the management level.
Oliver Young: bit of a dichotomy on the market. One set of people very excited about how to use this material. IT sees this as a big nightmare. Command and control mentality. Keeping a lot of the CIO’s up at night.
Among the companies taking a look at using these tools are in a experimental phase. Far less common to see a company turn on a dime and redo the way the whole company works.
Mike Fratesi from Cisco. Recently purchased WebEx. Trying to show the value of unified communication within a enterprise 2.0 environment. Seeing a ad-hoc growth of wiki’s and blogs. Now undertaking a multi million dollar project to re-architect the intranet incorporating presence, blogs, wiki’s, etc – with a collaborative model, not the classic command and control.
Question – 4400 blogs, 4200 wiki’s – that sounds like a mess. Who is deciding what to roll out, when to do them?
I own them, with a small team. It is run by a manager and 4 people. 250 knowledge champions around the company. They are selected by the group they are part of to be the wiki shepard of the knowledge. He basically ignores the people concerned about the possible bad content. You have to let it go. If you censor them, you will kill the whole project. You don’t beat the competition by having better buildings; you beat them by having better people. A smarter collaborative platform gives you the ability to jump ahead of the competition. If we play chess, but I get to make two moves to your one, no matter how good you are, I’ll win.
Question – Oliver, you talk to the security needs of the firms – how are companies reacting to this?
All security is paranoia. Most companies need to be prudent. It is absolutely true that these tools are making their way into your system. Asked companies about how many people are using blogs & wiki’s for business purposes? On average 20% - you need to have a code of conduct that addresses blogs, wiki’s etc. For $20 I can launch a wiki in Social Text, and IT will have no idea it exists. If you are not supplying these features, people will go elsewhere to develop them. Figure out what you are going to do with these tools, and help your employees.
Question – John Chambers is a big proponent of these tools. Can you talk to how this is working?
Mike: Senior support has been excellent and very helpful to implementing these changes.
Question – Generational, Old folks don’t get this?
Toby: build it as a platform, searchable across all environments, structured in the same way so you can move content from one area to another. You would think the old school pre web folks would not adopt this, but in fact they jumped right on board. They have the most to offer, it is easy to use, and it provides value. Pretty much even usage regardless of age, more about how close they are to the actual work.
Oliver: I see this as the ability to see it as useful, and the older users who are not tech savvy do not use the tool as much. The consumer numbers are 18-21 37% creating content, 41-50 12% creating content. This creates a learning curve.
Question – How are you seeing improvement?
Toby: It has become a virtual campus, where people meet and talk more often. Seeing less email and more alternative versions of communication. Believe that this results in a higher clock speed.
Oliver: Hard to measure. One example – created a database with standards we use, don’t use. Moved it to a wiki, no longer needed to have a 2 FTE dedicated to updating the product.
Toby: You can tell lots of stories about this. Look at the Sales Wiki’s. See how they have been able to update the presentation quicker. And so on, it is often anecdotal evidence not hard numbers.
Question: making it useful, making it searchable, tagging it – how did you help make that happen?
Toby: Only have 2600 users of the Scuttle. Simple one page description of how to do it. If you can’t explain it in one page, it is too complex. If you can’t feed the team on two pizza’s it is too large.
Question: Did you investigate reverse mentoring?
Toby: No, but I have heard of it happening. Nothing structured, nothing top down.
Question: Does this augment Project Management, or replace project management?
Oliver: it can be. Nothing replaces technology, they augment what is already in place.
Comment from the audience – ask if they are aware of and use these tools, invite them to groups for future work.
Oliver: Evangelists will find you.
Toby: We use open text live link. This works well with the Microsoft product line, so people “steal” from other projects, but it becomes a richer environment.
Mike: Needs to be an extensible environment.
Toby: IT for grownups is the way we handle the rogue sites. We give them both a carrot – cool tech inside, and a stick – you can’t do this.
Question: How has the culture changed?
Toby: One of my big goals is to turn Motorola into a unselfish group of people who team well. Why should I wait 3 days to get a email to get approval for something, when I can interrupt you now and get an okay? We changed the culture by creating carrots and sticks, and using them. “In order to change management, you have to CHANGE management. We let go 40% of the managers to get the remaining people aligned with the new culture. This happened as part of the work. Sr management is supposed to lead, the workers are the ones who need to collaborate. You need examples. Single best business process is the face to face conversation.
Oliver: there are a certain group of employees who will never change.
Question: Can you discuss some of the difficulties in rolling these out as pockets versus rolling it out as a platform?
Toby: I wish I could talk to that, but all we did was build a really good platform and then release it.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Corporate Blogging
It's a good thing Greg didn't attend this session - the first presenter started off by explaining that she doesn't believe in PowerPoint! I'd tell you who she was, but she didn't have any slides, and looking at the program, she's not in it ;o) She did have a good point in discussing the usefulness of blogs in the corporate world - their utility depends on what you're trying to accomplish, as they are a tool, not an end to themselves. You can build anything with a hammer, it depends on what you actually want to build.
In that vein, blogs can provide a means for forming relationships, for providing information about what's happening behind the scenes (to satisfy normal human curiosity). She suggested that blogs can supplant email as a communication device, which I agree with. She also seemed to imply that it can be used as a storage mechanism, which I would definitely NOT agree with.
Oliver Young from Forrester was doing a survey of corporate IT, and blogging was seen as lower value than most Web 2.0 tools - only 17% found it significantly valuable. This led to a discussion of ROI, and the information that of all of the companies that required an ROI study of email before implementing it, none of them did a follow-up study, since it wasn't worth it, since they couldn't put the genie back in the bottle.
The panel put forward the notion that the lack of popularity of blogs is a lack of understanding of the tool. As Oliver put it, if you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The anecdote there was the idea that when email was new, a department would have one email address, and the admin had to print it out and put a copy on every desk. Of course it isn't useful at that point.
Regarding risks, the panelists noted that the risk of blogs is only going to expose the risks that are already there - the person who will blog about comapny secrets could just as easily stand on the corner with a megaphone, but that doesn't make it the megaphone's fault. The suggestion was that the best blog policy is "don't do anything stupid."
Another point that came up is that the value of email erodes over time, as when people leave the company, you lose access to their email. On the other hand, blogs remain available, and can be annotated or tagged, which actually increases their value over time. One thing they talked about that we haven't enabled is the ability to cc: a project blog on an email. I can definitely see the usefulness of that - one public repository for all of the information about a specific project, available all together in one place, on demand, for anyone who has access. As opposed to being cc'd on 10 emails per day that may or may not be relevant to you at a given point in time. Of course, I think Notes 8.0 addresses some of the same things, really.
In general, I would agree with the panel's tacit conclusions - that there is value inherent in the concept of a blog, but we may not see that value realized for some time, until they become more mainstream.
In that vein, blogs can provide a means for forming relationships, for providing information about what's happening behind the scenes (to satisfy normal human curiosity). She suggested that blogs can supplant email as a communication device, which I agree with. She also seemed to imply that it can be used as a storage mechanism, which I would definitely NOT agree with.
Oliver Young from Forrester was doing a survey of corporate IT, and blogging was seen as lower value than most Web 2.0 tools - only 17% found it significantly valuable. This led to a discussion of ROI, and the information that of all of the companies that required an ROI study of email before implementing it, none of them did a follow-up study, since it wasn't worth it, since they couldn't put the genie back in the bottle.
The panel put forward the notion that the lack of popularity of blogs is a lack of understanding of the tool. As Oliver put it, if you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. The anecdote there was the idea that when email was new, a department would have one email address, and the admin had to print it out and put a copy on every desk. Of course it isn't useful at that point.
Regarding risks, the panelists noted that the risk of blogs is only going to expose the risks that are already there - the person who will blog about comapny secrets could just as easily stand on the corner with a megaphone, but that doesn't make it the megaphone's fault. The suggestion was that the best blog policy is "don't do anything stupid."
Another point that came up is that the value of email erodes over time, as when people leave the company, you lose access to their email. On the other hand, blogs remain available, and can be annotated or tagged, which actually increases their value over time. One thing they talked about that we haven't enabled is the ability to cc: a project blog on an email. I can definitely see the usefulness of that - one public repository for all of the information about a specific project, available all together in one place, on demand, for anyone who has access. As opposed to being cc'd on 10 emails per day that may or may not be relevant to you at a given point in time. Of course, I think Notes 8.0 addresses some of the same things, really.
In general, I would agree with the panel's tacit conclusions - that there is value inherent in the concept of a blog, but we may not see that value realized for some time, until they become more mainstream.
Mobile Worker Panel
Strong panel discussion on the current state of the Mobile worker platform. Strong need to reduce the TCO of mobile phones. Strong need to take advantage of the functionality of the phone to drive business value. Security is key, but not a differentiators for a phone company. Not too much on Enterprise 2.0 style applications, but they will follow.
Key point is to identify a high value community, show how to leverage apps on mobile to generate value through this community. Take advantage of the users who are already "on their feet", supply mobile apps to them in a way that adds value, and they become the ROI proof for continuing to create mobile apps. Not sure who this is for us - we need to be sure to hit one out of the park right away with this functionality, and I do not think our vision workflow is a strong enough case. Even taking What's due for you and making available on blackberry doesn't feel like revenue enhancement.
I think we need to do a full focus group / user ethnographic study to see how they could be used. Tough sell.
Key point is to identify a high value community, show how to leverage apps on mobile to generate value through this community. Take advantage of the users who are already "on their feet", supply mobile apps to them in a way that adds value, and they become the ROI proof for continuing to create mobile apps. Not sure who this is for us - we need to be sure to hit one out of the park right away with this functionality, and I do not think our vision workflow is a strong enough case. Even taking What's due for you and making available on blackberry doesn't feel like revenue enhancement.
I think we need to do a full focus group / user ethnographic study to see how they could be used. Tough sell.
Unified Communications - Sessions
This session was about the capability to integrate voice, IM, collaboration, and other cool toys into a single application. There were some very interesting demonstrations of Microsoft, IBM, Nortell, Avaya and others systems for creating these unified communication systems. There were very interesting potential future uses for Sametime, or the other companies equivalents. By the end of the session, all of the different products blended into a single mass of features and functions. For the most part, they all were able to incorporate video chat, chat, VOIP, application sharing, place based awareness, and discussion into a single application. I am very excited by these demonstrations and hope we will be able to leverage these features in Sametime 7.5 when it rolls out internally.
IT Manager 2.0 Session
This was an interesting session that did not meet my expectations. I was expecting the talk to be about managing the 2.0 enterprise. Instead this session was about the evolving IT Manager role. There was a bit of "preaching to the converted" feel to the session. The five issues the presenter identified are new tools, moving from vendors to utilities, security, alignment, focus and intent. The speaker led 5 break out sessions around each of these topics. They were very energetic, but again, we were all saying the same things - it is not the technology, it is the culture; IT needs to be better aligned with the business; and so on.
This was my first exposure to SLATES - the fundamental changes that Enterprise 2.0 represents. Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions, Signals. Authoring is talking to having distributed authoring - where anyone at any time can publish anything, within the environment. Signals is about using RSS in the enterprise.
Everything I heard, was right in the strike zone we are aiming for. Only issue is people are moving forward very quickly - much faster than we seem to be.
This was my first exposure to SLATES - the fundamental changes that Enterprise 2.0 represents. Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions, Signals. Authoring is talking to having distributed authoring - where anyone at any time can publish anything, within the environment. Signals is about using RSS in the enterprise.
Everything I heard, was right in the strike zone we are aiming for. Only issue is people are moving forward very quickly - much faster than we seem to be.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Still waiting...
Day one (tutorials) was very interesting. I'm still a bit skeptical, and still waiting to hear a really good, rational argument for the inevitable success of Enterprise 2.0. However, I do now have a better picture of the landscape, and of some of the arguments (some good, some not so good) for E2.0. I suspect it really does boil down to culture, and a new, young generation that has embraced a certain way of interacting and networking. It certainly can't be all the technology -- we've done most of this before...
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Welcome
This blog will focus on our thoughts and reactions to the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston the week of June 17th.
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