The wiki is part of the office productivity suite

Yes, its been a while since I last blogged. Since presenting down in Canberra in early October I've barely had time to keep up with reading other people's posts! What I can say is that is that prefer to deal with an overloaded RSS Reader that a bloated inbox. So, in a worst case scenario RSS still helps my personal productivity.

However a couple of things in particular have caught my attention during that time:

• Hosted wiki'ish collaborative application Jotspot is now part of the Google "ecology"; and
• Socialtext released a Microsoft Sharepoint version of its enterprise wiki software.

Noting that many have observed that Google is lining up the pieces for an Office 2.0 offering that could go head-to-head with Microsoft, I'm also interested to see that either way the wiki is becoming an integrated part of the enterprise office productivity suite.

I'm also pleased in reflection that my enterprise wiki article (PDF, 121KB) for IDM published in May/June 2005 still makes some valid points.

Technorati tags: Microsoft Sharepoint, Google, Jotspot, Socialtext, Enterprise Wiki, Technology in the Workplace

Open Space Technology with Larry Peterson

Another bonus of being down in Canberra yesterday was that I had the chance care of ACT KM during the day to learn a little about Open Space Technology (OST) from one the world's experts in this area, Larry Peterson. Larry is on a bit of a tour around Australia and NZ and recently ran an event with ACT KM's sister organisation in Melbourne.

OST is interesting because I can see how social software can act as both a tool to be used as part of an OST session (to capture and publish outputs quickly) but also as a kind of virtual OST.

Technorati tags: Open Space Technology, Larry Peterson, ACT KM, Social Software

A warm welcome for Enterprise 2.0 in Canberra

Chris Barry from AIM Canberra is making good use of their new blog and has posted some photos from my presentation last night. As you'll see I had a very warm welcome.

Special mentions for their support on the night to Mark Shenk from Anecdote, Angela Beesley, Craig Thomler from WordSoup (who is currently doing some interesting things at ActewAGL, including these map mashups), Brad Hinton (for taking the time to send me a follow up email with some thoughtful reading recommendations and for acknowledging a shared interest in industrial history!) and some colleagues from CSC who attended.

Technorati tags: Canberra, Australian Institute of Management

Half-Live Writer from Windows

I'm currently trying out Microsoft's Beta Windows Live Writer. I have to admit that I mostly like it...

It has comfortable look and feel of a Windows application - since it is essentially some kind of Frontpage/Word hybrid, that's what you would expect. And for that reason I could seriously see enterprise users adopting it very easily.

But there is always a "but" - can I find a simple plugin that will let me insert tags AND that will actually install? I don't know why, but this stuff is just so much easier in Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird! Any ideas anyone?

UPDATE: Charles Teague from the Live Writer team pointed me in the right direction... I'm now up and running with the latest version and that has solved my tagging needs!

Tags: Windows Live Writer, WLW Plugins

Beware of the Dog

All Rod Boothby wanted to do was explain how he thought Enterprise 2.0 was a threat to traditional enterprise groupware like Lotus Notes... instead a pack of Lotus Notes developers turned on him ;-)

"With all due respect, Rod, you clearly haven't got a clue about what you're talking about when it comes to the capabilities of Lotus Notes and how (apart from basic mail and calendaring) it is used."

Read the comments on Ed Brill's blog too.

Yes, its true: I don't think Boothby really understands Lotus Notes either but that really isn't the point. Stu Downes articulates one part of this in his comments to the original post:

"[Lotus Notes] is competing with very well written web based applications which are increasingly becoming available freely on the web. These disruptive technologies will be in our enterprises tomorrow... I hope IBM can use this post as a jolt to remind themselves that many people are not getting the power of Notes because their own organisation is way behind the times and development curve."

However, I think there is more. Personally what I find frustrating (based on my own experiences of using Lotus Notes) is that the Enterprise 2.0 idea could be informed by an understanding of where Notes came from and what it has achieved. So building on Downes point, it could be a two-way street - Lotus Notes improves Enterprise 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 improves Lotus Notes.

Unfortunately the real challenge that Lotus Notes faces from an Enterprise 2.0 platform is that it isn't a consumer technology - the trend we have seen is Web 2.0 technologies coming from the outside into organisations and with only few exceptions this is unlikely to happen for Lotus Notes.

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Software, Lotus Notes, Rod Boothby

Screaming anti-theft system for mobile phones

Very William Gibson... if you've read Virtual Light you'll know about the cars and bicycles that tell people to "Back off!" if they get too close - well:

"A UK firm is hoping a mobile security system it has developed which sets off a high pitch scream, permanently locks the handset and wipes all data if stolen, will halt the spiraling rise in phone theft."

This would be good for any kind of mobile information technology, don't you think?

Tags: Mobile Security System, William Gibson

Reminder: Rebooting the Enterprise with Blogs, Wikis and other Social Software next week in Canberra

Just a reminder:

Rebooting the Enterprise with Blogs, Wikis and other Social Software
Speaker: James Dellow, Senior Consultant - Information And Knowledge Management, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)
Location: Level 3, Engineering House, 11 National Cct, Barton (corner of National Cct and Brisbane Ave)
Time : 5.30pm-7.30pm (refreshments from 5.30pm)

For more information and to register to attend visit the AIM Website.

Tags: Australian Institute of Management, Canberra, Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise Wiki Survey Results - Participation challenges for some

Care of the ELSUA KM blog, a heads up that the results of a survey on enterprise wikis are now available. Some initial conclusions:

• The main reason affecting the choice of a wiki clearly is the simplicity of use and implementation. The expense is only a very small factor.


• The main problem is the lack of participation of the intended users. Almost half of the participants had to deal with this problem at least temporarily. Thus the encouragement of the employees is an important item to add to the success of the wiki.

Interesting that previously we have heard from the Motorola experience that a bottom-up implementation was easy to achieve. However, this survey suggests that this may not be the experience for everyone.

BTW I'd also like to extend my thanks to Tim Bartel for his efforts and for sharing the results.

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Software, Tim Bartel, Wikis

More user control over multimedia content

We all know that user-generated multimedia content, particularly video, is exploding online but as I've commented before a lot of this content is still static from a Web 2.0 point of view.

What I mean is that if you think about Andrew McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 "SLATES" concept - Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions and Signals - then its the deep search and ability to hyperlink from within content that we need to see mature. This isn't to say user-generated content isn't social, I just don't think it is fully integrated into the Web 2.0 model... well yet anyway.

Pluggd's demo of its semantic podcast search has created a bit of interest this last week and Techcrunch has a good summary of what its all about. Techcrunch comment:

"This is one of the most compelling examples I've seen lately of a growing trend: making multimedia content more granular and letting users take even greater control over the media we consume. We don't just want to consume what we wish, we want to consume it in the way we wish."

Also have a look at their overview of Viddler, who aim to make video easier to search via tagging.

BTW Another piece in this multimedia Web 2.0 space is talkr - working the other way, it converts text-based blogs (or rather RSS feeds) into machine read speech.

Tags: hypermedia, Pluggd, talkr, Viddler

ROI on collaboration technology in the construction industry

Care of the Attensa blog (Attensa is an enterprise RSS solution), a good news story about the high levels of satisfaction in UK construction with collaboration technology, where 96% of respondents to an industry survey "interviewed said they had experienced benefits from using collaboration technologies."

Two of most important benefits identified by this and other research suggests that users value audit trail related benefits and the ability to access data and information quickly.

A report on this research by the UK's Network for Construction Collaboration Technology Providers, which was designed to demonstrate the ROI on using collaboration technology, is available to download (PDF).

Tags: collaboration software, collaboration technology, NCCTP

Universal Sharing Bus?

Is there anything we can't do with a USB port these days? For example, here is an idea for a USB-port powered rechargable battery (care of Read/WriteWeb). And considering how ubiquitous USB is for sharing information and multimedia, running applications and doing other stuff maybe we should include in the Web 2.0 cloud and extend the model to include hardware as well as software?

Tags: Moixa Energy, Web 2.0, USB

Social barcoding

If you're a dot-com veteran you'll remember the CueCat - now the basic idea has been reborn in a couple of ways as SmartPox and also Mytago. Based on previous experience, should we be afraid? Well, both SmartPox and Mytago appear to designed to be part of the social software cloud, but I guess it remains to be seen how successful either will be.

Tags: CueCat, mytago, Smartpox

If they aren't strategic, why are they so essential?

I've been thinking about a piece by Mark Jones in the AFR last week (IBM notes changing trends in bid to boost Lotus, 14 September 2006, Australian Financial Review) where he comments "chief information officers rarely consider Notes, or competitive software such as Microsoft Office, to be a strategic purchase."

I don't disagree with the observation - but it troubles me greatly that CIO's don't think much about the strategic value, or strategic impacts, of their decisions about the basic messaging and office productivity tools they provide to staff. Could this be why so many experienced Lotus Notes users are so passionate about their tool or why so many businesses run on the smell of an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet?

So if they aren't strategic, why are they so essential? Take these work horses away from people, and many organisations would grind to a halt. And perhaps this is why so many people inside the firewall are getting excited about what Web 2.0 technologies will let them do?

BTW The context for the article was to report on IBM's attempts to rejuvenate Lotus Notes by positioning it as a social software-friendly platform - the AFR's article isn't available online (except to subscribers), but this ARNnet article from earlier in the year gives you an idea of what IBM are planning.

Tags: enterprise social software, Lotus Notes, IT strategy

In the eye of the beholder

Following on from yesterday's post, Brian Keairns makes a similiar observation:

"I find Andrews’s definition to be effective even though I don’t believe it will be possible to say that an application inherently meets that definition out of the box. There will certainly be applications that can be deployed in either an Enterprise 2.0 mode or a traditional mode or a transitional mode and enterprises will find a way to deploy even the purist Enterprise 2.0 web software in a way that’s not optional or egalitarian. So if you wanted to “certify” an application as Enterprise 2.0 you’d have to look at the implementation to decide whether it was Enterprise 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 Transitional or not Enterprise 2.0 at all."

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software

Setting boundaries on Enterprise 2.0

Andrew McAfee wants to define Enterprise 2.0 as "the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers" but is concerned that others are expanding the concept to include a discussion of software development models and delivery methods.

Similarly we see some uncomfortable overlaps between the concepts of Web 2.0, Social Software and everything that has gone before. Something I've always done to help deal with this issue is to consider the difference between function (what is does) and form (how it does it). Unfortunately in doing this we have to accept a grey area to exist between the tools and technologies used, the way they are used and how we attempt to explain them using management theory. In other words people don't use technology in such a bounded fashion - think about the spreadsheet, a classic user-driven software tool, and the different ways it is put to use. Another point is that if we separate function and form, then organisations can use what ever tools and technologies they want to achieve Enterprise 2.0, not just (for example) an open source Blog written in PHP and running on Apache.

From a management point of view I think Enterprise 2.0 is a good place to start a conversation about Enteprise Social Software, but if we ignore the broader picture of Web 2.0 inside the enterprise then we may miss out on another story unfolding. The trick is learning to discuss them as both form and function so that we understand the opportunities and implications.

Incidentally part of this other story is something my CSC colleagues have previously identified and labelled "Extreme Data".

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software

Around the Google world in 24 hours

We've been mapping the Internet since its earliest days, and now we have what Richard Akerman on the O'Reilly Radar blog describes as a "hypnotic view of a day of Google traffic on a map."

We talk about being always on, always connected but for the most part this map shows a lot of the developing world in darkness while the rest pretty much still sleep when we expect them. Still, I suppose Google is everything.

For maps of the Internet have a look at the Atlas of Cyberspace.

Tags: Google, maps of the Internet, visualizations

The Future of Free Content - tomorrow in Melbourne

Short notice I know, but if you're in Melbourne tomorrow night and have an interest in wikis then check out this Churchhill Club event featuring Angela Beesley. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation and will be discussing the future of free content.

Also check out the Wikimedia Australia site that supports the proposed chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation in Australia.

Tags: Angela Beesley, wikis, Wikimedia Foundation

Map mashups are just the start - part 2

The other day I mentioned the importance of considering the the difference between visual (e.g. Google Maps) and non-visual mashups - particulary when thinking about the role for mashups inside the firewall. One of the problems with making that leap is that most Web 2.0 mashups have been focused around map mashups. However, MusicPortl is an excellent example of non-map mashup:

"a place where you can get an overview of information about a music artist. To achieve this goal, it takes advantage of state-of-the-art XML webservice APIs that many websites offer today."

Hats off to Christoph Olszowka for putting MusicPortl together using the services of 8 different data sources.

Tags: non-visual mashups, MusicPortl

Rebooting the Enterprise - 11 October

If you are in Canberra on 11 October come along and hear me talk about "Rebooting the Enterprise with Blogs, Wikis and other Social Software" for the Australian Institute of Management. More details are available on the AIM Canberra Website.

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software

Email becoming less effective for the sender

A lot of the same old insights and advice have been floating around for a while about email and how people use (or misuse) it. I've even added my own take on the situation in the past (PDF). However, I was interested to read Darren Barefoot's observation about how wireless email is changing how people in business communicate with email. His theory is that the size of the device actually reduces their ability to respond quickly if an email requires a long and detailed reply:

"When Blackberry users check their email, maybe they’re mostly in a receive-only mode. The Blackberry has, in theory, extended the time lag between reception and response."

Troy Angrignon's replies with his own thoughts, and this comment in particular I thought was interesting:

"I don't even READ much of my inbound email anymore (I can see the first line of it in Gmail, why open it?) Or I flag it and get around to cleaning those up WAY too late. I have had it with letting my email flows dictate how much time I spend at the computer so have pretty much just decided to read/act on only the top 10% of my mail"

So, overall it appears that email is becoming less effective for the sender at least. Something to think about.

Tags: Blackberry, email, technology in the workplace, wireless email

Web 2.0 and Co. get the hype treatment from Gartner

Care of ProgrammableWeb (and many others), Gartner have put emegring technologies such as Web 2.0 through its classic S-shaped hype cycle anlaysis. They highlight Social Network Analysis (SNA), Mashups, collective intelligence and AJAX as well as what they call the "Real World Web" - e.g. things that are location-aware.

Tags: enterprise social software, Gartner, Web 2.0

Evolution of the GUI

To get a taste of the evolution of the GUI see the Room 101 blog, but I found there are real GUI fanatics out there, including:

• GUI Gallery - "screen shots of various desktop computer Graphical User Interfaces and operating systems"; and


• GUIdebook - "a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces, as well as various materials related to them".

Both site have timelines but GUIdebook looks the most comprehensive and you can follow the evolution of the GUI from Douglas Engelbart to Windows Vista! Of course if you want to go back further, try this CGI Timeline that starts with the Chinese Abacus.

Tags: computers and society, GUI, history of computing

How to mashup a quick Google map

For the non-programmers out there, and spotted via Angus McDonald's commentary on the Australian media's use of mashups in their own online news sites, Quickmaps lets you markup a Google Map with markers, comments, and lines.

Tags: Google Maps, mashups, Quickmaps

Data ghosts in the machine and online

In the US I hear that AOL accidentally leaked the search history of 650,000 users (care of the Datamation IT News Blog), meanwhile a local electrical retailer sold a memory stick that someone had used to take pictures at their own sales conference. More reminders that we are leaving data tracks everywhere about our digital lives...

However, we can't say we weren't warned - we already know that old hard drives and secondhand PDA's can accidentally reveal a lot about their owners.

Tags: information security, online privacy

Google Map mashups are just the start

Care of ProgrammableWeb, a pointer to an insightful InfoWorld blog post that highlights the difference between visual and non-visual mashups:

"Truth-be-told, while visual mashups are cool and useful, I think that non-visual mashups will be more valuable to business as time goes on."

I would perhaps edit this slightly and suggest that non-visual (or even non-map) mashups will be more valuable inside or between businesses over time.

PS I can't help myself... for a bit of fun, have a look at Goggles, a flying game based on Google Maps. I hope someone gives the author a job for this great effort!

Tags: non-visual mashups, mashups

RSS isn't magic - its just XML!

We shouldn't be surprised to learn that, according to CFO magazine in the US, most users of RSS are more likely to be accessing traditional news and weather content than blogs - after all RSS is just XML data and while it provides "glue" that helps bind the social software cloud together in itself it isn't restricted to social applications.

Actually in the article, Forrester Research's Charlene Li correctly points out that "Most people today don't know what SMTP is, but it's the protocol used to deliver E-mail... RSS will be like that."

However, the structured format of RSS means that it will likely become more of a workhorse that email is today. The exciting thing about of RSS is that the end-user can choose how they want to access it - via a browser, in a widget or gadget, email, RSS reader and even XML-to-voice via a phone and perhaps through an IM client. And its pretty good for enabling social software too :-)

Just for the record, this "grey area" is something I've been blogging and talking about in my presentations for a while now...

Tags: enterprise social software, rss, social software

Do you like crisps (chips)?

Something funny on flickr that will appeal to people interested in usability, via Euan Semple.

Tags: humour, usability

The Secret Life of Bloggers

Two interesting reports/articles on the web with a similar theme about content creation and social software on the Internet:

• Picked up by Anecdote (and many others), the Guardian talks about the 1% rule - "It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will 'interact' with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it"; and


• The Pew Internet & American Life Project have released a new report on the motivations and habits of bloggers - one of their findings is that most bloggers don't view their efforts as a "public endeavour" and spend on average only 1-2 hours a week blogging.

To be honest, there is nothing surprising here but it does counteract some of the hype in this space. Its also worth (again) referencing back to Figallo's practical guidence on hosting web communities, which again is still looking pretty solid even after a few years... so even if time alone is the only barrier to blogging its unlikely we will ever see everyone writing a blog because there are clearly other factors at play.

Tags: blogging, Cliff+Figallo, Pew+Internet+&+American+Life+Project, social software

Pre-paid credit cards arrive in Australia

Nice to see a bit of disruption in the Australian banking sector with the recent launch of what is claimed to be Australia's first pre-paid credit card - the Bopo pre-paid Visa card from Bill Express can be ordered online and then topped up at 3,500 newsagents.

But I find it strange that there doesn't appear to be any other way topping up the card other than going physically into a newsagent. Considering two of the proposed benefits are "To keep your bank account separate when you buy online" and "Convenient Internet-only statements" the reality is it looks more like a product for non-online consumers. For example, Visa's pre-paid Buxx card (available in the US) appears to offer more top up options.

Reviews of the new pre-paid credit card early in the year by consumer credit advocates (as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald) also suggested that when you look at the fees and features, a traditional bank debit card might offer better value and more flexability.

Still, its a good example of how technology can help to disrupt existing markets.

Tags: bopo, e-commerce, pre-paid credit card

Hands on SNA for organisations

Many people have asked about learning the practical side of social network analysis (SNA), as its much more fun if you can get your hands on the tools and work with them. Optimice have put together a 2 day hands-on course on ONA (...SNA for organizations) which will be held in Sydney in October. As a bonus they are giving participants a copy of Rob Cross and Andrew Parker's book on the "Hidden Power of Social Networks", one of the most practical books on SNA that you will find. There is an early bird offer as well!

Tags: knowledge management, social network analysis

Change of gear at ChiefTech

Just a quick note to let you know that I've decided to put Chief Technology Solutions on hold in order to take up a full-time position with CSC in Australia as an information and knowledge management consultant. While I've enjoyed working with a range of businesses over the last few years, this is an exciting oppourtunity for me to focus on consulting in projects for CSC's blue chip and government clients. Its also a chance to work with some interesting people in the information and knowledge management space like Laurie Lock Lee and Cai Kjaer.

As for the ChiefTech blog, hopefully you won't notice any real changes to what I'm posting, but I will point out that moving forward this will very much be a personal blog about technology, information and knowledge management - don't expect to find me talking (directly) about my work at CSC :-)

I'm also going to continue with being involved as a board member of Workplace Learning Illawarra, a member of the NSW KM Forum committee and a supporter of the Illawarra ICT cluster.

Tags: Computer Sciences Corporation, James Dellow

Customise me, Jessica!

In an innovative move by Yahoo's music channel, they have released a DRM-free personalised MP3 by Jessica Simpson. The personalisation is quite simple, you can pick a person's name to incorporate into the song, but provides a proof of concept. The Yahoo! Music blog provides a bit of background and feedback putting forward a point we haven't heard much about before, the cost of implementing DRM:

"Our position is simple: DRM doesn’t add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day — the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform... It’s very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We’d much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway!"

Great to see ideas emerging for alternative business models that use the mass customisation potiential of technology to open up rather lock down music and other downloadable media.

Tags: drm, music, personalized music, Yahoo! music

Descartes to Berners-Lee

JP blogged about Jonathan Riehl’s Digitising More Than Organisational DNA article in FirstMonday, but I just skipped to the references... from René Descartes to a 1948 paper on A Mathematical Theory of Communication (PDF) to Berners-Lee and Connolly on Hypertext Markup Language.

Tags: FirstMonday, History of the Internet, Jonathan Riehl

Meet Dandelife and Wufoo

No time for a decent blog post at the moment, but here are a couple of interesting new tools I've seen recently:

• dandelife.com, care of Many-to-Many who describe it as a social software tools for "building biographies of people, places and things";
  
• wufoo.com, care of Read/Write Web, lets you create your own online forms.

Tags: Dandelife, web+2.0, Wufoo

The best of the best in KM

Care of Knowledge Jolt with Jack, the 2006 World's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) winners have been recently released. Like business awards in the general, the value of the MAKE awards has often been debated in KM circles, but I think its good to at least have list of companies to compare and benchmark your own performance against. Also, with my background in KM at Ernst & Young its always good to see them still making the list!

Tags: Ernst & Young, knowledge management, MAKE awards

DKW Wiki Case Study Updated

The case study for enterprise wiki poster child, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, has apparently been updated and it now available as a PDF (the perfect format for spreading the word around your own business)...

Tags: Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, enterprise social software, wiki

Particpant's feedback from masterclass on KM and Technology

I can't believe its been almost a week since my trip to Singapore to run my masterclass on knowledge management and technology. I've hardly had a chance to blog, but I wanted to capture what the participants reported back to me as what they saw as the key concepts and ideas we had looked at over the two days. In no particular order, they are:

• Approaches towards KM, particulary the importance of social network in corporate environments and the role of KM audits;


• Different KM concepts and perspectives, including IT as an enabler to KM within the simple framework of people, process, content and technology; and


• New technology, particulary social software and social network analysis.

As you can see social software was a particular focus, but its important to point out that our discussions were firmly grounded in its application within the firewall and the different challenges this creates.

Thanks again to everyone who attended... the reading list will be coming soon!

Tags: enterprise social software, knowledge management, masterclass, Singapore

The Accountants View of Web 2.0

Written somewhere between Sydney and Singapore... posted in Singapore

A case of serendipity - I came across a copy of the May edition of In the Black, CPA Australia's magazine for accountants, that just happened to have a feature on Web 2.0; or as they put it "Make money out of the internet this time around".

It was interesting to read an accountants perspective on Web 2.0 - I even picked up a new concept, "inventory bubble". Basically what this means is that the some of the success of auction sites like eBay is effectively based on traders buying from other traders rather than actually selling something to the final consumer. The net result I suppose is a bit like a pyramid scheme?

However, despite this warning overall there is a suggestion - and thinking here about the classic Gartner S-shaped hype curve - that the this time around the basis of the Web 2.0 business models (or at least those people investing in them) are a lot more mature than we saw in 2000. There is also a point made that many of the viable or successful Internet business models have nothing to do with Web 2.0. So, the bottom line is just good common sense: forget the hype, is the fundamental business model sound?

PS Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic (See Omnidrive) also gets a mention.

Tags: accountants, Gartner, Web 2.0

Waiting at Sydney

Currently waiting to board my flight to Singapore at Sydney Airport for the masterclass I’m running there on Monday and Tuesday.

Do you know what I hate most about flying… being offline! Actually, Singapore Airlines do now offer inflight wifi internet access, but its hardly priced for the masses (just yet). If it ever gets fast enough I wonder what it will do to the inflight entertainment?

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to come up with some good words to describe the third dimension of collaboration:

• Hyper-Dialogue vs Dialogue?


• Networked vs Linear?


• Bounded (Closed) vs Unbounded (Open)?


• Consensus Building vs Chaotic?


• Crowds vs Groups/Teams

Hmm. Maybe I can come up with something better in the next eight hours or so I’m in the air.

PS If you’re attending my masterclass tomorrow, I’m very much looking forward to meeting you!

Tags: Always on, always connected, Connexion, Sydney Airport

Mistrusting Skype users

Highlighting the ongoing tension between IT departments and Web 2.0 technologies being used inside the firewall, Chris Nerney on The Datamation IT Blog points to concerns reported about Skype from enterprise IT departments:

"...Skype hasn't had as much luck is in the corporate sector. One of the main reasons for this, according to an article on CNET News.com, is inadequate username authentication for business customers. In other words, a lot of IT managers would like a better idea of who is connecting to their networks... CNET points out, IT managers are concerned that in-house users are unable to "authenticate the identity of the people they are communicating with." One authentication technique being considered by Skype is a "ring of trust," in which users are identified by a certification authority. That sounds like a hard sell to an IT manager running a large enterprise containing sensitive data.

On the otherhand an earlier article in CSO magazine, responding to a research reporting claiming to debunk the Skype hype, comments

"...there is any longer a mystery about [Skype's] risks, which have been well debated elsewhere. A number of companies have even started selling products that set out to stop the application from running at all."

So at the moment there is no middle group: either we block it or just run with it and stop worrying about the risks. Perhaps, as Nerney suggests at the end of his post, this is a golden oppourtunity for a Web 2.0 startup to solve the problem and keep everyone happy.

technorati tags:Skype, enterprise+social+software, information+security, greynets

Amazing ASIMO

A little off topic, but I have to say that Australian sci-tech TV show Beyond Tomorrow did a really good job tonight of explaining why Honda's ASIMO robot represents such an innovation. ASIMO has been developing over the last twenty years and the goal is that one day "ASIMO may serve as another set of eyes, ears, hands and legs for all kinds of people in need. Someday ASIMO might help with important tasks like assisting the elderly or a person confined to a bed or a wheelchair. ASIMO might also perform certain tasks that are dangerous to humans, such as fighting fires or cleaning up toxic spills."

Watching ASIMO in action, particulary walking and running, has to be seen to be believed!

technorati tags:robots, innovation, ASIMO

That ol'Time Shifting Argument?

I get Nick Carr's point and the complaint about Jon Udell showing people how to download an MP3 file version of an MP3 stream from a US public radio site, but isn't this just about time shifting (the same issue as recording free-to-air TV or radio) only more confusing for the consumer?

In this particular case we are given a choice between a free stream "anytime" or buy a copy so you can listen "anytime". The Website in question, for a US show called This American Life, also promotes the downloadable versions you can purchase as "high quality downloads" suggesting that its a different product anyway.

In addition, on the This American Life site they also say "Why you can't download our MP3 Files: Allowing download of those files would require us to PAY contributors for each download, as we do when we sell a CD or a show on Audible. Doing this would be an administrative nightmare, and we can't afford it."

So they themselves would rather stream because this way they don't have the administrative overhead of paying their contributors!

Tags: Jon Udell, Nicholas Carr, time shifting

Wallpaper - the future of digital music art?

Aside from issues of digital rights management, Charles Arthur in the Guardian newspaper writes about an issue I've often wondered about too - what happens to album cover art in a world of digital downloads? He asks "Whatever happened to those big 'gatefold' sleeves on double albums, where you had two feet of space to go mad? What about the photo booklet inserts that The Who used on Quadrophenia, telling a story to accompany the double album through dozens of wordless 11- by 11-inch black-and-white photos?"

I had assumed that perhaps, like books, people would still occasionally desire something tangible to represent their favourite artist (or author) and that they would live on as luxuries at least. But wandering across the MC Lars (aka Mr anthem of the MP3 generation, "Download this song") website the other day I noticed that album cover art of a sort still lives on in digital form - AIM buddy icons and mobilephone (cellphone) wallpaper. Not quite the same perhaps, but at least there are signs that art for the musical masses will live on.

I wonder what other innovations we will see in this area?

Tags: new+media, music+downloads, web+2.0

The 3rd Dimension of Collaboration

I just had one of those strange moments - often rare when you reside in a distant part of the southern hemisphere - where I'm conversing indirectly with another blogger, in this case JP Rangaswami about my last post.

I wonder, is it time to expand our classic two dimensions of collaboration (synchronous and asynchronous) to include a third? I'm not sure what to call this new dimension, but two suitable computer geek terms to position its two extremes might be serial and parallel. The blogosphere at its best is when we are talking at the same time, but to each other at the same time...

Tags: blogging, collaboration, social+software

Eating the two-dot-zero elephant

I said I had more to say about the traditional and the new wave of Web 2.0 inspired collaboration technologies, but the more I think about it the more I feel trying to get a grip on the two-dot-zero landscape (you know - Web 2.0, Intranet 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0) is like trying to eat an elephant - you need to do it in small pieces.

Today, JP Rangaswami's post about Web browser standards within the enterprise provided a useful distraction in respect to one piece of that elephant. I added a comment that referred to a point referenced by Tim O'Reilly is his Web 2.0 explanation about the idea of "software written above the level of the single device". This is infact a quote from a short essay written in 2003 by ex-Microsoft developer, Dave Stutz. I note in his bio he mentions at the end that he has "always tried to highlight product development paths that lead beyond standalone PC software to the far larger opportunities that exist in networked software".

This is in part, whether Web 2.0 or Intranet 2.0, what the two-dot-zero world is all about. The problem then with proprietory software from this perspective is not about cost, but the barriers it creates in determining how, with what and when the end-users - or to quote Jon Udell, the "amateurs" - get to do useful and innovative things with it. And here is the risk with some of the enterprise-level wikis I see emerging, they too may eventually lock you into a single interface and this will ultimately limit participation and we'll be back where we started.

UPDATE: Read JP's follow up post - he is spot on where he describes a "plethora of sources, working within an ecosystem approach to standards, market-driven, market-maintained, community-enriched... With the right things done in terms of identity, permissioning, authentication."

Tags: intranet 2.0, open standards, web 2.0

c:>rename bill.gates ray.ozzie

Even outside of geekdom, such is the importance of the Microsoft empire that Bill Gate's planned transition (retirement?) next July even made it into the local paper (but not important enough to make it into their online edition, where its topped by Lack of train amenities loo-dicrous).

But what hasn't had so much attention in the traditional media is that But it has taken the traditional media a little bit longer to pick up on the other part of the annoucement, that "Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect and begin working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities".

The Guardian speculates that, "Mr Ozzie's influence is expected to push Microsoft further into highly developed web applications and knowledge sharing programs, areas where Microsoft is feeling the pressure from such companies as Google.

technorati tags:Ray+Ozzie, Bill+Gates, Microsoft

When doesn't a wiki make good cents?

In response to a blog post by Bill Ives about IBM's Quickplace collaboration tool, Andrew Mitchell asked about the value of traditional enterprise collaboration tools when you consider that you can get "more bang for the buck" from the latest generation of enterprise wikis.

I responded in turn to Andrew's wiki 2x2 collaboration matrix (JPG, 14KB) that he included in his post by commenting:

"I get a little uncomfortable in trying to distinguish between “wikis” and tools such as Quickplace simply on face value. It really comes down to the functionality available and how it actually gets used in practice. Lock down a wiki tool and you end up with just a basic WCMS. In terms of your model, tools like eRoom and Quickplace can integrate presence and conferencing (same time, different place) but may have additional functionality... Also, you can give wiki-like access to users in these tools if you want, you just have to setup the space in the right way."

Andrew replied that wiki software still represents better value for money, even if they only give you 80% of what you need, so why would you bother?

Many organisations still pick traditional collaboration tools over the new wave of enterprise wiki software because they make their total cost of acquisition and ownership decisions from different perspectives, particularly when the pre-existing infrastructure and specific business requirements are taken into account. However, this is why I see a big difference between adopting wiki technology because they are cheap software tools versus using them as part of a strategic decision to move towards creating enterprise 2.0.

Also, as the we've seen in the Motorola example, it can sometimes be cheaper and quicker to use the wiki (and blogging) functionality in an existing platform (in their case, OpenText).

I have some more to say on this, but it will have to wait for another time. BTW In the meantime, I looked at the issue of enterprise wiki software in an IDM article last year, and I wrote a case study on Ernst & Young's use of Quickplace in this book.

And here is another question for another time - when does wiki software stop being a wiki? As we've seen in the past with knowledge management technologies, do we risk labeling every piece of software that provides an edit button a wiki or have we lost sight of the original quick, quick intention?

PS - And yes, this was Flock blogged!

technorati tags:enterprise+social+software, wikis, Quickplace

Is it time to Flock?

I've started to hear a bit of buzz form around a new Web 2.0 friendly browser, called Flock. Euan Semple made some positive noises, but Luis Suarez has a bit more detail on why he likes it and what it does. Their 0.7 beta release is currently available - Euan thinks the benefits of Flock outweigh any bugs you might find in this beta release.

As I started to read about what it does - for example integrate easy photo sharing, rss and blogging - I started to think, isn't this something you could just build a Firefox extension to do? Well, as I looked further I discovered that Flock is in fact built on the Mozilla's browser engine... it makes Flock even more interesting, because like the Mozilla suite it also supports the concept of extensions. So Flock has solid browser engine, is Web 2.0 friendly and lets you hack it with more extension. Yes, I'm already downloading it to try myself :-)

Tags: flock, web 2.0, Web browsers

Mash and Play - New Tag Cloud

Like many blogs, the ChiefTech Blog is a mashup of different services built on top of the basic blogging engine - RSS feeds, email subscriptions, usage statistics, tags, etc.

I added a tag cloud back in October 2005, but recently it broke. That's life when you mashup - occasionally things will stop working. Luckily we can just mash and play... so I now have a new tag cloud (you'll need to scroll down the page to find it) mashed up from ZoomClouds.

Setup was very quick, easy and straight forward. The only downside of the new cloud is that it is built from my RSS feed which only includes recent posts, so please be patient.

Tags: mashups, tag cloud, ZoomClouds

Scoble: I didn't do this for the audience

Enough people have been blogging and talking about Robert Scoble leaving Microsoft for a social software startup that it leaves little for me to add. However, I did enjoy this bit of reflection on his blog:

"Will I lose my audience? That's a question I've seen on the blogs. Yes. Huh? You will unsubscribe if I don't give you a payoff. For many of you Microsoft was that payoff. Yes, Microsoft is still an interesting company for many many people in the world. When I was at my mom's funeral, what did we end up talking about at lunch afterward? Microsoft. Everyone had an opinion about Microsoft. Everyone knew who it was. What it did... Over the next few months if I don't give you a payoff you'll leave. That'd be OK with me, I didn't do this for the audience."

Tags: microsoft, robert scoble,

The third attribute of intranet discussion forums

James Robertson (via his blog) provides some ideas on "it sounded like a good idea at the time" intranet discussion forums. He identifies "two critical success factors for intranet discussion forums: a clear purpose, and a common community."

I'd like to add a third, but I can't take credit for the idea - Cliff Figallo in the ultra practical book, Hosting Web Communities, has a brilliant model that describes online forums using the following attributes:

• Interactivity


• Focus (or "clear purpose")


• Cohesion (or "common community")

The additional attribute, Interactivity, is particularly useful because it can help to put the success or failure of a community into perspective. If we expect high levels of interactivity, clear purpose and common community as James explains them are definitely a critical factor. However, a community can still be successful in Figallo's model even with low interactivity - we either see that as a starting point for moving towards greater interactivity or build our forum approach around those attributes of a particular community.

Tags: Cliff Figallo, intranets, online communities of practice

Success with social software: Critical mass, not the tools

Ever since I started talking about there being a grey area of difference between social software and other types of groupware, collaboration and other information management tools I've been convinced that its not just about the software but how we choose to use them. Luis Suarez, in his elsua blog, puts forward similar idea but adds that the difference now is the critical mass behind them:

"the key message towards the successful adoption of both wikis and weblogs, amongst other social software available out there, is not the tools themselves, although there have been huge improvements about usability, scalability and accessibility all along, but more the people themselves. That critical mass of knowledge workers that I have talked about in the past and which are the main responsible parties of this hyped social media tools all along... It is that same critical mass the one that is helping push the adoption of those tools because they themselves are acting as technical facilitators as well in the acceptance of such technologies amongst the non-tech savvy folks out there so that the initial technical barriers can be overcome and people get a chance to share what they know and collaborate with others."

Yes, I agree - IT innovation is an important factor in the successful adoption of KM and other collaborative technologies, something I discussed in my 2004 case study (PDF) on Ernst & Young with reference to the following paper:

Nambisan W, Agarwal R & Tanniru M, 1999, 'Organizational mechanisms for enhancing user innovation in information technology', MIS Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 365-395.

Well worth a look if you can get hold of it.

Tags: critical mass, IT innovation, knowledge management, social software

Liked the article? Then visit the workshop...

If you enjoyed my last IDM article, you might be interested to know that at the moment I'm preparing to run a repeat of my successful (and apparently popular) masterclass on Enabling Knowledge Management with Technology in Singapore at the end of the month. Contact the Ark Group for more information.

Tags: knowledge management, Masterclass, Singapore

The quiet approach to enterprise social software

A three hour road trip from Wollongong to Newcastle yesterday gave me a chance to listen to Dan Bricklin's interview with Toby Redshaw from Motorola.

Redshaw emphasises that Motorola's experience with implementing enterprise social software was a bottom up effort. Using the capabilities in their existing OpenText deployment, they "quietly launched wikis and blogs" last May. Since then take up of the new tools has followed a tipping point pattern and now 5%-10 of 60,000 Motorola's employees actively contribute content.

Sounds too easy? Well, that's Redshaw's point - implementing wikis and blogs at Motorola was very easy. Unfortunately while this is a good story the only clue we have to that success is that wikis and blogs are easy to use, but I'm left wondering if there isn't more to it?

Tags: case study, enterprise social software, motorola

More wiki case studies

Talking of KM and IT, the new Melbourne KMLF group's blog has a great short case study on the use of wiki (and forum) technologies to support collaboration in an Australian government organisation. They have encouraged and supported bottom-up take up of their technologies. They also believe "Sandpits are both necessary and fun additions" that allow people to explore how and why they might use a paticular tool. I find their approach very much reflects my own experiences with using IT to support KM (have a look at my own 2004 case study on Ernst & Young's approach to supporting collaboration).

Meanwhile, Bill Ives tells us about how Novell has been using Wiki technology inside the firewall for collaborating on projects, sharing information across the enterprise and even facilitating event planning and management. Ives observes "I think, in some ways. wikis are even more effective behind the enterprise firewall as security is much less an issue and generally the trusted environment where wikis work best is in place." Ives also points us to podcast on Motorola's experiences with wikis and blogs (sounds good, but I haven't listened to it yet).

Tags: case study, enterprise social software, wikis

Knowledge Management and IT

"The demise of knowledge management has been predicted by many, but while we may be uncomfortable with what has to be one of the most poorly defined management concepts, the fact is that the 'knowledge' problem in organisations will not go away."

My recent feature article on KM in Image and Data Manager (IDM) magazine is now available to download from my articles archive or you can currently read it online over at the IDM site.

In this article I provide a brief history of KM, myth bust the Data > Information > Knowledge paradigm and provide a couple of simple frameworks to help you start analysing how information technology can really be used to enable KM.

Tags: image and data manager magazine, knowledge management, knowledge management systems

Wow. P2P backup?

A couple of people have lost data recently - Andrew Mitchell's hard disk died while JP Rangaswami's hosting company had a major failure and his blog was lost.

Both were able to recover content from backups - what makes Rangaswami's experience interesting is that content was salvaged not from the hosting company's backups (they failed too!) but from content cached in other blog mashing services, search engines, the Internet archive and even user's RSS clients. To quote Rangaswami - "Wow. P2P backup?"

So while we worry about the risks of the mashed up Web, could this also be a strength? I won't stop backing up just yet but lets keep working on this idea...

Tags: backup, mashups, p2p backup

Talking up dotmobi

Remember me talking about mobile friendly m dot websites the other day? Well, the "industry" has gone the other way and launched a new top-level domain, .modi (or dotmobi). The purpose of dotmobi is to make it easier for mobile web users to find mobile content and to give them some assurance that the sites they visit are optimised for a mobile web experience.

However, despite a bit of PR effort and a swish website complete with a blog, not everyone is switched on to dotmobi. Mr WWW, Tim Berners-Lee, has made it clear he is not a supporter of dotmobi as he believe it will fragment the Web. The W3C also presented some arguments against dotmobi back in 2004 as they saw it as "Inconsistent with Device Independence Principles". On a more practical level, someone points out that dotmobi is just another domain to remember and needs more keypresses than .com.

Either way, don't get too excited just yet - from the few example dotmobi sites out there the dotmobi experience is looking pretty dotboring. If dotmobi continues on the basis of the lowest common denominator then it may be a case of too little too late as mobile technology power and screen resolution increases over time. As always, only time will tell - this pragmatic approach to mobile content could be a winner in the long run.

Tags: dotmobi, mdot, mobile content

MS to bring automated social networking inside the firewall

In the late 1990's some of us working with Lotus Notes got very excited about a product they developed called Raven. It promised to provide an automated expertise locator that would enable you to find people in an organisation based on the relationship "between people and topics based upon authorship and activity.". I'm not sure really what happened to it or if anyone started using it. However, now Microsoft have annouced plans for a similar product called Knowledge Network for Office SharePoint Server 2007. Just like Raven promised, it will let you "search for people by automating the discovery of the business relationships and subject matter expertise of everyone in the network."

Could this be the influence of Ray Ozzie at play? Well, I hope this time around Knowledge Network makes a greater implact than poor old Raven.

Tags: enterprise social software, Lotus Raven, Microsoft Knowledge Network

Magnetic drives are dead, long live solid state

I'm not really a hardware fanatic, but this story from Engadget about a new laptop from Samsung is worth mentioning. This new laptop features a 32GB solid state "flash" drive rather than a traditional hard disk.

Engadget tell us that the "32GB [flash drive] reads 300 percent faster (53MB/s) and write 150 percent quicker (28MB/s) than normal hard drives while offering better protection against shock, 25-50% faster boots and sleep recovery times, longer battery life and reduced weight all in a completely silent, fanless package. Hoozah!".

What we can expect to see is the gap between PDA, mobile phone and laptop only shrink further.

Tags: mobile computing, solid state disk

Danger: Mashups Ahead

Social software and the like appear to always follow a kind of "S" shaped risk hype curve, so its only natural as interest in mashups becomes more popular we see questions about the risks they present. JP Rangaswami's (CIO of DrKW - the Enterprise 2.0 case study) reflects on a critical article in the New Scientist that warns about the dangers mashups. They are particulary concerned about privacy, but also our reliance on data for which integrity can not be assured.

However Rangaswami comments "We need to ensure that the weeds of DRM are not allowed to choke the mashup flowers. Let a thousand mashup flowers bloom. We need new answers to identity and access, but we are not going to get them by constraining new ways of doing things with old ways of stopping things."

Tags: information security, mashups, social software

The e-Working Class

Via Techdirt, BusinessWeek looks at the appearence of "digital factory jobs":

"Behind the seemingly magical offerings of the Internet are thousands of human beings madly inputting data around the clock. The work ranges from the slightly creative, such as... crafting sentences for ads to snag search traffic, to the rote -- typing in descriptions of hamburgers for online menus."

Another reminder that we can't always predict the impact of technology on society. Will it be just a question of time until even these digital factories are superceeded by technology or cheaper "imports"? And what will happen to the e-working class?

Tags: computers and society, digital factory jobs, technology in the workplace

Use your voice

The Australian Flexible Learning Framework website is an excellent resource, even for those that might not consider themselves having an interest in e-learning. Thanks to Nancy White for spotting this new resource on using your voice online. This resource focuses "on online voice technologies and the new practices in innovative e-learning that they make possible", however there is definitely broader applications for collaboration and knowledge management for tools such as voice boards, voice chat, voice email and audioblogs. I particularly like the idea of voiceboards - these are online discussion boards that use voice posts rather than text - because I can see a steady progression away from hypertext to hypermedia taking place as information and communication technologies converge and evolve.

PS Also check out the KnowledgeTree electronic journal.

Tags: audio, elearning, social software, hypermedia

The need for speed

Care of Corporate Engagement, it would appear that while big PC monitors make staff more productive, "ageing and unreliable office computers are making workers unhappy and more likely to claim sick leave". Good to know, but what I'm really interested to know is if these users are being influenced by their own experiences of using PC technology at home?

Tags: technology in the workplace

Contemplating Your Digital Life

Did you dig a little deeper from my last post and have a look at Mary Czerwinski’s page of research? If not, take another look as there is a great discussion piece where Czerwinki and some other researchers look at the past and future of what has been called "life caching".

In this article, titled In Digital Memories in an Era of Ubiquitous Computing and Abundant Storage (PDF), they look at why we might want to do it and the problems or issues this might create, including how we might go about retrieving such digital memories later.

It turns out that the idea of storing our life histories isn’t so radical after all - they reference a 1945 article in the The Atlantic Monthly by Vannever Bush called As We May Think – luckily, thanks to the miracle of modern technology you can read it online (you’ll need to skip to the end for relevant part).

Tags: Life Caching, Microsoft Research, Vannever Bush

Technology isn’t the bad guy here

There is a lot of advice floating around about technology and productivity, particulary for managing email overload. Taking a slightly different appraoch, with the help of Dr Ben Searle from Macquarie University, the ABC's Catalyst science tv show observed an office worker and gave them a "workplace makeover".

They conclude that "Technology isn’t the bad guy here" and people should:

• Pay attention to your ergonomic set up (use a bigger PC monitor - they point to research by Mary Czerwinski at Microsoft).


• Minimise excessive stimulation, like television and music while you are working; and


• Favour the phone over email - it’s simply faster.

But while there is some good straight forward advice here, and while acknowledging that this was just a short piece in a TV show, it really only scratches the surface of dealing with technology in the workplace - for example, how do we improve the productivity of people working in different roles and distributed teams?

Tags: abc catalyst, email, information overload, technology in the workplace

Beta Mobile Search

Ok... I didn't scroll down to the bottom of my mobile Google search results. These guys are just one step ahead of me... Mobile Search is already in beta.

Tags: m dot sites, mobile content, mobile search

Searching for m dot

If you are PDA or smart phone user who goes online wirelessly, have you noticed that some sites are now offering alternative URLs that are mobile friendly? They all start with http://m. (for "mobile") and some popular sites I've found include:

• Google and Gmail;


• Technorati; and


• CNET.

I'm sure there are more out there, and plenty yet to appear. Unfortunately I have yet to find a way of locating or searching for the sites. Even googling "site: http://m." is a bit hit and miss.

However, I did discover this mobile content proxy from Google (not sure how official it is?) - mobile Google uses this automatically when you browse frm search results. I suppose the question is, do we need alternative sites for small screen users or just better standards- and XML-based web design that will work anywhere?

Tags: mdot, mobile content, mobile search

Are you taking the Miki?

Earlier in the month corporate social software company, Social Text, launched it's mobile wiki or "Miki". Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the bank that served as a case study for McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 article, has apparently been beta testing it.

With my own interest in social software and mobile knowledge management I thought that this would be something worth taking a closer look at…

Well, basically it appears the Miki is a stripped down version of Social Text's core wiki product. I'm not entirely sure the name will take off, but that's the least of my criticism because I'm not really sure how much of a breakthrough this it…

I don't know about you, but my PDA has a full colour screen and a rich user-interface – so why do I want a stripped down tool on my PDA?

Well, lets look at Google’s Gmail for inspiration as they offer a PDA and mobile phone Web-browser optimised version. I want to see this level of functionality and integration in my mobile wiki before I get too excited!

Tags: enterprise social software, mobile knowledge management, Miki

Enterprise D'oh

While McAfee might be excited about the potiential for social software in the enterprise, Jason has embarked on listing the 10 things he hates about wikis. But don't worry, it all constructive criticism. Also check Rami's requirements for the perfect wiki (from 2004!).

From my point of view its about the difference between social software form and function. We should aim to improve the form without changing the function so it stops being social software.

Tags: social software, usability, wikis