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

More comments on Enterprise 2.0

Over the weekend I finally had a chance to look over a copy of the Enterprise 2.0 article. At the same time I was also re-reading The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage. A odd combination you might think, but a good way of ensuring I don't get myself caught up too much in the hype - one of the messages in Standage's book is that technologies never quite have the "utopian" impact we think they will, but they still have an impact.

Ok. Very briefly this is what I like and don't like about McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 vision:

• His framework for enterprise social software is defined as SLATES - Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions and Signals. We could probably debate his terms and definitions, but I think he has caught enough of the essence of what makes an enterprise social software architecture different.


• He identifies the critical role of managers in facilitating the adoption of social software inside the firewall but also recognises that this may also create conflict because "These tools reduce management's ability to exert unilateral control and will be used to express some level of negativity."


• Further he also concludes that there will "significant difference in companies' abilities to exploit them. Because of the opportunities the technologies bring, these difference will matter a great deal." Or in other words, its not the technology but knowing what to do with it and how to do it that counts.
  

On the other hand I was disappointed not to see some mention about the consumer driven innovation seen in the Internet social software space and the impact this pressure will put on organisations to change their approaches to IT. Similarly, while McAfee notes that centralised intranets hinder effective search because such intranets lack the dense links that we find on the World Wide Web, he does not link this to his point about management control that he raises later. I've discussed some of these things in the Intranet Imperative last year.

Finally - and perhaps this is a little out of scope - a mention of the issues that the ideology of self-service within organisations has also created in terms of information and knowledge sharing might have added some further context to the discussion around the challenges of getting knowledge workers to use this stuff. Why would we expect everyone to contribute in the same way as their peers? Think about The Tipping Point and the different roles of Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software, intranet imperative

Podcasting - evolutionary or revolutionary?

I have to admit that I don't really listen to Podcasts, primarily they don't really fit my way of working but also I don't find them very interactive. The fact that Podcasts aren't really hyper-linkable yet by the masses makes them an interesting but still just a one-way content distribution system. Taking this a bit further, Steve Rubel, in his Micro Persuasion blog, asks if Podcasting is evolutionary or revolutionary?

"Podcasting is an important medium, no doubt. It changed how people listen to audio and where that content comes from. On the other hand, podcasting is not very social. It's largely unidirectional. It's about democratized distribution. In five years time podcasting will be seen as evolutionary while Wikipedia, social networking and blogging will be viewed as revolutionary because they are dialogue driven, scannable and searchable in mainstream Web search engines."

However, perhaps its just a question of time as we see tools like Podzinger emerge that let us search Podcasts and zero in on what interests us. Podzinger is google for audio data that converts speech to text so it can be indexed.

Tags: social software, hypermedia

Update on tech-etiquette challenges

Care of Lifehacker and Micro Persuasion, Christian Science Monitor discusses the latest etiquette challenges of our always on, always connected world including ipods and wireless headsets ("The first question when you greet someone in our office is, 'Are you on the phone?' They don't know, with wireless headsets.").

This article talks about a room full of publicists at a lunch forum, all tapping away at their PDAs and Blackberries rather than listening to the speaker. I remember when this used to be a common occurrence at internal meetings in organisations, but now it looks like this bad tech-behaviour is leaking outside as wireless connectivity becomes even more wide spread.

Tags: always on, always connected, tech-etiquette, technology in the workplace

Small World! now available for download

My November/December 2005 Image and Data Manager (IDM) magazine article, Small World!, is now available for download from my articles and papers archive:

"The influence of social network concepts continues to manifest themselves in many different areas of business. From understanding who knows who to viral marketing, organisations are finding legitimate uses for putting conversations and informal connections to work in the search for competitive advantage."

PS I'm in the process of reorganising my articles archive page, so you may need to scroll down to find my list of IDM articles.

Tags: image and data manager, social network analysis

Ok... Not quite the dawn?

Always good for a counterpoint, Nicholas Carr's gives his point of view on McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 article:

"Managers, professionals and other employees don't have much spare time, and the ones who have the most valuable business knowledge have the least spare time of all. (They're the ones already inundated with emails, instant messages, phone calls, and meeting requests.) Will they turn into avid bloggers and taggers and wiki-writers? It's not impossible, but it's a long way from a sure bet."

I don't disagree with Carr's assessment - KM needs to be human-centred not technology driven. In May last year I blogged about the grey area that social software exists in - there is nothing magical about social software unless people use it as social software.

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software

The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration

Continuing on the theme of my previous post, Harvard Business School academic Andrew McAfee has a new article in the latest edition of Sloan Management Review where he argues why enterprise social software "may well supplant other communication and knowledge management systems with their superior ability to capture tacit knowledge, best practices and relevant experiences from throughout a company and make them readily available to more users."

I haven't read the full article yet, but there is some good commentary by Ross Mayfield in the Many-to-Many blog and McAfee continues the discussion on his own blog.

McAfee builds on his article to identify three trends why is Enterprise 2.0 is now an appealing reality:

• Simple, Free Platforms for Self-Expression


• Emergent Structures, Rather than Imposed Ones


• Order from Chaos

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software, sloan management review