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