Collaboration Technology 2.0

Attention UK IBM Shops

2008-09-05T09:00:00Z

In two weeks grab the chance to catch up on the latest technology, tools and techniques that IBM Collaboration has to offer.

If you are using any Lotus tools, are interested in them or you are a small business interested in the many products IBM is aiming at you then there is a free event waiting for you.

The UK Lotus User Group is holding its annual conference close to Westminster Tube at the Church House Conference centre on the 18th / 19th September.

You can find the Agenda, Speakers, Sessions, Exhibitors and most importantly registration at the following URL: www.uklug.info

Reality Beckons

2008-09-04T17:04:00Z

The phoney war is over - reality begins. Business and project proposals put out before the holiday period that have been festering on people's desks are about to face the tough test of go/no-go decisions. We'll soon find out how nervous people are out there about the economic climate. I've four such proposals waiting in the slips on collaboration, conversation, communication & cooperation.

Real Time Collaboration (RTC)
Group Decision Support Systems and facilitation tools (GDSS).
Virtual Team Space (VTS)
Distributed Project Management (DPM)

I'm itching to see which, if any will come home to roost, or if they don't how I'll not free fall into an impending sense of doom and panic. Only time will tell - I'll let you know in a month..

Lotusphere 2008 (or is that 9) - 12 months on

2008-09-04T14:04:28Z

It seems strange that it is only twelve months since IBM opened the registration for Lotusphere 2008 and as of yesterday the 2009 event opened for registration.

In the current global financial meltdown it is good that IBM has held the price with a 0% change to the registration cost. Flight costs especially from Europe are going to make attendance significantly more expensive than last year and that is without food and hotel inflation.

So what can delegates expect when they get there?

For the uninitiated Lotusphere is about much more than Lotus Notes and Domino, all aspects of collaboration are dealt with from strategy and emerging technologies, systems integration through to operations and training. It is a great place to go to be 'sheep dipped' in communications technology both from and IBM and non-IBM persecutive (there are normally 20-50 souls from Microsoft attending).

Lotusphere does not get an appearance from a 'Steve Jobs', the charisma associated with Apple launch events is, on the whole, missing - there have been notable exceptions over the years but its just not that sort of 'do'.

Lotusphere 2009 is likely to presage a year of consolidation, further integration of all of the core technologies with the Eclipse/Expeditor technology, more integration both inside and outside the the IBM portfolio and further development of products aimed at the SME sector.

It is a shame that Lotusphere does not get the media coverage its deserves for an event that has heralded many innovations over the years.

Whether you love or hate Lotus Notes, compete or partner with IBM, Lotusphere offers something for everyone. Above all the spirit of the attendees can only be admired, not to mention their capacity to work and party in the space of 5 days.

Mac & Notes 8.5 Beta - first impressions

2008-09-03T14:00:00Z

My first use of Lotus Notes was back in 1990 with release 2.0. At that time the eight or nine 3.5" disks (I can't remember the exact number) from which it was installed seemed incredibly bloated - so the idea of a 350mb download for the latest full Mac eclipse version would have seemed more than a bit daunting to the Ian of the early 1990s.

I have been using Mac and Lotus Notes since release 6.5, it has been of a bit hit and miss affair and with the UI being a straight port from the Windows client. In this state it seemed more than a bit kludgy and missing opportunities that the OSX UI offered. Lotus Notes 8.5 (Public beta 2) is a massive improvement in the user experience with a contemporary 'Today' like experience which is well overdue.

From a cold start on my (powerful) MacBook pro it took 1m 40s from start click to user input ready - this, frankly, is not impressive, hopefully the final release will be a bit zippier on start-up.

I only ran into one real problem during my installation which was the 'breaking' of my mail file full text search - which I use a lot - but after deleting and recreating the full text index all was well.

With this version I have yet to experience the random losing of my security credentials, in past versions I was sometimes prompted for re-entry of password on an intermittent basis and this could be very annoying.

All in all my first impression are that it seems like a good release, I now need to look at the new versions of other standard templates to see if they are keeping up with the improved mail experience.

Facebook is promoting promiscuity

2008-09-02T21:40:00Z

For the past few weeks there has been something about Facebook that has been gnawing at me. I have not been able to put my finger on it until today.

On a regular basis I get messages such as 'Find your target audience' as Facecorp (lets call FBs parent that) tries to persuade me to buy ad space as part of their monetization efforts.

Today I started realising that I am getting fed ads that simply do not correlate with my profile. Facecorp knows I am in a relationship (and have been for 25 years and 2 days) but keeps targeting singles ads at me.

I like to think I can control my hormones however for the weaker (and more gullible) amongst us it could lead the unwary into life choices they may regret. Being recommended "Boiler repair services" is one thing however the same can not be said for 'finding hot singles'.

I am not moralistic about this, however it could give Facebook a tawdry image if not controlled.

Come on Facecorp you know enough about me to be smarter than this.

The truth is out there, just don't tell anyone ! (well not using the company system)

2008-09-02T17:18:15Z

We all know that IT often has a privileged access to business decisions long before they are presented internally or externally.

Computer Weekly is reporting on a Marks and Spencer employee who faces dismissal after 25 years of loyal service for leaking information to a newspaper regarding the reduction of severance pay the company was in the process of implementing.

This is a salutary lesson, he may have felt morally obliged to try to 'head off his employer at the pass' but as an IT professional he obviously has little idea of the level and sophistication of logging available today, not impressive.

These crises of conscience happen across many departments within the corporate environment, HR, Finance and of course IS. It is our duty to remain professional with the possible exception when our employer is undertaking illegal practises. The rule is simple we do not disclose information that is 'Company Confidential'.

Mischief or reporting of activities outside of the law are likely to be communicated from untraceable email addresses and sent from unremarkable IP addresses (or so I am told !).

M&S employees take note!

Facebook is attacking traditional email and collaboration

2008-09-02T08:00:00Z

With last weeks announcement by Facebook of 100 million active users it seemed like a good time to review the impact of this particular social tsunami on business electronic communications and collaboration.

The Facebook phenomenon is well documented so I won't bore you by examining where its origins lay. Of much more interest is where it is now and where its going to.

At the moment FB users don't get a '@facebook.com' email address, but for how long? Full 2-way delivery of SMTP email it is a logical extension for the 'internal' messaging environment that is already effectively moving millions of FB users away from traditional messaging platforms.

It just needs attachments and bang - look out Hotmail and crew.

Collaboration

Putting Groups together whether public, by invitation or private in Facebook is a synch.

Okay content sharing is almost non-existent other than with social media. It is probable that either through plug-ins or through native Facebook apps this short-coming will be addressed. Then it is not difficult to envisage the 'Y' generation and the businesses they create or join seeing this as a perfectly acceptable way to collaborate on a daily basis.

With a few more features, such as the handling of unstructured content, FB collaborative capability will become unleashed. With this we will start to see new behaviours coming from the next generation of graduates.

Presence awareness and chat

This has been a recent addition to the Facebook portfolio. Again it is quite primitive right now but considering the delta that Facebook has been following for the last couple of years I expect that this will move on dramatically in a short period of time. It is not hard to imagine n-way chats plus video coming along from FB in the near future.

What's holding this back?

Well it's the same set of brakes that is the limiting factor for Google based collaboration. Ownership of data, security, privacy, control and features (I am sure I could think of a few more), the difference being however smart Google is (and it is very smart), Facebook has access to a key emerging demographic in a way that the whole industry envies.

The challenge to Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Google et all is to keep their products relevant and flexible and develop equivalent intuitive UI's that the next generation of prospective CEO, CFO and CIOs will consider to be 'fit for purpose' when they take hold of the reins.

How do you see Facebook's potential for impacting on business collaboration?

Where you bin?

2008-09-01T07:12:41Z

Explorer 8's InPrivate option can hide your internet audit trail allowing you to conceal the sites you've visited from other (family) users of your computer. However, the authorities will still be able to snoop. What does this tell us about ourselves - that you can run but you can't hide?

The Porn Mode is quoted as being able to 'hide one's illicit browsing history'' but also stated as "preventing computers from tracking your online whereabouts or browsing habits - much-needed information for web sites that deliver targeted advertising". Aren't these mutually incompatible from the principle of self-interest?

When life imitates art

2008-08-31T07:01:01Z

Or more precisely, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "when politics imitates technology". In the beginning there was the simple world of DOS around which the computing universe evolved (with networking, communications, GUI, etc emerging in time from the primordial swamp). It was a creation about which a single person could understand everything. Latterly, that cosmos has fractured into myriad specialities (Mac vs. PC vs. Linux for starters) - each spinning away from the other, making it near impossible for one mind to map.

How like today's political landscape that has subdivided into global archipelagos that won't be divided into neat categories like democracies versus autocracies anymore, each drifting farther away from each other with different interests and values. We now live in a world of parts be it political or technical - and like all zero sum games it's a matter of hoping you back the winner.

Hello support, could you change my password?....

2008-08-29T16:00:46Z

I think it would be great if all first line support teams followed the same sort of attitude as staff at British Bank, Lloyds.

A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not"

Full story here from the Beeb, I am not sure if any of my passwords would get through?

I've grown accustomed to your interface

2008-08-29T12:00:14Z

Apologies to My Fair Lady, but Ian wrote 'Does the world hate Lotus Notes? Well I bear the scars from an organisation that did.

I introduced Notes into Crossrail as part of a tech upgrade connecting distributed offices that Exchange could not manage (at the time). It was a well thought through implementation that never went wrong. Users were given sufficient training and the technical and business benefits clearly explained. However, amongst certain Exec's the whingeing never died down - and these were people who's Secys and Staffers could scarcely use Word or Excel. I was even accused by someone of having taken a bribe from IBM for putting Notes in.

Why? I can only recall that in the early days of the tech boom (when Microsoft shares were cheap by comparison to IBM's) many CIO, CTO etc in both the US and Europe eschewed Notes' technical supremacy in order to leverage their personal investment by introducing Exchange. Whether an investment is emotional or financial, it will overcome all reason.

Does the world really hate Lotus Notes?

2008-08-29T08:00:00Z

I don't believe so. I have been using it since (coughs) 1991 and though it can infuriate at times the spirit behind it (ie Collaboration) is the key component for me.

The trouble is that alongside the success and failures of Notes and Domino in recent years, end users are not being engaged with positive messages. I use Twitter Search (formerly Summize) to check the web zeitgiest on various subjects, today I ran this search http://search.twitter.com and was shocked at the response. When you run it you will get the latest results that will be different from mine however the level of negativity on my search was depressing.

Many of the most negative posts appear to come from poorly deployed installations, maybe end-users could be prompted via web 2.0 tech to brow-beat their support teams into getting some top flight skills in Orlando next January.

With Lotusphere 2009 website going live next week IBM could get a 'Tweet 4 Notes' campaign going to recruit some attendees and improve the product's image, at least in the Twitosphere.

Its not all drumming Gorillas

2008-08-28T17:00:00Z

YouTube's popularity was built on a plethora of pirated content which triggered a copyright war when Google bought the service, recent changes have turned the 'bad' into 'good'.

Through the use of content ID to identify copyrighted material, originators are not now demanding the removal of videos but now using this 'window' into their fan base to drive viewers to other 'paid for' materials and services.

Youtube is going from an anarchic melée of material to a focused marketing tool for corporates. I have read a couple of great blog posts on this; one from readwriteweb and one from venturebeat both highlighting and discussing this phenomenon.

Of course we have seen this in PCs and Mac apps for years. We have had 'slugged' versions of applications either given away or time-bombed in order to try to drive users to richer 'paid for' licences.

The way that the Web drives revenue is an evolving story, we are just at the beginning.

While you weren't looking

2008-08-28T13:00:04Z

I left my mobile phone behind last week and had to use a BT payphone - what a shocker!

In short, and I read the instructions, to make one call in London it cost £3.0. Not only that but I lost another £2.0 to the machines veracious appetite for money. I complained to the operator immediately and have been sent a letter to my home (they took my address) asking that I phone in to discuss my 'unfortunate loss'. I've called twice and the 'refund operative' is always away from her desk. - So a local call cost be £5.0.

They don't call the UK Treasure Island for nothing. Pity the poor tourist!

IBM wants a piece of the Mac market

2008-08-27T14:20:48Z

Ed Brill has blogged overnight as part of an effort by IBM Lotus to attack the putative Enterprise Mac market with the launch of the Lotus Notes 8.5 client which takes better advantage of the OSX environment.

It is good to see that this under served sector getting some attention but the blog post highlights the problem that IBM has always had.... corporate firewalls often restrict platform owners from understanding on which environments their software is deployed.

This contrasts dramatically with SaaS model where the application provider can track at an intimate level which machine, which OS, which browser, which feature and for how long each user interacts with individual features.

With this sort of data we can look to a future with 'tuned' SaaS applications than can be revised in tiny steps improving the end user experience in a granular manner rather the the big point releases that we have to tolerate right now.