So you think you are running a team, well pull the knives from your back and read on.
OK, here is our first in a series of top tips to identify good collaboration rationale, technology and approach.
First things first are you really a team? Most effective collaboration tends to focus around groups of individuals with a common purpose. If you are not sure take a look at this (Goal Centric Networks) and start to build clear collaborative objectives.
Goals, shmoals - that's simply not enough!
OK, so you've got a goal, a strategy and a team, but can it be effective? The number of people in a team truly influences your ability to deliver a positive outcome. So where does it start and where does it stop?
The Chinese Army is after your company's budget. That's the bottom line of reports in the Times and BBC. Jonathan Evans, Director-General of MI5, recently warned 300 chief executives and security chiefs in banks and accounting and legal firms that they are under attack from “Chinese state organisations”. You don't have to be doing business in China to come under fire. Apparently, competing with a Chinese backed interest is enough. That'll be most of us then. Bump defensive counterintelligence to status 'black' and gird up your security loins. Doing business with Chinese interests has immense cultural hurdles to overcome but if the person with whom you are negotiating a contract already knows your bottom line position then what was a profitable deal might become marginal.
Following up on my Unified Communication (UC) entry, IBM is releasing version 8 of its Sametime UC platform this week, as well as Sametime Entry, which is designed to deliver basic IM and presence capabilities to Outlook users. I hope they've fixed the bug of having users appearing to still be on-line when they're not.
A sort of unintentional virtual jacket left hanging on the the back of your office chairCheck out collaboration loop for more info. http://www.collaborationloop.com
Dear Diary
Last Thursday I attended the BCS / Computer Weekly Annual jamboree. Gosh is was fun, met lots of spiffing people and was fed lots of tasty tuck in the Refectory. The Headmistress and staff then gave out the house prizes to the chaps and chapesses who had excelled themselves during the last three terms.
Mostly is was usual suck-ups but one of the school houses did very well namely Spinvox. I was very impressed with their project. They will go very far when they leave school and join the rest of us in the big world of commerce.
Computer Weekly editorial team has asked its bloggers to answer the following questions:
o What will be the dominant item on the CIO agenda in 2008?
o How will the predicted economic slowdown in 2008 impact IT professionals in the UK?
o What issues do you think will emerge around managing the ‘Web 2.0 generation’?
We lit a hookah and after entering the zone came up with a shimmering view of next year......
Continue reading "Mystic Mickey and the Smarty Swami preview 2008" »
IBM (and through its proxy Lotus) has for the last twelve years been a leader in the ‘art’ of collaboration. Notes, Domino and Sametime and latterly Quickr and Connections are some of the most widely used collaboration tools in the market with the last two truly addressing the ‘2.0’ generation.
With Lotusphere 2008 one month away I thought I would consider where IBM and the industry is heading
BBC News is reporting on the death of the Netscape browser.
San Francisco back in 1994 had me standing in in the car park of the Lotus subsidiary cc:Mail being pointed towards a building nearby. 'That company is called Netscape" I was told, 'they are going to be big'. The web was a foetus, the internet was a primitive transport layer for the occasional SMTP mail and Microsoft had just bought a MHS based email system called Network Courier.
You think you are working, but are you really? That is the question implied in a new Basex study (reported by ars technica). Their report, "Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us," estimates that email, IM interruptions and reading blogs by knowledge workers will drain the US economy of $588B this year. It claims that e-distractions are eating up 28% of a knowledge worker's day. Consider there are about a fifth the number of knowledge workers here as in the US. Factor in our higher average fully loaded salaries. Quite easily you are pushing £100B as the parallel cost to our own economy.
Continue reading "Information Overload a £100M cost to UK economy" »
In the days before Lotus Domino there was Lotus Notes - yes I know that is a bit of a strange statement but until 1996 there was only Notes (Notes clients and Notes servers), everyone could develop applications and populations of departmental servers sprouted across small, medium and large enterprises.
In the meantime IT departments lived their lives in blissful ignorance of the impending loss of control of corporate unstructured data. Eleven years on and the echoes of those times have re-emerged in a set of predictions for 2008.
IBM super-blogger Ed Brill has pointed his large audience to an interesting set of predictions.
Sometimes it's hard to keep enthusiastic about technology - too much same 'ole same 'ole. Often though, just as my interest wanes, fate plays a hand in its regeneration. I spent last Friday at the educational technology show at Olympia (Bettshow) http://www.bettshow.com. It was interesting for a number of reasons; 1) It was packed. 2) The delegates and exhibitors were from every sex, colour and creed. 3) The stuff on show was remarkable. Teachers it seems, if budgets permit, get to use all the good stuff.
Next week I will be blogging from IBM's annual Lotus software jamboree in Orlando. Traditionally the big announcements are made at the Monday morning plenary session but I am not sure that they will be able to top the news that emerged yesterday. Apple has been doing its thing this week with the usual set of 'must have' components. Yes I too would like a mobile PC that is so thin it is almost translucent. Amongst all this IBM and the boys from Cupertino have announced a product that could really put the feline in with the pigeons.
Continue reading "MacNotes - its not an iTune for bagpipes" »
This is my first Lotusphere 2008 blog and I have a captive blog source. As I travel from London to Orlando there are a number of delegates on the flight who I have asked to share with me their expectations of next weeks IBM event.
In the season of American election Primaries there is a local fascination for a candidate labelled as the ‘come back kid’. This Lotusphere could herald a similar situation for IBM. Prior to the tomorrows Opening General Session the events attendance is approaching an all-time high of around 12,000. This reflects renewed interest generated last year by the introduction of Collaboration 2.0 products, Quickr, Connections, Activities and Eclipse based versions of Notes and Sametime.
According to Antony Savvas recent article in CW, a group of surveyed users indicated ‘E-mail is the most desired service for mobile phone users’. Today at Lotusphere IBM announced immediate availability of business grade email for the iPhone.
Continue reading "Computer Weekly requests and Lotus delivers!" »
Lotusphere is not for the the faint-hearted, as I move into day two I have already been to four presentations, two one-to-ones and a couple of receptions. However I think I understand what is really important here today.
How many keynotes can one conference support? IBM believes the answer is as many as you need - the only problem is that they start at 8am, not great after an evening of refreshing old friendships. And my legs and feet are under siege and my shoes are suffering from cheap carpet burns. To matters:
Continue reading "One conference, four keynotes, two legs" »
Wednesday’s theme (yes another keynote) was Social Networking for Business. Lotus Connections and Quickr were the lead products. Both of these products address elements in the delivery of social collaborative applications (wikis, blogs, affinity, etc). However they do overlap in some places and this will need to be addressed by IBM in coming product releases as customers on the whole respond better to a streamlined set of offerings.
Continue reading "Whiskey in the Jar Bill, yes it is about Lotusphere" »
I went to the second ever Groove User Group meeting last evening. We were entertained by Microsoft at their plush offices in Victoria. The space, furnishings and location makes my IBM friends location on the Southbank look positively East German!
Continue reading "We have the group, now we just need the users" »
Microsoft's bid for Yahoo has got myself and my fellow bloggers somewhat stimulated. There are assertations from Cliff and Jean-Paul that this is the end of MS as we know it. I agree to a small extent, but for me it is a leading indicator of something new. In a similar way to devices - if you can see and feel it then you are handling something that is out of date - Microsoft, like IBM, Cisco et all have been heavily re-inventing themselves over the past couple of years and what we see today making news is a pre-requisite to enable the new beasts that will emerge from the carcasses of the past.
Continue reading "It's the end of the world as we know it" »
Top man David Peacock has recently shared a link to this excellent IBM Developerworks discussion paper on the similarities and differences between SOA and SA, often know as Mashups
Continue reading "Mash and liquor: Taking the Oh out of SOA" »
With travel increasingly an environmental no-no, as well as a business cost best avoided, technology, albeit expensive, has come to the rescue of the international meeting. Telepresence is the technology that allows you to set up interactive conference sessions that duplicate face-to-face meetings with out the need for all the participants to be in the same location. It is a tool that improves organisational effectiveness by boosting productivity through rapid communication and collaboration without the time and stress involved with travelling. There are a number of demos on Youtube that show it to great effect - worth checking them out
Internet users are used to an on-demand lifestyle. They read, listen to and watch; what they want, when they want, where they want. The next step is for users to be anywhere they want, whenever they want, from anywhere they want. The ability to be present and interact in a different physical location, real or virtual, is called telepresence.
I have been a bit frugal will my posts over the last few weeks. This is mostly due to the large number I posts I made during Lotusphere and a need to recharge my blogging batteries. However a small altercation has broken out on Ed Brill's most excellent blog that is worth bringing to your attention.
Continue reading "Small earthquake in Blogosphere 'not many hurt'" »
One of the big rumous prior to January's Lotusphere was the imminent arrival of some sort of Lotus Notes integration with the iPhone. When the annointed time came we were dissapointed with just a 'light' version of the web client being touted as the Apple solution.
Rumour had it that someone (high up) in Cupertino had thown their iToys out of the collaborative pram as the timing of the announcement did not suit them.
Continue reading "The Apple does not fall far from the corporate tree" »
About this time last year I was taking a short break with my SO in Vegas, no business just pleasure.
This year the hordes of conventioneers have been led to Sin City by Microsoft at its third annual MIX event. To quote the event introduction:
Now in its third year, MIX is an intimate opportunity for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the web.
This seems very promising, however trolling through the news posts I have found a mixed bag of attitudes to MS (they will be a bit thick skinned to these by now). Considering it has only really started today (Tuesday) the nay-sayers seem to be jumping the gun a bit with thier prophecies of doom for Redmond !
I have known Ray (very slightly) for a long time now and I have watched his progress as the legendary progenitor of Lotus Notes moved from Iris to IBM and then from Groove to Microsoft (maybe he will get to rename it 'MicroRiff').
Continue reading "I can't help but watch the progress of Ray Ozzie" »
Earlier this week I predicted that Apple (and IBM) would be make some interesting announcement around Lotus yesterday (Thursday 7th March) - how wrong can I be.
It seems that the rumour that escaped just prior to Lotusphere really peeved the boys from the Infinite Loop and now a stony silence that has set in.
With Microsoft getting the drop on Lotus, Ed Brill has moved into a very effective defense mode (and its tough) to deal with the dissapointment that is already pervading the community.
I do hope that positive news comes along either before or at the same time as the upcoming Lotusphere comes to you events which are being held in Wembley and Manchester at the beginning of April
For those of you interested in IBM's Lotus technology (and those of you think you ought to be) a rare opportunity is presenting itself right now.
As part of the Lotusphere come to you (yes you) global event program, IBM UK is holding one of its two gigs in Wembley stadium in two weeks time. A little birdie has told me that those of you who can get there (and you better hurry because space is filling up fast) will have an opportunity of a behind the scenes tour. And the whole thing does not cost ! - It may be on April the 1st (and 3rd in Manchester) but this is not a gig for fools
So check out the landing page before the doors close.
Tomorrow sees the first of two Lotusphere Comes to You (LCTY as abbreviated by IBM) events. The 'you' in this case is Wembley and on Thursday - Manchester. I am going to try and live-ish blog the event, with the people, issues and news as my focus. This is not Lotusphere Orlando - no sign of Snow White here (just Ian White) - there will be many less sessions - however it wll be very interesting to see who turns up, what (if anything) turns them on and whether in the consensus of those attending that IBM it getting it right!
In the great scheme of things Lotusphere comes to you comes a distant second to Lotusphere in Orlando. For instance at 10:12 in the US we would be twelve minutes into the starting session not running twelve minutes late.Continue reading "Lotusphere comes to Wembley - liveish blog" »
One of the interesting side effects of debates emanating from Web 2.0 public collaboration is the level of bitching that abounds in our little on-line universe. It occurs in all sorts of places and for all sort of reasons. Wikis, especially those which attempt to be authoritative, are often prone to competitive entries (or even vandalism) vying to be the definitive entry (look at the edit histories for this piece over a few days).
I turned my back on a blog on for 5 minutes and all that I recently wrote about blog bitching comes true. Ed Brill's website has been the home for some serious blog bitching over the last few days. Not an edifying sight however to see how passion, personal views and historical interpretation gets the juices flowing check out this thread of discussion.
As promised (threatened) I am picking up the live blog from Tuesday morning lengthy proceedings.Continue reading "Lotusphere comes to Manchester - liveish blog part 2" »
BBC, Plaxo and Twitter - sounds like the name of a new game show or kiddies TV political analysis series.Continue reading "Small things (BBC, Twitter and black is black)" »
What is it all about Bob? IBM Software Group and Lotus brand in particular needs to demonstrate some sense of real prduct strategy. It does exist in part but the 'whole' seems to be absent. IBM, I suspect your customers and prospects want to see this from you as well as great product, not just 'us' partners.
Mike Rhodin, GM of Lotus, is moving on. Its not news now, it was announced last week. As an IBM'er he has served his tour of duty and is taking on a senior role here in Europe. Bob Picciano (Sales Lead for DB2) is taking over. It is a great time to join the brand but there are a some important issues that need addressing. In January I was at Lotusphere and l have attended two Lotusphere Come to You events recently and with the amount of time between the these events the issues surrounding the big picture seems to have fallen into sharp focus.
Do blogs matter, well maybe in the IBM universe they do... Ed Brill is one of IBMs most influential bloggers (as an IBM employee) and his reactions to my last post have stirred a fair amount of comment. Interestingly he directly quoted me (below) in his blog:
It is clear from even the most casual observation to see that the funds now being invested in product development are at a rate not seen for a decade. As much as I applaud this turnaround it seems that although the factory is running at 100% capacity the marketing strategy as to which customers should be buying the output and more importantly why they should be buying which piece of the output seems to have gone walkabout. Looking on at a distance, how all the pieces fit together within an 'over arching' structure frankly seems completely absent.
I have been impressed at the level of rational discussion engendered as a result of the excerpt quoted in his blog, however I am disappointed at the shortage of constructive suggestions generated. As a blogger its always nice when people agree with you and often as nice when they don't!
So the challenge is to those who care - come up with some pithy positioning (try to say that drunk) so that the senior IBM dudes who I know are reading this and other blogs can be inspired to do better than they are at the moment.
Ideas as responses to this post please
ps the emphasis is still on the why
I've just been astonished by the weird world of law and litigation, in so far as a tribunal hearing judgment was typed up by the adjudicator, who then read it into a Dictaphone, where it languished on a cassette, prior to being typed up again. Whoever said that "the mills of the gods grind slow but exceedingly fine" failed to account for wasted effort. With energy becoming an evermore precious commodity, collaboration technology should be kite marked as eco-friendly and promoted as such.
Last week I started my Small Things post, each week I am going to look at the plethora of Web 2.0 collaborative (and personal) tools that are arriving on an almost daily basis.
This week I have had a week of Twitter under my belt, and an introduction to Symbaloo and some conversation around Plaxo.
Continue reading "Small things (Twitter, Symbaloo and Plaxo)" »
After recent blogs on Plaxo, Twitter and Facebook I thought I was duty bound to spend some time on Linkedin. To be honest the UI has improved greatly over the last few months but it still feels a little bit of a mess. I can't help wondering about these types of inline advert supported sites and their ongoing viability in a business world.
My contention is that instead of charging money for additional features, the revenue should be generated as an incentive for the delivery of an ad-free environment. The BBC is considering this model for outside of the UK access to its web content, free access with ads, clean access with subscription.
I don't want to alarm my Quickr, Sharepoint, Notes or Exchange readers but to more than paraphrase the Barak Obama mantra (sort of): SaaS is going to deliver 'Change we can believe in' .
Whether built around the Microsoft 'Mesh' vision, Google Enterprise Apps or IBMs SaaSpace, the technologies we all have traditionally had our arms around (both physically in the form of servers, and metaphysically in the form of platforms) is about to exit through the Corporate front door.
In the old days waiting for the sun to shine when on holiday normally meant reading some trashy paperback, those days are past. This morning I have been listening to a well researched BBC World Service program on Social Networking impacts on business. The nugget I picked up from this program was the importance of anti company / organisation Facebook Groups or Websites, A contributor noted how useful these sites are to gain insight on what a company is doing badly and then build strategies to address shortcomings.
Continue reading "Web 2.0 - creating digital lightening rods" »
A long time ago in a galaxy far away.... (yes I am reading too much SF on holiday) Ray Ozzie invented Notes, then he invented Groove and now (we believe) he may be re-inventing Microsoft.
Last week Ray and Steve Balmer shared a platform together in-front of an assemblage of Microsoft MVPs.10 years ago this would have been heresy, it would have been like Luke Skywalker being related to Darth Vader - whoops he was, my error, too much sun.
One of the key questions asked was 'wither Sharepoint and Groove?' Considering Groove was purchased more than three years ago now by MS it seems a bit slow to sort out both its tactical and strategic direction for the acquired software. Commentaries seem to point to Office 14 as the key point in the synergy of these two products so for now Groove will remain an excellent but narrow team enablement tool and Sharepoint will continue to have limited off-line capabilities.
I reckon once together they could be quite formidable.
If you talk the talk you have to walk the walk (or so they say). My eye was caught by this posting on the BBC technology page:
'Web 2.0 is set to be embraced by Enterprise 2.0 as businesses prepare to spend nearly $5 billion by 2013 on social networking tools.....The news comes as San Francisco plays host to the Web 2.0 conference on next generation of the web.'
and
"This is where we see the future of the web," said conference co-chair Jennifer Pahlka. "The companies making announcements here are building that future."
Today at Web 2.0 we have seen Microsoft's pre-emptive strike (or is that 'we can do that too' strike) at all of its competitors (read this posting for details) however its all been avialable to see in bits for some time, considering this has been so predictable its doubles or trebles my frustration with IBM.
Continue reading "Where are you IBM? (we now know where MS is!)" »
What makes teamwork, for that matter what makes a team work? I can't help but wonder. Over the years I have worked in many sorts of teams. Teams that are single purposed, clearly led with very differentiated tasks for each member. At the other extreme I have worked with teams where objectives are poorly defined, roles even more so and individuals left to determine amongst themselves what they need to do, when, how and why!.
Which teams structures were the most successful? Well neither, both had pluses along with other mixtures of team styles - simply put: you can't generalise.
Even with clear leadership and sharply focussed goals teams fail - this can be often caused by soft issues - personality clashes, internal politics and such like. Teams even with the most wooly of construction often deliver fantastic results. Individual commitment, professionalism and people engagement supplanting the rigid structures found elsewhere.
These are my top tips for effective technology supported teams:
o Clear team objectives - preferably written down and clear goal lines that can be crossed
o Effective communications - mandatory shared content, any emails that circumvent this should be stamped upon in a hard and ruthless manner
o Regular meetings - virtual or physical, set in stone and properly documented
o High visibility of slipping actions - stuff that at the outset was trivial can come back to haunt the team if not tracked
o Listen - Team members must be encouraged to contribute in and outside of their comfort zones, with luck this will drive out the 'gotchas'
Should I Pownce or Twitter?. I have re-started my examination of popular Web 2.0 technologies to see which are (at least to me) best.
I have been posting Tweets for a while and I thought I should give Pownce a go as there is a degree of overlap between the two. You can follow me via these links Twitter or Pownce and help me work out which is the best (if it can be established) between the two.
Some of you will know that I am a bit of a Plaxo fan. Earlier this week Comcast (a large US telco) announced they had bought them for $150m ish. The big buzz over the last few days has been the 'news' that Microsoft might be purchasing both the Yahoo search business and the Facebook everything business. MS have the cash however they need to radically improve their presence in the Web 2.0 environment and without doubt they have the management cohones to do both deals.
My more prolific blogger colleague, Ian White appeared on television last week. As a harrassed IT consultant he was set the task, along with a teacher and a hospital doctor, to see if their job was a stressful as a chef in a top restuarant. So how did he do?
Well, TV turns us all into monkeys but Ian turned the tables when asked the question - Do you think your job is more stressfull than woking in the kitchen? He answered, there are two types of stress; time and intellectual. While our job in IT is often time related, the key stress is intellectual. i.e keeping up with what's going on in a rapidly changing and incresingly commoditised industry. From his level of contribution to this blog, Ian's intellectual stress is well managed; as WikiAnswers puts it: Asking questions and trying to answer questions is the best way of intellectual stress management.
In these tricky times you can not outgrow your competitors unless you out-innovate them. With many new ideas strangled at birth by legislation and R&D belt-tightening, you have to squeeze as much innovation out of your company as possible. This is the time to launch low-cost in-house experiments. It's time for the return of the corporate suggestion box. An idea central -- backed up by tangible incentives -- to get your staff's creative and common sense juices flowing. This is one of collaboration technologies best applications. Be careful though; you need to carefully gauge an idea's potential commercial value and explore its ramifications to avoid expensive risk-taking.
I've just come accross a book on Collaboration 2.0 by an old friend, David Coleman. As the blurb says...You should read this book if you use any type of collaboration technology from IM/Chat to a virtual team space. The book is most beneficial for teams, groups, departments, cross-organizational teams and distributed organizations that are looking at some of the Web 2.0 technologies focused on communication, collaboration and interaction. Crucially, it's available as an ebook as well as paperback.
Twitter service levels over the last few weeks have been appalling, as I write Instant Messaging service is AWOL. The core service has been famously unreliable for months mostly due to runaway success combined with issues associated with scaling of the chosen platform, to the extent that this rather amusing web site have been created istwitterdown.com (which itself is fairly slow). 
Collaboration is not without its challenges particularly when working in a distributed team. Here are a few tips to help. Webworker Daily also has some advice if you work on-line
Is your Blog languishing unloved? - well fix it! Thanks to Chris Brogan who has just blogged a great entry that has come up with a list of 100 things you can do to help your efforts and scribblings reach a wider audience.
My blogging buddy Ian White has made a bob of two out of consulting. One of his skills is turning complex business issues into understandable graphics (Powerpoint). Sometimes his colouring pallet is ice cream extreme but this useful graphic on Enterprise 2.0 by R. Todd Stephens puts him in the shade. Todd covers off:
I went to a wedding on Saturday, it was fabulous, very English country - all of the guys in penguin suits and ladies with fascinators. The service struck me as a blend of the old and new, a bit of the King James prayer book juxtaposed with more modern translations of scripture and hymns. The Register has just reported on a Salesforce.com 'attack' on the Notes installed base. If this was coming from SAP, Oracle or even Microsoft (again) then it might have some credence. But its the typical ' yeah, we'll just convert the applications' crapola. 'twhirl is a desktop twitter client, based on the Adobe AIR platform.
Some of twhirl's features:
I'm sorry to tell you
The company says this solves the problem'
Too often we implement solutions based on urban myth, out of date information or hype. So every time a change is suggested, ask for evidence of its success and look for the logic behind the evidence. In particular look for the bear traps sprung by the law of unintended consequences. That way you will build up knowledge of what does and doesn't work when deploying collaboration technologies. Evidence makes the case! IBM reckons Microsoft has had it to easy in the Small to Mid Market sector. Back in January they bought Nitix, a small Canadian outfit, that have built a self propelling server (Lotus Foundations) around a customised Linux disti. The Nitix box does everything (and more) that the corresponding MS product does:
According to IBM Lotus blogger "The Turtle" all we need to move fully into the wonderful post-apocolypse post-Microsoft world is an alliance of
Google: with the reach
IBM: with the technology
Apple: with the marketing nounce
All this is true but like all wishful thinking won't come true because:
Google: thinks it has all the tech it needs
IBM: is an a federal business and thus finds it almost impossible to work in a unified manner
Apple: promotes a sort of 'we're upper class' and looks down on the rest of the world
For those of you who wonder what it is like to be upper class check this out
Google Reader was fully released in October of last year and I did nothing about it. More fool me. I have started using it for the last month and it really does the ad-hoc aggregation of RSS feeds in the most user friendly and socially aware way I have come across. Well done Erik for pointing me to Mailinator. I received a spurious invite email from Ecademy over the week-end (tsk-tsk naughty boys) and out of curiousity I popped onto the site which I have not been on for about three months or more. That got your attention!
The BBC gave a tribute to Anthony Minghella in its Imagine program last night. I wasn't a great fan of his film but he clearly displayed the key personal behaviours for collaborative working.
The behaviours listed below are based on careful observation of the behaviours commonly practised by those people who are successful when working with others. When used consistently they will transform your ability to work with and through people. They are:
I posted an entry yesterday This could kill Notes, Domino, Sharepoint and Groove which has created a fair amount of comment. Most interestingly Rajesh Akkineni, the CEO of Collaber has responded to comments made to my post. According to a new survey the 'Majority of UK businesses miss out on instant messaging benefits because of security fears - ProcessOne'.I cleared down one Inbox yesterday, filing, replying and deleting as necessary. I have two more (much bigger) inboxes to go. With this secret validation code you will be able to create a profile on our system and get exclusive access to our amazing new service, the code is 'yetanotherbetacomeon'.
About a month ago I came up with Top 5 tips for home working (what not to do). This week I have felt the muse again and arising from some more insightful self-analysis I have decided to commit these to a blog entry. I start these at number 6, just in case I ever get offered to turn the blog into a book (very unlikely). As with my first post in the interests of full disclosure I will rate myself for each one:
6) Semi-randomly download a widget or some piece of freeware that will help you become more efficient - fail
Widgets, freeware and gizmos are a bit like kitchen gadgets. These look terribly clever on Spiv TV (channel 1000001) but when you get them out of the box you realise that your expectations will not be met.
7) Spend time conceptualising (day dreaming) some maginficent Web 2.0 service that your teenage buddy who was one of the two first VCs in Google might like to fund - fail
I am gifted. I did not know that I was until I worked out that those around me seem to be making loads of money (family, friends and old buddies) and none of them have worked out the opportunity they are missing in not funding one of my bright ideas! My gift is that those around me make money - great....
8) Randomly create domain names in your browser address bar to see if they work - fail
It is amazing what two nuns will do to get noticed on the internet, not to mention how disproportionate some people are!
Stop it - you might go blind.
9) Watching too many episodes of Battlestar Galactica because you now say 'Frak!' when you stub your toe or a program crashes - Fail
Frak me, this fraking word has got inside my fraking head. Roll on the closing fraking season.
10) Twitch - Fail
Twitch - to pull aside a curtain or peer through a window to see what a neighbour is doing / who has driven past your house / watch and consider if the furniture delivery man is going to drop the poorly handled settee (and also note that the neighbour has no taste)
Only 21 percent of the executives responding to a recent McKinsey survey expressed satisfaction with the way their companies use Web 2.0 tools.
But the companies of the satisfied respondents use them successfully not just inside the enterprise, to establish two-way communication with employees, but also outside it, to let customers and suppliers participate in the development of products and to form external networks tapping widely dispersed knowledge.
Read "Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey Results" to learn more about companies that use these tools successfully and what distinguishes them from the rest.
The old adage "Careful how you treat people on the way up, you might meet them on the way down," was brought home last night by a story told by someone who was stuck on a train with two media alpha presenters (one was a woman) - both were, in the past, supporters of New Labour.
A certain Prime Minister stymied pet projects of them both on his way up the greasy pole. They are now actively seeking his demise.
The moral of the tale for us collaborationists - Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
'Allo 'allo
What with Ian sending us his French Letters from La Belle France, the title of this blog 'Chief Collaboration Officer' sounds as if it might come from 'Allo 'Allo but Non!
I have just received a link to an interview with a CCO. Whose job is focused on managing and improving his company's' collaborative efforts. But what exactly does a Chief Collaboration Officer do?
In the case of Adam Zawel at INmobile.org, his skill is helping high ll executives participate in an organized group of their peers, with moderation and assistance from Zawel.
My attention was brought to the Web 2.0 site Upcoming over the weekend by good old Scoble. This is a Yahoo site that is an excellent source of information on all sort of events from around the world. From London's Notting Hill Carnival to New Zealand's Webstock it all there. Well, er, no it isn't.
On Monday night, BBC's Dragons Den introduced the world to ifoods.tv (not ifood.tv more about that later) after they sought a large amount of funding from the investor panel. They say that nothing is new under the sun. IBM Lotus must be flattered as here in the UK telco Orange is running an 'I am' campaign that could have been inspired by the noteworthy 'I am' campaign for Lotus R5 in 1999 (I wonder who the copywriters were / worked for ?). Enterprise Mac market with the launch of the Lotus Notes 8.5 client which takes better advantage of the OSX environment.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.
Apologies to My Fair Lady, but Ian wrote 'Does the world hate Lotus Notes? Well I bear the scars from an organisation that did.
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.
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..
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.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. It was our monthly meeting yesterday and the usual chatter settled on a discussion around the use of the likes of Google Docs, Zoho, Acrobat and suchlike
"Preparing for the next downturn," was the title of a McKinsey report, published last year, I had archived it as possible content for this blog. Realsing it was now passé I deleted it, though not before taking a quick look. It started of, "In a buoyant economy, the next recession seems far off. But managers who prepare during good times can improve their companies' chances to endure--or thrive in--the eventual downturn."
So what, on entering a downturn, did the article suggest were the things to do?
1) Maintain lower leverage on the balance sheets
2) Control operating costs
3) Diversify product offerings and business geographies
Controlling costs is relevant to this posting as it is an opportunity to show Collaboration technology's ability to reduce cost. There's a recent report by Infoedge on IT trends and spending that might help.
To describe recent events as a disaster would be an understatement, whether for investors, employees or the general public the collateral damage from the past week-ends events will be the subject of many books and dissertations in the future. The UK Lotus User Group 2008 conference is on tomorrow and Friday (18th-19th September) Having made the case against collaboration yesterday it seems a bit churlish not to look at what effective collaboration could have done to mitigate the large pile of poo that the banking system (and the rest of us) finds itself it in at present.Ian has expressed the view that collaboration might have helped in the current financial crisis. However, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and, contra wise, knowledge is power -- with regards collaboration, both apply.
Thursday saw the updating of the Twitter UI and some its technology. At a time when Facebook is starting to look like an 'accident in a paint factory', the denizens of Twitter are producing a UI that's clean fresh and usable.So a Yahoo mail account has been hacked, well they are only one or two belonging to the Governor of a US State, potentially the next Vice-President and therefore only a vote / heartbeat away from the Presidency. Ed Brill has linked to this excellent article making the case for considering the potential risks and downsides for externally hosted mail and webmail in particular.
Oracle are at it again, over a number of years they have tried to become a 'player' in the messaging / collaboration market. Yesterday they announced Beehive, their latest attempt to get a piece of this sweet, sweet market.Yesterday I read on the BBC Website that Ray Davies is hoping a reunion of The Kinks may happen sometime soon. Apart from my favourite track, Waterloo Sunset which is one of the best ever songs about London, The Kinks achieved world chart-topping success with the eponymous Lola.
Collaboration technology was on show this week at the Project and Programme Management exhibition in London. It was good to see that the PM world now includes more risk analysis and benefit management add-ons than just task, time and resource programmes. However, it was clear from talking to delegates is that the Government has fallen out of love with PRINCEII. HMG believed that you could just train people in a methodology and hey presto projects would succeed.
Good project management has always been a subtle mixture of science and art. This was best exemplified at the show by K4Innovations a Project Management Services Company that manages projects from setting up a bank in Moscow to running community projects in Antigua. The key said Kimikawa De Castro, managing principal, is in a rigorous Requirements Definition process - one where people are pushed hard to really think about what is needed. Many projects are initiated too early because of time pressure without the requirements being realistically captured.
While a key element of PRINCEII it requires good communications skill from the PM to capture requirements from the stakeholders. A series of books on the soft skills of project management are available from the Maven Training Skills Academy. What was good about the show is the realization that technology and methodology are junior partners in bringing a project home. HMG be advised - It's all about the people Stupid!
This week I have decided to pen a few blog entries focussed around the future of collaboration. However before looking to the future it is worth considering a little of life before collaborative technology. A couple of days ago I looked back into the age of 'digital steam'. My first home modem had a speed of 1200/75 and at work when we moved from 1200 half-duplex to 2400 full-duplex it seemed to be a momentous event."It's a new dawn, This is the third and last entry in the MAC series and with this entry I will try to describe the environment that I for one would like to work with.Since announcing my employment at Microsoft I have had a couple of 'gone over to the dark side' comments. I left home this morning contemplating the content of this post. It was going to be about how all our collaborative and web 2.0 technology could make the financial and economic crisis go away - but today's turmoil shows that they can't.With the UK PM doing his old job as Chancellor rather well (he'll have to return to PM'ing soon) it shows that if you've got a good idea and the means of disseminating it others will pick up and run with it.
I have been very supportive towards Plaxo over a number of years - but that might now be cast into doubt. I read this interesting article in Computer Weekly today, headlined SAP puts collaboration at heart of business strategy I was quite excited. One of the secrets of a great discussion is openness.It is interesting to join conference calls in any organisation, whether for product briefings, management updates or project co-ordination you nearly always end up more knowledgeable at then end of the call compared to the start. Regular users will recognise one aspect of this technology that many participants have failed to come to terms with:One of our industry's key articulate voices is Mary-Jo Foley, her blog on ZDNET, All about Microsoft, is one of the most subscribed in the IT sector.
With the world in flux, the basis of power is moving from organisations to networks that have the ability to mobilise quickly, accomplish their goal, and then disperse. How do we respond in a world where funding is going down, money is tight but the social need is going to go up? How are these needs to be met? Our contribution can be by empowering more social networks and not clunky, bureaucratic organisations.
Many industries are woefully inefficient and siloed. Now it's time to change. There are huge inefficiencies in the way organisations manage workflow internally and also how they collaborate. One-to-one communications like email remain king. One-to-many collaborative tools like wikis, internal blogs and micro-blogs are still not in widespread use. We need to break down walls by ushering in new tools in that enable employees to connect with each other. Now is the time to become more efficient, open and collaborative.
I have known (to a small extent) Ray Ozzie since around 1995. Ray is clearly a man of huge vision with an intellect to match. On rare occasions at big events he has shown the ability to enthuse a crowd. 
IBM has launched a hosted version of its Lotus Notes messaging software, allowing companies with 1,000 to 10,000 employees to use the messaging platform without the need to purchase and install software. The company said that the Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging service will cost under $10 (£6.13) per user per month.
The service is IBM's effort to remodel the Lotus Notes communication suite as a web-based service. Previous moves have included the launch of email clients for the iPhone based on the Domino webmail system.
