Collaboration Technology 2.0

The US has run out of Zeroes

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0000

That's Zeroes not Heroes.

Last year we stayed in a hotel very close to Times Sq, and I was taken by the famous debt clock - it keeps track of the enormous US national debt. Recent events have caused it a fairly major problem.

Th e BBC reports:

'The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount.

The board was erected to highlight the $2.7 trillion level of debt in 1989. The clock's owners say two more zeros will be added, allowing the clock to record a quadrillion dollars of debt.'

Its going to be replaced but they are not adding one Zero they are adding two!

That truly is an alarming prediction

There is a 50% chance your CIO does not care about your output!

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:30:26 +0000

A very interesting piece of research has come to light as reported by Computer Weekly. The report from Original Software and which cites IDC states:

'When asked how the importance of their software quality is perceived within the business, more than 40% of CIOs admitted "not at all" or "as a nice to have".

The Original Software study follows a recent IDC survey which revealed that more than 40% of all software applications are released with between one and ten critical defects, with the management being fully aware of this at the time of issue'

This I suspect does not surprise many of us but it is a damning indictment of CIO's that court 'Profile' ahead of the solutions they may be responsible for.

Keeping our collective nerves

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:30:41 +0000

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.

The only solution is people. People at the top - People in the middle - People living at the bottom and their behaviour. In some respects the whole crisis and its causes looks like a business that has got out of control. I am sure we have all seen it - these are some of the indicators:

A series of momentous and strategic statements from the CEO
In-fighting at the board level
Projects which are based on great ideas but are not thought through, funded or properly staffed
Middle management that are not quite sure what to do, so do nothing
The masses looking upwards and wondering what the hell is going on

This all seems fairly familiar and in my experience the only way these sort of problems get repaired will be through proper and radical leadership, harsh medicine and time to win the war. Yes, war because to all intents we are in one now - and the enemy is fear and it has to be defeated.

Data centre savers

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:00:04 +0000

The market meltdown is no reason to take your eye off the energy crunch. However, it may have a fringe benefit. With all the 'consolidation' gong on in the banking sector and job losses in the 'City' there may be an easing of data centre restricions .

This time last year it was increasingly difficult to get extra rack space and additional power in key UK, European and US data centres. While integration and downsizing will take its time, speak to your centre manager and check out what might become available - could be there'll be some 'big iron' going cheap.

New Job - end of Day 1 and no sign of Darth Vader

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:40:48 +0000

Since announcing my employment at Microsoft I have had a couple of 'gone over to the dark side' comments.

Well the only Vader like wheezing I heard today was from me (I am sort of asthmatic) - no death grips and no signs of Imperial Storm Troopers or Padawan learners!

This sort of reaction comes from me joining a business that polarises peoples opinions in a similar manner to many other large corporates (for similar or different reasons) and there is nothing I can do about that.

What I can say is that it is nice to join an organisation where I hear genuine laughter, I can meet up with old friends and continue on the path (although one in a different direction) of promoting Collaboration.

I don't intend to post any more on this change to my life, I am right now trying to work out what the financial meltdown means for our collaborative initiatives, good and bad - it seems to me to be more important.

Trust is the key to Collaboration

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:34:25 +0000

I've just been reading maturity level training material on managing projects. They're based on Prince2. One module looks at communication skills. A key area it focuses on is ensuring that the end-users of the project's outcome are as committed to its success as the client.

It is critically important when starting any collaboration project to make sure that, while people buy-in to a project, they actually have the time to support their intention. My experience in rolling-out collaborative applications is that their time allocation (be it testing, training or data input) is the hardest to pin down. While you can schedule, plan and book time people's diaries when it comes to the crunch the pressure of 'work' (occasionally a euphemism for laziness) is their way of getting out of what is arguably a boring task.

This leaves collaborative applications being run out untested and unproven with the inevitable consequences; allowing 'users' to run back to the standalone spreadsheet applications they've developed while waiting for the 'killer collaborative app' to be delivered.

Communication is the key to this. And that's not just the project team informing people what's going on but critically, listening to what people mean when they commit to your project. You've got to be sure they are not just saying yes for an easy life now to let you down later. You can throw people and money at a project but you can't throw time.

Not to be outdone by Ed Brill, I too have a new job!

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:30:00 +0000

"It's a new dawn,

It's a new day,

It's a new life, For me,

And I'm feeling good"

So sings Michael Bublé and he could be singing about me.

Today I have changed my career and will be supporting the adoption of Groove into organizations across most of Western Europe (except UK, France and Germany).

Since 1988 I have been very privileged to have developed my passion for collaborative technology starting with cc:Mail and latterly with Notes and Domino and other Lotus products. But the apple has not fallen far from the tree for those of you who know the history of Microsoft's Ray Ozzie will recognize that Groove is essentially a genetic relative of the Notes family.

Collaboration is in my blood therefore I am really looking forward to promoting the benefits of this type of capability to organisations that today see the transferring of files by email as the height of collaboration. As for this blog, it will continue to reflect my personal views on the world of Collaborative technology (plus my usual off the wall comments) however with a greater insight as to what Microsoft has to offer.

My contribution will endeavour to have a slightly different agenda by moving to a greater focus on the benefits of collaboration technology. As part of this I want to cover how adoption benefits organisations, what are the pitfalls of deployment and the approaches to the persuasion of cynics.

Hopefully a voice coming from a different angle will add a little bit to the combined knowledge (and maybe even wisdom) of the Collaboration community.

So for now...

Goodbye and Hello

By the way good luck to Lotus Maven, Ed Brill, on his new job

Is the iPhone democratic?

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:00:48 +0000

The iPhone is a powerful software platform and it appears to be becoming a political platform for the US Democrats in the current campaign.

This terrific report on the BBC on the harnessing of the iPhone for the Obama campaign gives us a hint of how new technologies are changing social, business and political interactions across the board:

'US Democratic candidate Barack Obama is set to turn the iPhone into a political recruiting tool with an application aimed at getting the vote out.

The software has a "Call Friends" option to help organise contacts in swing states.'

It will be interesting to see how the UK political parties harness 2.0 technologies as we start to get into our electoral season in around one years time.

Mutually Assured Collaboration #3 - what I would like

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:30:00 +0000

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.

The world of collaboration is quite complex right now, if you use the metaphor of an old fashioned desk which would host in-trays and out-trays, a desk diary, telephone, calculator, work pad and drawers for filing - your mind-picture will be one of a failry simple and inutiuve enviornment (even if it needed a lot of manual input). The in-tray would have comprised of memos, letters, forms and reports to be read, How these were dealt with would have been on a case by case basis, some going to the bottom of the pile but others being dealt with on a sequential basis.

You did not have to move to a different desk to deal with different forms or memos, but in many circumstances that is what we ask our users to do today.

I am stretching the metaphor a bit, but today we often need to to move to different applications to process specifics types of input. But why?

What can't I simply work in a single space which transforms itself on the basis of the input, an email, form or word processing UI depending on the source content. If I type To: Fred Blogs, then an email environment should be presented, if I type @Fred Blogs then an instant messaging environment should come to the fore and maybe if I type Dear Fred then a word processor with a letter template kicks off.

My vision is of one environment morphing itself depending the context of either the input or output required.

I want to get rid of the clutter of clients, portlets and applets, I would like to see users, power and basic alike, working in an environment that focusses them on the tasks not the software - I not sure it is ever going to be possible but we should at least attempt to deliver this sort or simplicity. There will always be room for specialised applications but I would hope these would be the exception rather than the rule.

Will a 'meek' Microsoft inherit the Google Earth

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:11:22 +0000

Steve Ballmer has been ripping up London town in the last couple of days. The BBC were given an interview that is sort of interesting. However the reporter in question, Rory Cellan-Jones, has used his blog to elaborate on the interview.

Within the interview Rory documented:

'So does this mean that Microsoft has been transformed into an ever so humble little business, happy enough to tick over, and with no great ambitions to grow further? Not a bit of it. Mr Ballmer went on to explain that he was aiming Microsoft right at Google's search and advertising heartland - and even suggested that search was in desperate need of a bit of innovation.'

This, the rest of the blog entry and comments from readers make a very interesting post.

CIO / CTO - Have you ever wondered how the roles differ?

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:33:31 +0000

We all do it, subscribe to various feeds and newsletters that might one day prove useful. Today I struck a little nugget of gold.

I subscribe to Techrepublic and as a result got this little primer on the key differences between CIO and CTO roles. Running for only around 5 minutes this professionally produced content succintly describes the differences between the two and as a result has piqued my curoiusity as to what other quick snippets may be worth while watching.

Watch and enjoy: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=853&tag=nl.e101

Mutually Assured Collaboration #2 - a 'Confusion' of clients

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:30:57 +0000

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.

But in some respects that simplistic age had much to offer, in the workplace connectivity was mainly about extending existing applications to remote terminals. There was no need for a new client to take advantage of what was on offer at the dawn of digital communications. Life and work was simple.

Today we have a fabulous array of business, personal and hybrid applications. These applications can be used in pretty well any mode you care to mention - on-line, off-line, hosted or client server - you name it and it will be delivered. But for the average 'Joe Public' are they getting what they need? Considering we are now well into the 'digital business' era I am still faced with many instances of users who find what our industry is offering to be 'confusing', 'complicated' or 'poorly executed'.

One of my pet hates is the inappropriate use of Portals. Of course Portal technology has a lot to offer but so many of the implementations are half-hearted and poorly implemented. This often leaves users with both a series of un-connected network / desktop applications and portlets that are not comprehensive, often are sluggish and in themselves they are effectively a collection of second rate applets.

The next few years needs to be about 'digital unification' moving away from the loosely federated environments that exist in many working environments today to something much better. We need to move beyond Unified Communications to Unified Collaboration, a subtle but significant difference.

In the next post in this series I will describe an environment that I would like to see emerging, in the meantime I am interested in your views on this subject.

Losing the best (just remember what happened last time)

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:00:00 +0000

The ripple effect (or is that tsunami) of the the current financial crisis is starting to be felt on the shores of the tech industry. Over the last 20 years we have had a number of downturns that have affected technology. Through the 80s and early 00s mini and maxi recessions have hit IT and sometimes the outcomes are good, sometimes they are bad,.

One of the most detrimental facets of these down-turns has been the loss of some great people from the industry as these smart people reckon that safe work outside our hallowed halls makes more sense than being on the bleeding edge of a cost cutting knife.

Time alone will tell how all this bad news is going to affect us, one way or another there will be an affect. How many banks, businesses or manufacturing industries fail or are forced to merge will cause yet another outflow of talent into the world outside of geekdom.

Sarah Palin - Wow, and it not just the glasses

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:55:33 +0000

Far be it for me, a Brit, to comment on US Politics (we have enough of our own thank you), but this recent report sort of encapsulates how around 50% of the US feels.

'Palin Brushing Up On Foreign Policy At Epcot

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

ORLANDO, FL--Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin sought to silence those who have criticized her lack of foreign affairs experience Tuesday by announcing plans for a weeklong, 10-nation tour of Walt Disney World's Epcot. According to Palin, the trip--her first past Frontierland--will include speaking engagements at Norway's famous Viking ride, sausages at Germany's Kaufhaus, and, time permitting, a fact-finding mission to Future World. "This ambitious trip should finally demonstrate that I am ready to assume the vice presidency, whether by standing in long lines at Morocco's Tangierine Café or by sitting down face-to-face with Mexico's Three Caballeros," Palin announced during a campaign stop outside a Chinese restaurant in Tulsa, OK. "All of our neighbors deserve good diplomacy, from the Universe of Energy down to the French pavilion." Palin also promised a visit to the American Adventure exhibit before returning home, adding that she hoped to learn more about her own nation and the diverse peoples within.''

I would like to thank the Onion for providing on this bad day an item worth reading for just of a bit of levity amongst all the gloom.

Software rots - Do you?

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:00:31 +0000

Things deteriorate over time if you don't do maintenance - even software. One item that needs upkeep is your online identity. Many of us go onto sites -- social networking or otherwise -- and type in details about ourselves (true or not) and there they remain for perpetuity. I just received an update from Plaxo, a site about which I had forgotten - only my details were wrong but also those of some of my connections, including my son Edward, an i-generationer and headhunter now at Amos and Bailey, rather than the previous company cited in his details.

In the future there may be some identity management for the Web where you can be in control of one single version of who you are; until then, do the housekeeping on your on-line registrations. If you don't, that flattering and ever anticipated call from someone trying to recruit you for the job you've always dreamt of, may not come your way.