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October 31, 2007

Social Networking for Business

thumb_white.gifA lot of discussion in and around our industry Is focussed on the impact of Social Networking. Is this was Collaboration 2.0 what this is all about, I think not. If we continue to use this phrase as a product classification for Collaboration 2.0 a number of things may happen

1. The outside world will perceive Collsboration 2.0 as a 'lightweight' and frivolous product
2. Why use vendor tools when you can use other social networking tools for 'free'
3. The business value and role within an Enterprise of web based Collaboration 2.0 will be extemely hard to position

What else could this be called? this blog post suggests SNB (Social Networking for Business), but will could call is Collaborative Netwoking or some other handle. Suggestion welcome - I do think Social Networking by itself mis-positions what we are trying to achieve.

Posted by Ian White on October 31, 2007 8:33 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

November 1, 2007

Babyboomers 2.0

thumb_white.gifMy colleague David Peacock has referred me to an article in Slate.com by Emily Yoffe. The interesting aspect of the article is that it extolls the usefulness of Web 2.0 technology for my generation. Now if a pincer action starts to take place between the current influx of job starters with senior management trying to eek out the last few years of their careers by becoming collaboratively savvy it could be the 70s and 80s generation that get caught in a technology gap.

Continue reading "Babyboomers 2.0" »

Posted by Ian White on November 1, 2007 12:00 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

November 14, 2007

Simultaneously Detached and Intimate

Interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review this month on the social networking issue that Ian raised in October - he's always on the edge of the curve is our Ian. A readers comment to the article http://hbsp.ed10.net/t/SLOQJ/O3BKH/RF/TPZJ8W by Kelly A. Shaw, Ph.D. an analyst at Serena Software http://www.serena.com points to,

this odd mix of being detached and intimate at the same time, is the way society is evolving
. Forrester recently published some data on Gen Y showing that these 18 - 27-year-olds expect immediate collaboration, instant communication, short sound-bites and constant interactions with their peers.

Continue reading "Simultaneously Detached and Intimate" »

Posted by Michael Pincher on November 14, 2007 11:34 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 26, 2007

Collaborating, its a team thing

thumb_white.gifMark Ryan at Microsoft brought to my attention a blog entry addressing optimal sizes for terrorist groups which looks at the break point points for effective small, medium and large sized teams.

Continue reading "Collaborating, its a team thing" »

Posted by Ian White on November 26, 2007 9:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 3, 2007

What is good collaboration #2

thumb_white.gifGoals, 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?

Continue reading "What is good collaboration #2" »

Posted by Ian White on December 3, 2007 10:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 11, 2007

School Diners

thumb_white.gifDear 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.

Continue reading "School Diners" »

Posted by Ian White on December 11, 2007 9:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 8, 2008

Information Overload a £100M cost to UK economy

thumb_white.gifYou 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" »

Posted by Ian White on January 8, 2008 9:00 AM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

January 21, 2008

Computer Weekly requests and Lotus delivers!

thumb_white.gifAccording 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!" »

Posted by Ian White on January 21, 2008 8:00 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 23, 2008

One conference, four keynotes, two legs

thumb_white.gifHow 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" »

Posted by Ian White on January 23, 2008 3:51 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

January 26, 2008

Whiskey in the Jar Bill, yes it is about Lotusphere

thumb_white.gifWednesday’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" »

Posted by Ian White on January 26, 2008 2:43 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 1, 2008

I've been mashed!

thumb_white.gifLate last spring I went to the 25th Anniversary of Lotus Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I did a bit of touristy stuff and with camera in hand I had a chance to capture some half decent images of Boston and Cambridge. With little thought (and I don't do it regularly) I uploaded the images to Flickr.

Continue reading "I've been mashed!" »

Posted by Ian White on February 1, 2008 10:43 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 3, 2008

It's the end of the world as we know it

thumb_white.gifMicrosoft'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" »

Posted by Ian White on February 3, 2008 4:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 18, 2008

Blog it like Beckham!

thumb_white.gifFor 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.

Continue reading "Blog it like Beckham!" »

Posted by Ian White on March 18, 2008 9:00 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 1, 2008

Lotusphere comes to Wembley - liveish blog

thumb_white.gif 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.

Currently we have two talking heads on a video loop from HSBC telling us why they love Lotus technology in the Bank - I am now watching this for the second time and I expect in a little time if it loops again I will know the script.

Anyway why is the interviewer American, it seems to at odds with an in-country event.

David Farrell (VP Software Europe) starts off with a bunch of questionable statistics about this event, the Orlando event and Wembley (those are probably accurate). Enough now - get off and let us get to some meat.

10:23 and we are still doing house-keeping - 10:24 Bruce Morse gets going at last ! - VP of Sametime (UC really)

Continue reading "Lotusphere comes to Wembley - liveish blog" »

Posted by Ian White on April 1, 2008 11:30 PM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

April 3, 2008

Lotusphere comes to Manchester - liveish blog part 2

thumb_white.gif As promised (threatened) I am picking up the live blog from Tuesday morning lengthy proceedings.

First things first, both Wembley and Manchester give good food - this fairs very well when compared to the stodge we get in Orlando.

For the afternoons presentation I have decided to attend 'Social Networking - fad or business value', delivered by Brendan Tutt (IBM) and Jon Mell (Trovus).

Interesting chairs in here, they rock (as in 'move' as opposed to being 'very good')


John has kicked off by telling us why Social Networking is good for business, because of Innovation and Change

We have been introduced to Digital Natives and Immigrants - I am supposed to be in the latter but want to be in the former !

Continue reading "Lotusphere comes to Manchester - liveish blog part 2" »

Posted by Ian White on April 3, 2008 2:25 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 4, 2008

Small things (BBC, Twitter and black is black)

thumb_white.gifBBC, Plaxo and Twitter - sounds like the name of a new game show or kiddies TV political analysis series.

Collaboration and Web 2.0 (and all of the other 2.0 stuff) are they really connected? - what with Lotusphere comes to you and the dis-jointed week I have been experiencing it seemed a good time to reach out to some of the other cool bits of technology that are out there but which I have been avoiding that might(??) make my life a bit easier!.

So each week (for the near future at least) I am going to adopt one Collaboration 2.0 technology and give it a whirl, additionally I am going to review my other tools and their state of play.

Continue reading "Small things (BBC, Twitter and black is black)" »

Posted by Ian White on April 4, 2008 3:00 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 7, 2008

And now on the World Service 2.0....

thumb_white.gifI have a vested interest. In my distant past I worked for the BBC, I still have a great deal of affection for the esteemed organ of the British establishment, but it is changing. I came across this very interesting article on the changes now being implemented at the Beeb.

The corporation has really grasped the possibilities afforded by the latest web technologies (check out its podcast and vodcast output) and within the next two years on the back of the iPlayer we are going to see a tons of innovations affecting both UK, European and world wide audiences. The world of broadcasting, narrowcasting and affintiycasting will never be the same again.

Posted by Ian White on April 7, 2008 10:37 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 14, 2008

No, I don't hate Linkedin

thumb_white.gifI just prefer Plaxo. Hey I am a member of both!

Last week I commented on the comparison between Plaxo and Facebook. This generated a couple of 'what about Linkedin' comments which seemed to warrant a response on my part.

LInkedin is described in Wikipedia as 'a business-oriented social networking site' whereas Plaxo is described as 'an online address book service'. Both interestingly (if not unsurprisingly) are based in Mountain View and more significantly both are at least part funded by venture capital specialists Sequoia Capital.

Continue reading "No, I don't hate Linkedin" »

Posted by Ian White on April 14, 2008 10:00 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

April 15, 2008

More on Linkedin (less ads please)

thumb_white.gifAfter 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.

Continue reading "More on Linkedin (less ads please)" »

Posted by Ian White on April 15, 2008 10:00 AM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

April 21, 2008

Web 2.0 - creating digital lightening rods

thumb_white.gifIn 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" »

Posted by Ian White on April 21, 2008 10:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 23, 2008

Where are you IBM? (we now know where MS is!)

thumb_white.gifIf 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!)" »

Posted by Ian White on April 23, 2008 1:01 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 9, 2008

Pownce or Twitter

thumb_white.gifShould 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.

Posted by Ian White on May 9, 2008 1:02 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

May 14, 2008

Mission Critical - an object lesson

Ian White Profile PicSome of you may have noticed that you have not been able to post any comments to the blogs for the last 24 hours or so. The bloggers have also been in the same boat (that's the one without a paddle).

All of this comes on the back of an 'upgrade' to ease the problems associated with the current version of the blogging platform used across the Reed Business Information titles here in the UK (and elsewhere for all I know). For months all of us have been dealing with instability, poor performance and a general lack of facility mainly due the old system was about 3 full releases behind the latest supported release. The first tentative upgrade was scheduled for the 14th April and the upgrade has been on and off since then.

You can guess what has happened, Computer Weekly (and the rest of the titles) has experienced the sort of 'gremlins' that we in the real world of organisational computing face on almost daily basis. It was not for a lack of planning, there appears to have been a lot of that. It was not for the lack of testing, that too was extensively undertaken. As my fellow blogger Michael Pincher loves to say 'it was due to the law of unintended consequences'.

It is working now otherwise you would not be able to read this. I know it has been very embarrassing for them although the problems do not represent the end of the universe. It is however it is a salutatory lesson for the professional journalists who must have got very frustrated over the last few hours because of the service failure. They now know first hand the knife edge that afflict so many systems in the 'real world'. In future they might take a few more thought cycles before taking a 'pop' at some new IT disaster.



Posted by Ian White on May 14, 2008 12:21 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 16, 2008

Comcast buys Plaxo - its all static

thumb_white.gifSome 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.

As a user I thought I ought to read up on this so I googled some sources and found that Techcrunch had hosted a discussion on the implication of the acquistion with a number of esteemed analysts and bloggers.

Unfortunately even with the the creme de la creme of technologists present, the recorded call quality is below usable. Read the reponses to their post for a bit of inisght into this, it is quite amusing.

Do I now have a view on the significance off the acquisition - no. Do i have a view on my fellow bloggers (including me) - we are not as smart sometimes as we think we are!


Continue reading "Comcast buys Plaxo - its all static" »

Posted by Ian White on May 16, 2008 5:12 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 20, 2008

Its the end of the Web as we know it

thumb_white.gif 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.

Scoble has an interesting and maybe persuasive argument why these might be a couple of great transactions for Microsoft and potentially bad ones for the rest of us. His argument centres on the spat between Facebook and Google. Facebook is stopping Google spidering some public content it is publishing. Robert postulates that with so many people (especially the Net generation) using Facebook as a principle method of communication if a MS/Yahoo/FB search engine was the only one that could include key FB content this would be of massive 'us and them' significance in the way the Web and our relationship with its players pans out over the next few years.

In the meantime no deal has been announced, so it is just a game of wait and see for the moment.

Update
Many apologies for grammatical and spelling howlers this morning (most of which I hope I have removed) a result of a hastily composed and published blog entry. Mea culpa

PS comments don't get published without a valid email address (not my choice) so for the person who pointed out my pile of poo today - thanks for taking the time

Posted by Ian White on May 20, 2008 9:46 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

June 6, 2008

Running one's mouth

Thumbnail image for thumb_chapman_pincher.gif Ian wrote yesterday about the departure of Bill Gates.

In the early day of Windows 3.0 I met Bill several times. Once, at a journalist's dinner, he and I both went to the men's room at the same time.  While Bill was doing the business I was struggling. To my embarrassment I discovered I had put my boxer shorts on back to front.

"Having trouble with your underwear, Michael?" quipped Bill.

"Not as much trouble as your having with your software," I retorted.

We never spoke again.

Posted by Michael Pincher on June 6, 2008 7:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 9, 2008

Twitter - how far is too far

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for thumb_white.gifTwitter 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). 

But has it gone too far? Has the reputation of the service diminished to a level to which other service will be able to a take advantage of  user unhappiness such as Plurk?

Posted by Ian White on June 9, 2008 8:41 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

June 10, 2008

Facebook Not So Useful as a Business Tool

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for thumb_chapman_pincher.gifFacebook is trying to make itself more attractive to business users by, among other things, allowing users to segregate their business contacts from their strictly social ones. 

While this is useful it doesn't make Facebook a business tool. According to a new study from Flowing Data, just a few of Facebook's 23,000 plus applications are business-oriented. Nearly half of them are "just for fun" while the "gaming" and "sports" categories include more than 2,000 applications each.

Posted by Michael Pincher on June 10, 2008 8:16 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 17, 2008

Are your blogs languishing unloved - Collaboration 2.0 to the rescue

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for thumb_white.gifIs 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.

I found his blog via a link posted by (the always observant) David Peacock via FriendFeed and Twhirl. David and I are going to have to take these points to heart and set up a shared Evernote to put them into action.

This is Collaboration 2.0 in action


Posted by Ian White on June 17, 2008 8:15 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 19, 2008

Tower of Babel 2.0?

thumb_white.gif
I have been wondering about the viability of the plethora of social communication tools that seems are emerging at a rate that is frankly un-supportable in all but the short term. 

The desire to communicate is fabulous however are we really achieving any fundamental ideals?

After the flood the people tried to reach the heavens and then:

Genesis 11:4. God seeing what the people were doing, confused their languages and scattered the people throughout the earth.

I wonder if in a non-spiritual way we are descending into a confusion of communication out of our own technical hubris and being slaves to the medium, not masters of it?

Posted by Ian White on June 19, 2008 9:00 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

June 20, 2008

Its all getting a bit much

thumb_white.gif(Today is Friday and I thought Mickey would post). 

Here is a catalogue of web 2.0 tools I am using:

Is this normal, expectational or light-weight for a 21 century dude?

My thoughts are that the 13 above are about the maximum any sane individual can cope with, the idea of adding more that (might) improve my day to day activities seems counter-intuative. 

How do you feel about this, have I gone over the top or should I be adding more. Is knowledge power or in this case just confusion?

Posted by Ian White on June 20, 2008 1:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 24, 2008

With this tweet I thee wed

thumb_white.gifI 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. 

As I sat and enjoyed the formalities I considered that the modern wedding has evolved over time from cavemen dragging their intended partners (male or female, we are not sexist here) by the hair to their lairs as their mating ritual. This has moved on to today's church, registry office or other suitable location for this special event.

With a further evolution of the process I wondered what a web 2.0 wedding would look like?

Would guests be gathered in a Second Life place of worship? 
Could vows be exchanged through Twitter?
What about rings being replaced with the exchange of digital certificates?

Physical consummation might be a bit more challenging but there would certainly be a good audience! On the downside the party 2.0 will not be as much fun as today's, with only virtual booze for consumption :-(

Well technology can only go so far!

Posted by Ian White on June 24, 2008 8:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 25, 2008

Do you know anyone with asthma????

thumb_white.gifIf you do and you want to help them just pop along to channelswim4asthmauk where an old IBM friend is doing her bit by doggie-paddling across the English Channel (for my French friends, La Manche). Well I expect it will be a bit better than the doggie paddle. 

I know all donations will be gratefully received no matter what size.

Hey, make it your good deed for today!

ps this is Social Networking at its most 'social'

Posted by Ian White on June 25, 2008 1:00 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 27, 2008

He's not Obama or McCain, but David Davis is Twittering from Haltemprice

thumb_white.gifI think Haltemprice and Howden will be the first significant British election where web 2.0 technology will have any significant impact. David Davis is twittering and it is going to be really interesting if he can establish a dialogue with the electorate in his constituen