Collaboration Technology 2.0

I've just completed a research session on Unified Messaging. It's a buzz term that's been around for some years if not a decade. Then it was a solution looking for a problem. Now it looks a more cohesive story.

This blog is going to formally launch next week so I thought I would check out CW virtual front page today, first we have UK government loses data on 25 million Britons followed closely by Fortnum & Mason improves store flexibility with new LAN. Now I am not decrying the Queen's grocers transition to the 21st century but juxtaposed against the former article it goes to show how little the general public get to understand the issues and activities that will change all of our lives as time moves on.

30 months ago Ray Ozzie joined Microsoft, 18 months ago Ray became Chief Software Architect for that company (Bill Gates old job). In June I had the chance to meet up with 600 people at the Lotus 25th Anniversary including Ray. Having moved from Lotus (IBM) to Microsoft I was more than interested in Ray's view on the world of collaboration and innovation.

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.

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.

If you want frivolous postings then my personal blog is normally the place to visit. But in the spirit that because we in the IT community can be a bit po faced from time to time, it is nice to show we have a human touch; I bring you a fantastic YouTube clip brought to my attention by my colleague Gareth Howell.

It is worth watching the whole clip and for those of you struggling with your home internet configurations this may make you realise - you are not alone

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......

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.

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.

I was talking to a Don who is an assessor at a university court. A court that has had civil jurisdiction in all matters involving scholars or privileged persons of the university since 1244. We were discussing email and its dangers and how, as a consequence, telephones are ringing again between the the ivory towers.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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!

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.

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.

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').

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

It is unlikely that you will know Cartercar, LaSalle, Nash and Haynes, they are all examples of car marques that although popular when they we first introduced - in time (some short, some long) died out.

Similarly Digital, MicroPro (Wordstar) and Dbase are just a few examples of shining stars that have collapsed and have only left memories held in small alleys of the internet and of course Wikipedia

Right now I imagine there are lots of HD-DVD advocates telling anyone who is willing to listen how much better a standard it is compared to Blu-ray. Hey guys you are obsolete and it was the PS3 that killed you.

Some of the above simply failed and we are only left with examples of the brand, sometimes the innovation they introduced is revered or sometimes we are left with just a name as they were gobbled up and then maybe re-gobbled up by some large faceless corporation that did not care too much about what they represented.

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.

I 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The recent Microsoft Mesh announcement at Web 2.0 provoked some calls of 'bias' by the BBC favouring MS. Some felt the coverage was disproportional with respect to the level of product being delivered beyond the usual promises and slide-ware. In a former life I worked for the Beeb so I have some interest in the veracity of this claim.

Simple research points to a broad market share figures (rounded on my part) which gives MS a 90% share, Apple a 7% share and all others (mostly Linux) a 3% share. Therefore it would be reasonable to expect news coverage in roughly the same proportion, using the following search terms 'Microsoft Windows', 'Apple Mac' and 'Linux' and out of curiousity 'IBM' the results were as follows:

The search was run on the BBC 'news' section only and I know the percentages are sort of spurious and that if I added in iPhone I would boost the Apple numbers, but by my reasoning the bias looks to be towards Apple not towards Microsoft.

By the way a search on IBM Lotus gave me 11 stories (and some of those are very interesting)

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.

Even Twitter's current occasional instabiility is counter-acted by its the large user base, extensive add-ons and external tool integration which make it more useful than Pownce's greater functionality.

For right now my answer is Twitter (you can follow me from this link).

• Full featured software appliance 
• Self-managing, self-healing system 
• Email and advanced webmail 
• Office productivity tools 
• Network level firewall, antispam & antivirus protection 
• Remote connectivity and VPN 
• File and print services 
• Central file management 
• Automated disk backup 
• Disaster recovery

Talking to my colleague Gareth yesterday, we pondered over the volume of digital chaff that we were receiving at present due to our current activities. Gareth (as ever the practical one) bemoaned the fact we had not set up 'sacrificial email accounts'. So I went and looked up sacrifice.com hoping that it would not be too pornographic and that I would not be arrested by some over enthusiastic rozzer as I did my research. Amazing all I got was 'The site is being redeveloped please revisit in early 2004.'

It struck me that a pop3 only service that would simply allow you to create an account for (say) 3 months and come what may it would be deleted at that point would be a useful service. This would be a digitial 'poste restante' for the 21s century. 

I took a quick scoot around the net and could not find anything that meets my requirements so it looks like Gmail will have to do

Next time you need to set up a temporary subscription, recruit or apply for a job or have any shortish term project that you do not wish to be overwhelmed with spam, give it a go.

ps

for the uninitiated

rozzer = policeman (used on TV in the first episode of the latest series of Top Gear, not seen it in use for a while, very 50's_

Multi-tasking (no longer the preserve of the super-mum) is the norm for many of us -- multiple devices on the desk, multiple conversations on the go. What's cool about using good web 2.0 apps is that when they fail they tend to fail gracefully.

As JP Rangaswami pointed out at a meeting last night it's no longer abort abend and blue screens of death. Apps just fade out and come back like short-wave transmissions. When they go, you've got other stuff going on and you're not bothered.

Extended Validation SSL delivers the acknowledged industry standard for the highest level of online identity assurance processes for SSL certificate issuance.

Read this free guide to find out how the EV standard increases the visibility of authentication status through the use of a green address bar in the latest high security Web browsers.

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)