Collaborative Thinking

Outlook 2007 And 250 Feeds

Ouch ... I've installed Outlook 2007 and have been using it for several weeks. After making sure I had all the patches, the general performance problems associated with the product seem to be much better. However, the RSS feed synchronization process seems extremely painful. I'm looking into why but right now, I consistently experience tremendous performance impacts (in a negative way) when Outlook 2007 synchronizes my feed list. Now, to be honest, 250 feeds might not be "normal" ... and I don't seem to experience such a degradation when IE7 synchonizes its feeds. The difference could be that IE7 relies on the Windows RSS Platform while Outlook 2007 has implemented its own subsystem to some extent.

So - still investigating the root cause but I would be interested in reader comments on Outlook 2007 native RSS synchronization experiences....

e-Mail: Will It Suddenly Disappear Or Simply "Age-Out"

I'm at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference listening to a panel that includes representatives from Adobe, IBM, Mark Logic and Microsoft. One of the questions was about "what goes away" as we add more tools and newer technologies (e.g., social software). I thought someone would talk about the demise of e-mail but not surprisingly neither IBM or Microsoft pushed the issue that one of their key revenue generators would go the way of the fax machine...

With all the recent conversations in the media about e-mail, I think the proper way to look at e-mail is that it will not go away or die anytime soon but it will "age out" as demographics within the workplace change and people become generally more comfortable with other communication and collaboration models.

I think that as people socialize, share information and collaboration in "spaces" (Facebook, SharePoint, Domino, etc) and also have more real-time / near-time communication tools (e.g., instant messaging, VoIP, XML feeds), the reliance on e-mail as the killer Collaboration 1.0 tool will incrementally diminish over time (I'm talking years and years).

Could there be an e-Mail 2.0? Sure - unfortunately I don't believe that either IBM or Microsoft will significantly restructure their respective products in a transformational manner. But we are seeing some interesting combination of e-mail with XML syndication to insert a level of abstraction between sender and receiver.

Can You Have Info 2.0 Without XML Syndication?

Catching up on some older news - IBM announced a new initiative along with some associated technologies within the meme "Info 2.0". Amazingly, information that I have seen so far does not seem to mention the role of XML feeds (e.g., Atom) - at least not yet - and where XML syndication plays in its Info 2.0 framework. I remain amazed (underwhelmed?) that no major vendor has stepped into the feed server aggregation/management space where Attensa, KnowNow and NewsGator remain the most credible enterprise options.

Info 2.0 is a technology (or information fabric layer) for simplified integration of data and content via Information Mashups. Info 2.0 uses simple interfaces and intuitive tools to connect information from custom and packaged business applications, the web, spreadsheets, and databases – making information assembly and access easier for both IT and non-IT users. Info 2.0 extends and complements existing investments in information architectures. Moreover, Info 2.0 is focused on enterprise users, so now mashups can be not only created for external users, but also for departmental users within a company. Info 2.0 provides a data organizational element needed (such as data standardization and data cleansing) to mashups and other Web 2.0 applications to create software in the enterprise and SaaS (Software as a Service) on the web.

Why is Info 2.0 needed? Info 2.0 can be used for business advantages, as it speeds up users' ability to access and use information. Traditional architectures don't cover this use case for 2 reasons:

(1)Many data sources are not covered by enterprise integration architectures, such as departmental content, desktop content, email content, etc.

(2)Data sources are typically accessed in an enterprise application manner when they need to be accessed in a situational application manner (created for a group of users with specific needs; applications that have a shorter lifespan based on that need).

Lauren Cooney : Weblog

XML Syndication: Content Feeds vs. Application Remoting

Just more of a quick "thinking out loud" comment as food-for-thought.

The more feeds I see that actually include forms and other attributes that we associate with "applications", the more we need to think about issues related to application remoting rather than content deliver through a feed channel. The recommended best practice is to always include the full item in a feed. I agree with that when the content of the feed is content-centric. But I can see reasons why organizations would prefer to send a summary to alert/notify a user and perhaps render some light application functionality but in other cases, to bring the user back to the site for reasons of access controls, confidentiality, prevent data from seeping into the XML syndication system, etc.

So as we "operationalize" back-end systems (CRM, ERP), we might need to think about the feed channel and items more as remote delivery of an application than as people might have traditionally thought of when the words "RSS" or "Atom" come to mind. In some cases, the scripting capability needed to deliver that lightweight application might be prevented by settings to prevent malicious content. In other cases, the data cache issues as information from a CRM or ERP system is transferred through a feed might need to be reviewed in a different manner re: security and compliance.

This transition from content to application delivery via XML feeds will also place a different level of assessment criteria on vendors in this space as well.

OakLeaf Systems: LINQ to SharePoint 0.2 Alpha to Meet Major WSS 3.0 Template/Apps Surge

I debated posting on this particular article since it is not very objective but there are a few points that should be called out:

1. The purpose of the keynotes for the Enterprise 2.0 conference was to stimulate innovative thinking and to be somewhat though-provoking. The conference guidelines were clear that speakers were not to anchor their presentations around typical marketing and testimonial-like content. To the extent that some vendors might have not met expectations in that regard, I think the event advisory board and track chairs need to reconsider, or at least better police, presentation materials.

2. I've commented on the problems I have with Microsoft and the way it is misusing (in my opinion) the SharePoint team blog to market and advertise its Community Kit efforts. The technologies emerging from CodePlex are not officially supported by Microsoft in the manner it supports formal products and services. There is also no guarantee that anything made available through CodePlex will actually end up in any future release of SharePoint Products & Technologies. And, in some cases, the components pose risks. As one example, using Chatterbox for instant messaging can result in a compliance issue.

3. While "in theory" CodePlex is a community effort, it appears (and I remain open to being proven incorrect), at this point to be heavily influenced and driven by Microsoft itself. I'm not sure I see a "community" yet.

4. Microsoft is between a rock and a hard-place. With product release cycles of around 2-3 years, and design factors locked down so early, it cannot react quickly when the market changes. This is the case when it comes to technologies commonly associated with Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0. Organizations will likely continue to role out WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 for a variety of reasons. The decision is broader than just social software.

But I would recommend that when business requirements point to systems that are bests enabled through social software tools (e.g., blogs, wiki, tagging, social bookmarks, XML syndication, social networking), that enterprise strategists not defacto assume that Microsoft has doe a thorough job of delivering those capabilities in the current released versions.

Bottom Line: MOSS 2007 and WSS should not be positioned as a social computing platform right now - it will take another major release. Due diligence in terms of technology assessment, keeping an open mind, adopting an architectural approach and realizing that third-party vendors can be a viable option are all good practices to adopt.

100 "Next-Generation" SharePoint Business Apps Coming

Mary Jo also reports that Derek Burney, general manager of Microsoft's SharePoint Platform and Tools group, will commit today at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference to delivering 100 "next-generation" business applications (not templates) over the next 12 months to SharePoint users for internal use by Microsoft employees.

Sandy Kemsley, who's covering Enterprise 2.0 in her EbizQ Column 2 blog, didn't mention anything about this topic in her Enterprise 2.0: Derek Burney item. The same is true for Michael Sampson (Michael's Thoughts, Notes on Derek Burney, "Amplify the Impact of Your People with Enterprise 2.0 Technologies"), John Eckman (openparenthesis, Liveblogging Enterprise 2.0 - Microsoft’s Derek Burney), and Mike Gotta (Collaborative Thinking, Amplify the Impact of Your People with Enterprise 2.0 Technologies). Michael, John and Mike mention "Next Generation Applications" but not that Microsoft is giving 100 of the them to users.

Update 6/20/2007: According to later reports in Network World (Lotus, Microsoft jostle to land social networking customers by John Fontana)and eWeek (IBM, Microsoft Show Web 2.0 Wares by Renee Boucher Ferguson and Darryl K. Taft) articles, the 100 apps will be for internal use only. Fontana writes:

In addition, Microsoft said it is committing to build 100 social networking business applications before June 2008 for use inside the company. One currently in development is SharePointPedia, which helps users find SharePoint technical and support information from both Microsoft and other sources.

If SharePointPedia is an example, at least some internal apps might make reach SharePoint customers in the form of templates. According to Lawrence Liu's post in the CodePlex site for CKS:SharePointPedia:

Microsoft is embarking on an ambitious project to create an application codenamed "SharePointPedia" that will be used to enable a "community driven and supplemented content lifecycle." ... [I]t's being designed (yes, the project kicked off just last week) to be used primarily by the community. ...

SPP is scheduled to go live ... by the end of October.

Community Kit for SharePoint Background

The Community Kit for SharePoint Vision and Scope Document describes CKS:

At the most basic level, the CKS is a site template that enables practically anyone to create very quickly a functional community website on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The “Standard Edition” will require nothing more than the out-of-the-box Web Parts that come with WSS 3.0. In this way, the CKS:SE is just like the Application Templates for WSS, but that is where the similarity ends.

Instead of being solely developed by Microsoft, the CKS will be a collaborative development project hosted on CodePlex, an online software development environment for open and shared source developers to create, host, and manage projects throughout the entire software development lifecycle.

Here's the CKS vision statement from Project Management and Evangelism Lead Lawrence Liu:

• A set of best practices, templates, Web Parts, tools, and source code that enables practically anyone to create a community website based on SharePoint technology for practically any group of people with a common interest.
• A technology framework that sits on top of Windows SharePoint Services or Office SharePoint Server and can be further customized or extended to suit the community website implementer’s needs.
• A shared source community development project that is provided at no cost and allows anyone to use for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

As mentioned in the earlier Vision and Scope Document quote, you don't need to run a pricey Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 version:

Targeted Platform: Given that Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 was released on November 16, 2006 and is available for free to licensed customers of Windows Server 2003, the development efforts on the CKS should be targeted at this version of SharePoint. Opportunities for “feature light up” when Office SharePoint Server 2007 is present should also be considered.

Just Say No to Web and Enterprise Two-Point-Oh?

"Web 2.0" and "Enterprise 2.0" are two terms that I've come to distrust—if not despise—as overhyped and basically without meaning. However, Dion Hinchcliffe's May 2006 A round of Web 2.0 reductionism item and July 2006 Enable richer business outcomes: Free your intranet with Web 2.0 post shed some light on the two topics in the enterprise.

OakLeaf Systems: LINQ to SharePoint 0.2 Alpha to Meet Major WSS 3.0 Template/Apps Surge

Another Great E2.0 Conference Summary

Sandy Kemsely (Column 2), has a great collection of notes and observations on the Enterprise 2.0 conference here.

The FASTForward Blog: IT Clueless: Enterprise 2.0 News, Coverage, and Commentary

Strike "IT" to cover both business and IT - that would be more of the reality. It's not that IT management is alone in being absorbed with other issues - it's management in general - which is nothing new. The reasons for management being slow to respond, slow to change and slow to detect weak signal patterns from workers (and other sources) are as old as dirt (well, at least as old as industrial-age organizational structures).

Also - replace the "preparing to deal with Web 2.0 technologies" with:

• "preparing to deal with PC technologies" (1980's) 
• "preparing to deal with client-server technologies" (early 1990's)
• "preparing to deal with Internet (or Intranet) technologies" (late 1990's)

Everything is in flux, change is continual, adapting is imperative - it always has been and always will be - building in the proper organizational capabilities re: resiliency, agility - those are the attributes and behaviors missing. Focusing on just one aspect -in this case, the technology, misses the point.   

IT Clueless: Enterprise 2.0 News, Coverage, and Commentary

Such is my spin on Sue Feldman’s (IDC) recent impressions given to InformationWeek:

“IT managers and executives largely didn’t know any of this was going on”.

This was in response to IDC research numbers showing that:

“45% of companies have workers blogging,
43% use RSS feeds, and
35% of companies have employees using wikis”.

These numbers were part of Marthin De Beer’s (Cisco) keynote at the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference. Another favorite line of mine:

“IT managers better start preparing to deal with Web 2.0 technologies,
…because sooner or later — and it’ll probably be sooner
– they’re going to have to deal with it.”

The FASTForward Blog » IT Clueless: Enterprise 2.0 News, Coverage, and Commentary

Enterprise 2.0 Conference: Meeting Log

In addition to attending the various presentations and panels, as well as moderate the collaboration infrastructure track with IBM and Microsoft, I was able to schedule some vendor meetings and/or demo sessions.

Some overall high points:

Best Keynote (thought-provoking): Keynote - Wikinomics: Winning with the Enterprise 2.0 (Don Tapscott)

Best Keynote (pragmatic): Keynote - Enterprise 2.1 (Dennis Moore, SAP)

Best Break-out Session (that I attended): Driving User Adoption of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies - Sponsored by Suite Two

Most Potentially Disruptive Break-Out Session (that I attended): Building Bridges from Consumer to Enterprise - Sponsored by WebEx

Monday:

• Sat in on the Davenport/McAfee debate (thoughts on that will be posted later).
• Was fortunate enough to bump into Jane Alexander from Six Apart who was able to arrange for an ad-hoc meetings.
• Meeting with IBM (UC-related).
• Analyst dinner sponsored by IBM. It was nice to see some old friends and meet some new ones (I met Kathleen Reidy from 451 Group which was interesting since we I worked for David Yockelson while at Meta and now David is over at 451. I tried to come up with at least one embarrassing story for Kathleen but so far, David is safe.) Also it was great to catch up with Irwin Lazar (ex-Burton, now Nemertes), Melanie Turek, Michael Sampson and others.

Tuesday:

• KnowNow meeting.
• Traction Software meeting and podcast (which will show up on the Burton Group Inflection Point site in the future).
• WebEx meeting (Connect-related).
• Microsoft meeting (collaboration/social software related)
• IBM meeting (collaboration/social software related)
• Worklight demo in the exhibit area.
• Attensa chat in the exhibit area.

Wednesday:

• Jive Software meeting.
• Atlassian meeting.
• SpikeSource meeting.
• BEA meeting and podcast.
• MindTouch demo in the exhibit area.
• Connectbeam demo in the exhibit area.
• NewsGator demo (SocialSite) in the exhibit area.
• Altus meeting/demo in the exhibit area.

e-learning 2.0: All You Need To Know

For those interested in learning strategies and the interest with technologies associated with Web/Enterprise 2.0:

One of the strongest, but least hyped, uses of web 2.0 technologies over the past couple of years has been e-learning.

We've covered this topic extensively on Read/WriteWeb - and so we're pleased to bring you this overview of e-learning 2.0, including the leading web apps and sites in this niche, and predictions for its future.

In August Steve O'Hear (now last100 editor) wrote an introduction to e-learning 2.0. He noted that teachers and students are embracing web technologies such as blogging and podcasting. Although not designed specifically for use in education, these tools are helping to make e-learning far more personal, social, and flexible.

e-learning 2.0: All You Need To Know

Demo: BEA's AquaLogic Pages and IBM's QEDWiki to battle for corporate mashup crown | Berlind’s Testbed | ZDNet.com

Another "from the floor" video and interview from the Enterprise 2.0 conference. 

Meanwhile, BEA which is mostly known for its J2EE server was here at Enterprise 2.0 showing of AquaLogic Pages. Somewhat aytpical of BEA’s solutions, AquaLogic Pages does not require other BEA infrastructure (good!) and conceptually has a similar architecture to IBM’s solutions where re-usable components are registered with the system and then developers can collaborate on software that uses those components. When I asked BEA’s Director of Emerging Products Ajay Gandhi on video (see video above) whether he felt he was competing with IBM, his main take was that AquaLogic Pages will ship next month while IBM’s solutions are still being prototyped. Via telephone, Dan Gisolfi who works in IBM’s Emerging Internet Technologies area countered that even though IBM’s products have yet to go “gold” yet, preview editions will be available for download from IBM’s AlphaWorks site at the end of this month.

Finally, to get a better idea of how AquaLogic pages works, the video above includes a demonstation given to me by BEA’s Gandhi (and below is IBM’s QEDWiki video….bear in mind it was produced by IBM. I was interviewing Kim Polese when the announcement was made):

» Demo: BEA’s AquaLogic Pages and IBM’s QEDWiki to battle for corporate mashup crown | Berlind’s Testbed | ZDNet.com