Collaborative Thinking

CIOs look to Web 2.0 collaboration

A short video clip but some interesting insight re: McKesson and its use of social tools to help "bond" a remote workforce and Hasbro on global collaboration. Both examples highlight the need for social interaction as part of natural part of virtual and real-time collaboration.

Chiefs talk wikis, blogs and IM

At San Francisco's Churchill Club on July 23, moderator Dave Margulius talks to panelists Douglass Merrill, vice president of engineering at Google, and CIOs David Bergen of Levi Strauss, Doug Schwinn of Hasbro, and Randall Spratt of McKesson. The executives discussed the current hype surrounding Web 2.0 and their plans to deploy specific collaboration technologies such as wikis, blogs and instant messaging in the enterprise.

[video] CIOs look to Web 2.0 collaboration | CNET News.com

Microsoft RTM's Office Communications Server 2007

OK, you can start playing the theme from the movie "Jaws" now.

The chess match between Microsoft, Cisco and IBM regarding unified communications will be one of the most competitive battles of the past decade. But there are not the only players. Oracle has yet to reveal its strategy regarding unified communications. Google is quite likely to take a run at the UC market opportunity as well. Adobe could make a UC play by leveraging its Acrobat and Flash strengths. And there are "barbarians at the gate" in terms of non-traditional UC options that include open source solutions and vendors that have consumer roots but have made inroads into enterprise environments (such as Skype). Apple's strength in the consumer market, and iPhone surge, could lead to some interesting UC market dynamics and partnering opportunities. There are also plenty of smaller vendors that continue to innovate such as Iotum.

Hopefully business and IT strategists will keep their minds open as they begin projects and programs related to unified communications. Some questions to ask yourself as you begin to look at the UC solutions from these vendors:

• Does the vendor understand the nuances of my business segment (e.g., compliance and records management needs)?
• Does the vendor's competencies and portfolio include business (application) solutions or are they focused on "plumbing"?
• Does the vendor vision span beyond UC to include broader trends around collaboration, social computing, business processes, and consumer aspects?
• How complete, modernized and mature is the UC platform?
• Does the UC platform support both SaaS and on-premises as well as hybrid configurations?
• What role does open source and open standards play in the vendor's UC strategy?
• How does the vendor view consumer trends impacting enterprise UC efforts?
• How modularized is the UC platform (e.g., can you "swap out" a subsystem component)?
• How well does the UC platform support integration and interoperability?
• What are the developer tools offered that enabled communication-enabled business processes, and real-time collaborative applications?
• Does the vendor understand that topics such as presence, location and mobility represent broader issues than just unifying communications?
• How well does the vendor and its UC platform support your migration and co-existence strategies needed for legacy or other tactical solutions?
• How effective has the vendor been in terms of (1) building out its UC channel ecosystem, (2) establishing viable business models for its partners and (3) establishing training, professional services and other types of consulting practices to assist partners and customers?
• Does the vendor have a credible track record at being a reliable "technology steward" (e.g., support for standards, cooperation with third-party partners and competitors on integration and interoperability issues)?

While your thinking about answers to these questions - some additional articles related to the OCS 2007 news coming out of the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting:

Microsoft Delivers on Its Unified Communications Vision

Q&A: Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president of the Unified Communications Group, highlights Microsoft’s progress on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 as the company readies for its unified communications launch this fall.

REDMOND, Wash., July 26, 2007 – During his address at Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM), Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, announced that Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator are code complete and will release to manufacturing (RTM) tomorrow. With this milestone and launch around the corner this fall, the Unified Communications Group is one step closer to fulfilling the UC promise and helping customers streamline business communications, increase productivity and lower costs.

PressPass spoke with Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president of the Unified Communications Group, about the evolving unified communications industry, the return early adopters are seeing from Office Communications Server and Office Communicator and the company’s progress towards launch in the fall.

Microsoft PressPass: Q&A: Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president of the Unified Communications Group

Microsoft Related Stories:

Microsoft-related Resources:

• Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting Webcast and Transcripts

• Microsoft Unified Communications

• OCS 2007 videos on IT's showtime

• OCS 2007 Training

• geekSpeak recording: Speech Server with Michael Dunn

Other Microsoft Resources:

• Unified View White Paper

Other Stories:

BetaNews: Office Communications Server Heads to RTM

Cisco counter-attacks on unified communications

Zimbra Desktop Progress Continues

Zimbra continues to evolve and mature, making it one of the more interesting alternative options to traditional collaboration platform vendors.

Over the last several months using Zimbra Desktop, I’ve become very dependent on having my Zimbra email available offline, and now we're happy to announce in the latest version Zimbra calendar is available offline too.

For those less familiar with Zimbra Desktop, it’s among the next generation of messaging clients- you get all the benefits of a rich AJAX email application in the browser (fast search, mash-ups, client-like UI, etc) offline and none of the downside associated with traditional clients (platform dependence, stagnant innovation, storage woes). Since its inception, Zimbra Desktop has been a big hit.

Starting today you can download the lasted version here for Linux, Mac, and Windows desktops (existing Desktop users note you must re-sync).
Zimbra Desktop 0.5

Wetpaint Launches 'Invitation-only' Wikis

Information sharing, community-building and collaboration options continue to expand for consumers, educational and business organizations alike:

Fundamentally, Wikis are about openness, dialogue, and interaction. However, there are any number of situations where those things need to happen privately," said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint, as he announced last week that Wetpaint has added the ability to create free invitation-only Wikis viewable and editable only by people their creators invite.

.....

Seattle start-up Wetpaint has powered more than 450,000 user-created community sites since launching in June 2006. Establishing a free private Wetpaint Wiki is an easy election available to site creators during the Wiki setup process at http://www.wetpaint.com/wiki, Elowitz explained.

Wetpaint Launches 'Invitation-only' Wikis (SocialComputingMagazine.com)

Related Stories:

Wetpaint Offers Users Free Private Wikis

Wetpaint Makes Time Magazine's 50 Best Websites List

Kids, Youth & Digital Technology

Some interesting trends and data points are coming out of a study sponsored by Microsoft, MTV and Nickelodeon. According to the press release: "Circuits of Cool/Digital Playground used both qualitative and quantitative methodology to talk to 18,000 "tech embracing" kids (8-14) and young people (14-24) in 16 countries: UK, Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, China, India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. MTV Networks and Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions studied 21 technologies that impact on the lives of young people: internet, email, PC, TV, mobile, IM, cable and sat TV, DVD, MP3, stereo/hi-fi, digital cameras, social networks, on and offline video games, CDs, HD TV, VHS, webcams, MP4 players, DVR/PVRs, and hand-held games consoles."

Understanding how "digital life" influences younger people as they enter the workforce is a hugely strategic issue for business decision-makers and IT strategists. I have had several discussions with clients in June and July on topics related to collaboration, community-building, social software and "Enterprise 2.0" where the conversation has turned to "future workers". 

Globally, the average young person connected to digital technology has 94 phone numbers in his or her mobile phone, 78 people on a messenger buddy list and 86 people in his or her social networking community. Yet despite their technological immersion, digi-kids are not geeks -- 59% of 8-14 year-old kids still prefer their TV to their PCs and only 20% of 14-24 year-old young people globally admitted to being "interested" in technology. They are, however, expert multi-taskers and able to filter different channels of information.

These are just some of the findings from the largest-ever global study undertaken by MTV and Nickelodeon, in association with Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, into how kids and young people interact with digital technology. The Circuits of Cool/Digital Playground technology and lifestyle study challenges traditional assumptions about their relationships with digital technology, and examines the impact of culture, age and gender on technology use.

New Global Study From MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft Challenges Assumptions About Relationship Between Kids, Youth & Digital Technology

Original Press Release:

New Global Study From MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft Challenges Assumptions About Relationship Between Kids, Youth & Digital Technology

Related Stories:

Young Keep It Simple In High - Tech World: Survey

Digital 50

Teens establish ‘community’ generation

Original Announcement of Study

Blog Technology Within The Enterprise

For Burton Group clients, the following technical position document has been recently published. Clicking on the link will bring you to a client log-in page.

The document addresses the following questions:

• What are the decision criteria for deploying on-premises blog technology for internal use within the enterprise?
• When is it appropriate to use blog systems within the enterprise?
• Should a license-to-blog or gated-blog or blog-central or structured-blog model be used?

Blog Technology Within The Enterprise

Effective use of blogs can improve communication, information sharing, and community-building. As blogging systems become relevant within enterprise intranet environments (i.e., behind the firewall), information technology (IT) groups must determine whether such systems should be deployed and if so, what type of blogging deployment model is preferable. In this Collaboration and Content Strategies Technical Position, Burton Group Principal Analyst Mike Gotta examines typical requirements, alternatives, future developments, and evaluation criteria needed for IT groups to establish a position regarding blog technology.

Mashup Tools

Very good summary of what's available today:

So what’s typically missing from today’s mashup platforms to make them both useful and desirable in the enterprise? While no one knows for sure, since mashups are just starting to be considered seriously in many organizations, it generally boils down to 1) deep access to existing enterprise services and data/content repositories, 2) SaaS-style Web-based mashup assembly and use, 3) assembly models that are truly end-user friendly with very little training required, 4) a credible management and maintenance story for IT departments that must support a flood of public end-user built and integrated apps, and last but certainly not least, 5) mashup products that address important questions about mashups and enterprise security. None of these are particularly easy to solve, which is most likely why mashups haven’t been most prevalent before this.

» A bumper crop of new mashup platforms | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com

Related Articles:

The battle of the mashup editors (Note: author is a Windows Live MVP)

Intel Shows Off MashMaker

Social Networks = Shadow Networks?

Interesting article in Fortune, I recommend you take a moment to read the full analysis. The real-life examples are well-worth reviewing (the link to the complete article is below). The metaphor suggesting that managers need to think in terms of "constellations" is quite good.

In every company there is a  parallel power structure that can be just as important as the one everyone spends stressful days trying to master. Jon Katzenbach, founding partner of New York City-based consulting firm Katzenbach Partners, and his colleague, principal Zia Khan, have spent the past several years trying to bring the shadows to light. In a study released exclusively to Fortune, "The Informal Organization," they argue that successful managers must understand this "constellation of collaborations, relationships, and networks," particularly in times of stress and transition. "We're not saying you can formalize the informal," says Katzenbach. "We're saying you can influence it more than you do." In a recent survey conducted for Katzenbach, a third of the 390 respondents - all of them working at large U.S. companies - admitted ignoring the rules when they found a better way to get things done. And in companies where managers worked closely with informal employee networks, respondents were three times more likely to describe their job environment as positive.

The upshot: Going by the book is not always the way to get results. Nor can you simply set up a bunch of Ping-Pong tables and let people groove to their own beat; supervision and leadership matter. Katzenbach calls the ability to toggle between both power structures "organizational quotient," or OQ.

Other companies are engaging the shadow organization without trying to control it. After all, the strength of the thing is mainly in its squishiness. The examples that follow show how several companies have turned to their informal power structures to attack some classic business issues

The hidden workplace: What's your OQ? - July 23, 2007

Related Article:

Business Week - Navigating the "Informal" Organization

Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness - Organizational Quotient (OQ)

Social Networks: Multiple Facets, Multiple Personas

There is a great quote attributed to John Naisbitt that I've always found intriguing when examining the behavioral influences of social networks. In his Global Paradox book (1994), Mr. Naisbitt wrote, "the more universal we become, the more tribal we act". It's interesting to apply that quote in the context of Facebook and the paradox of being connected to many people and groups with whom you have different types of relationships (see the article below). The people within each network facet you belong can develop a different mental image of your persona and sometimes it is desirable to keep those tribes separated.

So, to badly paraphrase Mr. Naisbitt: "the more socially connected we become, the more tribal we act" might be an interesting concept to keep in mind for those building such platforms as well as for those participating within them. Participants in a social network have a opaque view of the entire social structure of the network. When they discover that their view of the social structure overlaps or is inter-connected with what that person feels was a separate social structure, then the need for stratifying those network connections comes into play. In the case of technology, this would include the need for privacy controls and other filtering mechanisms. 

Social networks are not a flat layer of connections but are in fact multi-dimensional, variable and dynamic - with multiple facets (in the eyes of the participant) based on relationships, situations and other preferences. All of this is driving the need for social systems to provide participants with multiple profiles that describe different personas (e.g., work, home, school, play), attached to an identity with granular settings for how people are viewed, contacted, trusted, etc. It also reinforces the need for such systems to interoperate in some manner (as I've mentioned in earlier posts).

For longtime users, the influx of grownups means that information once intended for a circle of fellow students is now available for anyone to see. That has introduced a new social conundrum: Deciding whose invites should be accepted -- and how much of your profile they should be able to see.

"You can't really unfriend your mom," says Hillary Woolley, a junior at the University of California at Davis. "So I've been upping my privacy settings."

Facebook lets users specify what data is displayed in searches, and users can customize a "limited" view for select friends. But it's time-consuming to set up customized views for individuals, so most people are simply walling off their profiles to non-friends.

"I have removed almost all useful or personally insightful information from my profile because at this point most people who I am 'friends' with I really don't want in my business anymore," says McCarthy.

And it's not just your mom you need to hide from. Graduates who have entered the teaching profession now have to contend with friend invites from students. "I let (students) view only a restricted profile on Facebook, which is only my photo and basic info," says Emily Malbon, a teacher in Boston. "I don't need them reading about how much I like wine."

As Facebook Grows, Longtime Users Draw Privacy Veil

Social Networking And Higher Ed Admission

This post is a follow-up to my previous thoughts regarding social networking and employment. An ongoing study being conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (Center for Marketing Research), has revealed some significant findings. A "sneak peak" report, The Game Has Changed: Web preview (PDF), indicates how the higher education system (colleges and universities) are being quite aggressive in their use of social media. The preview report compares results to a previous study on use of social media by business organizations. The methodology is based on 450+ detailed interviews with admissions departments and includes well-known institutions such as Duke, Carnegie Mellon, University of Arizona and University of Pennsylvania. What I found striking is the use of social media as a means of learning more about student applicants. 

Such insight is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, clearly, students will need to consider the long-term implications of what information they post on social networking sites (somewhat obvious and somewhat over-hyped). Hopefully there is some understanding of teen culture (and I would point to Danah Boyd's research in this area as perhaps the best collection of research conducted I have come across) before people jump to conclusions about what they see on Myspace and Facebook. But there is also an opportunity for students (particularly in high school) to use some aspects of social media in a more purposeful manner to establish their own "personal brand" in an educational sense. Applicants to educational institutions could conceivably leverage social media as a digital portfolio of their interests, activities, accomplishments, and other related information to fill in the "whitespace" of who they are, what they want to be, etc.

In any case, social media (or social computing or social software - pick your favorite term), needs to be examined by business and IT strategists in a broader context than just its application within the enterprise.

Student Research

These results only begin to scratch the surface of the data gathered. And while we’re saving some additional detailed and exciting results for several academic articles (see below) later this year, there is one point that must be shared right now because of its ground-breaking nature. A significant proportion of schools are beginning to research students via search engines (26%) and social networks (21%). While certainly the traditional factors will still play dominant roles in admissions decisions, no longer can students place damaging material online without potential consequences. (See Figure 4)

Figure 4

The results are conclusive. Social media has arrived in college admissions. The ivory tower is innovating even faster than the elite Inc. 500. And the game has changed forever.