Collaborative Thinking

Innovation: Notes From The Field

Some good insight on innovation (which includes reference to a book on the same topic) from a CEO that is often cited as one of the leading example of how to lead such efforts (A. G. Lafley, Procter & Gamble):

Changing the Game With Innovations - Interview - NYTimes.com

Q. You’re putting a lot of emphasis on outside voices. What about internal innovation?

A. The first thing we did was open the internal innovation architecture. We worked on getting engineers and biochemists to work with marketing, and we got people from our different businesses to work with each other.

Each of our businesses used to do its own research. But our core technologies span businesses. We can manipulate surfaces, for example, be they kitchen counters or blouses or hair.

Gil Cloyd, our chief technology officer, and I have set up what we call communities of practice. These are networks of nanotechnologists, of biochemists, of people who specialize in packaging, and who work for all the businesses. And we have regular innovation reviews, where we move ideas and best practices around our 22 businesses.

Q. And yet only half of your product innovations succeed. Why isn’t the rate higher?

A. I don’t really want it to be. Human nature is such that, if we push our people to drive the batting average up, they’ll try to hit more safely, take a shorter swing, go for the singles instead of home runs.

But we try to set milestones that innovations must meet at every step along the development process. As soon as they miss one, we allocate the resources to another product moving through the funnel. That’s another difference from the old days, when P.& G. let bad ideas go too far.

Saturday Interview - Changing the Game With Innovations - Interview - NYTimes.com

SharePoint vs. Connections: The Battle Continues

A decent story on IBM Connections, worth reading but some points bear closer examination:

1. The article states that SharePoint started off as a document management system.

That's really not accurate in my view. SharePoint started off as two distinct pieces: SharePoint Team Services (at best, targeting document/file sharing and ad-hoc collaboration) and SharePoint Portal. Capabilities expected in what the industry would call a "document management system" were seriously lacking in the early versions of SharePoint. Only with the latest release (MOSS 2007) can you actually position the platform as part of an enterprise content management solution.

SharePoint is clearly challenged in its implementation of blogs and wikis (you either run out to Codeplex or use a partner). It also appears that enabling social networks within SharePoint can take a fair amount of customization. Still, I still find many organizations placing bets on Microsoft. This indicates that the decision criteria is much broader than a comparison to Connections itself. I still maintain that IBM has a chance to "head Microsoft off at the pass" by delivering first-class integration between Connections and SharePoint and relegate SharePoint to a workspace/document management system.  I still find pricing concerns over Connections cited by organizations that end up going with Microsoft. Also, those organizations that do not have "burning requirements" for blogs, wikis, etc seem more willing to sit back and wait for Microsoft to fix it in the next release. (Note: Overall, I'm not sure IT organizations have the framework needed to discover and asses the type of soft requirements associated with community-building, social networks and emergent collaboration - perhaps a reason for a natural inclination to go with establisher players).

2. The article represents a view that I also often find when talking to clients about Connections. People wonder if it would be better for IBM to converge QuickR and Connection into a single platform to compete better with Microsoft. IBM seems to dismiss that view as simply a naming and branding challenge and that integration does provide a seamless user experience.

Both views are pretty accurate. In some situations - Quickr solves different problems than Connections (and visa-versa). On the other hand, people are confused when IBM has to run through a large number of product SKU's to solve a problem when Microsoft answers simply with "SharePoint". So there is a valid argument that IBM needs to accept and not treat it as a packaging issue. The argument also rightly points out that Connections does indeed have significant functional gaps - there is no wiki component - there is no feed management component (ala NewsGator or Attensa) - the blogging component is not the same (Roller) as what is used by Domino and Quickr. Yes, IBM has partners to fill those gaps for Connections (e.g., Socialtext for the wiki). But it's unclear then how Socialtext works within a Domino or Quickr environment. If you look at the integration between SharePoint and Confluence - it seems more bi-directional than what IBM has achieved so far. There seem to be "Connections partners" that are not encouraged to integrate with the traditional Notes/Domino and Quickr platforms.

So overall, I still do not see the rapid build-out of a robust partner ecosystem around Connections that I would have expected by a company whose collaboration business is so threatened by SharePoint over the next couple of years. Perhaps at Lotusphere 2009 well see more. The RIM integration is great - but there needs to be a greater sense of urgency by IBM to keep up with Microsoft's traction in the market. For me, the Connections/Quickr synergies are key, along with an open framework for partners to "plug in" best-of-breed vendors (but to do so, the business models for those vendors have to span beyond Connections - Socialtext integration with Quickr and Domino for instance).

I was also surprised that the article did not mention Jive - perhaps the only "mini stack" on-premises alternative to IBM and Microsoft. 

Understanding Lotus Connections, IBM's Version of Web 2.0 For The Enterprise - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

Since launching last year, Lotus Connections entered a crowded market of enterprise 2.0 vendors, companies that had taken popular Web 2.0 technologies in the consumer space like blogs, wikis and social networks and repurposed them for businesses. IBM found familiar foes as well, including Microsoft, who added social software features to its SharePoint platform.

Understanding Lotus Connections, IBM's Version of Web 2.0 For The Enterprise - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

What does Facebook's support for XMPP mean to the enterprise?

If you are a enterprise organization rolling out instant messaging and presence platforms from IBM or Microsoft, then the roadmap that Facebook revealed does not alter what is going on behind the firewall all the much. Organizations involved with unified communications based on SIP/SIMPLE are not going to significantly change their minds or direction because of Facebook per se.

But, a couple of points are worth mentioning. First, this announcement adds further credibility to XMPP as a worthwhile standard that IT architects and infrastructure planners should be aware of - and actively monitor. Second, XMPP should become a core requirement for organizations implementing gateways that federate their internal instant messaging and presence systems with public networks and other platforms (such as Facebook). Third - not only is Facebook supporting XMPP but Twitter is also aligned with XMPP. There have also been on-and-off discussions on possible synergies between XMPP and Atom/AtomPub. Perhaps at no other time has XMPP looked so interesting to so many different audiences.

For IBM, I would expect someone from IBM's unified communication and collaboration team to realize that this is a great marketing opportunity. At some point, I expect IBM to aggressively pursue interoperability between Facebook's XMPP system and the Lotus Sametime Gateway. 

For Microsoft, this news presents them with a problem - they are in a position that is almost impossible to defend. There is absolutely no technical reason why the current Microsoft gateway does not support XMPP today. It is simply a political decision (in my opinion), by the folks at Microsoft as they compete with Google. Granted, GTalk does not have the market share of other public networks (Yahoo!, AOL), but even so, the strategy is clearly not customer-focused at all.

While promoting anything that helps Google might be difficult to accept, Facebook's implementation of XMPP might prompt Microsoft to reconsider. Facebook has a credible install base and its position as a leading social network site, (coupled with Microsoft's partnership with Facebook on other fronts), might likely persuade the company to finally support XMPP within its IM/presence gateway. Such a move I believe would be well-received by many of Microsoft's customers.

Using Facebook Chat via Jabber

Right now we're building a Jabber/XMPP interface for Facebook Chat. In the near future, users will be able to use Jabber/XMPP-based chat applications to connect to Facebook Chat to:

• Communicate with their friends
• See which of their friends are online and view their profile pictures
• Set their statuses

Users can securely authenticate and authorize applications to connect to Chat on their behalf and send messages to their friends just like they can on Facebook.

Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News

Data Portability: It’s The New Walled Garden

Good fences make for good neighbors though at times.

TechCrunch makes a valid point when it comes to the Facebook and Google squabble over FriendConnect concerning a member's own data. I would still maintain however, that (as pointed out earlier) sharing/exporting certain data that is jointly owner between myself and my connections (sometimes referred to as relation data) must be done in a manner consistent with the terms of service and within some type of consent framework (along with other items such as stronger identity, etc). For example, if we were talking about a health care social network site, would people want members to export or share that type of information easily?

But, there is a legitimate argument concerning attribute data (the information about me that is independent of any relationship formed on the social network site). 

So when Robert Scoble wrote this evening that Google is in the wrong, I disagree. I think Facebook’s intentions aren’t to let users get data out of the network until Facebook is absolutely forced to do so, and then only on Facebook’s terms (see Facebook Connect). The fact is, this isn’t Facebook’s data. It’s my data. And if I give Google permission to do stuff with it, I’m damned well within my rights to do so. By blocking Google, Facebook has blocked ME. And that, frankly, kind of frustrates me.

Let me put this another way. How dare Facebook tell ME that I cannot give Google access to this data!

Scoble has been on the wrong side of this issue before, when he tried to scrape his friend’s contact information out of Facebook and export it to Plaxo. In that case, it wasn’t his data and he didn’t have the right to make it portable. It’s MY data, once again, and only I should be allowed to make that decision. He thinks his new position shows that he gets the importance of privacy, but once again he isn’t thinking in terms of who really owns the data and should be allowed to make decisions around it.

Ultimately I hope that I can keep my identity, friend list, photographs, videos and everything else that constitutes the (de)Centralized Me at any service provider that I trust (meaning I trust them to protect that data, but never go against my wishes and try to keep it to themselves if that isn’t what I want), and just tell sites like Facebook and everyone else where to grab it.

Data Portability: It’s The New Walled Garden

Facebook Is Correct...

When you agree to the terms-of-service of a social network site, don't be surprised when that site seeks to apply those policies to its members and to applications that operate within that environment. While a credible case can be made that a user should be able to export their own data - relation data (the data jointly shared between members) cannot be systematically harvested or shared without some level of consent or as defined by the terms-of-service. If Facebook, or any social network site, deems that a systematic method for its members to share and/or export information in a manner that circumvents the terms-of-service, that site is perfectly within its rights to act in a stewardship manner to enforce such terms and protect the confidentiality of that jointly owned data.

As I outlined in an earlier post re: "federated social networks" - there needs to be some type of an intermediary entity through which such systems operate at a relationship level (Google's FriendConnect exposed within Facebook's environment in this case). There is probably a good case for some type of content filtering to occur (perhaps based on microformats) that allow certain social network fragments (small data structures) to be be shared or exchanged with other parties.

Two points: (1) members need to adhere to the terms of service of the social network site they join and (2) relation data that is jointly owned needs to be shared/exported in a way that adheres to the terms of service and probably consistent with some type of consent model between the people that jointly own that relation data. 

Privacy and openness go hand-in-hand – as we open up, we have to make sure that users always have control of their information, and understand how and where it’s being used. We’ve maintained that trusted environment while opening up Facebook Platform and the social graph to external developers by requiring third-party application developers to treat user information with the same respect we do. All Facebook Platform developers agree to the Developer Terms of Service, which strictly limit the collection, use, and redistribution of user information. We have technology and a team to ensure applications abide by those policies.

We’re excited that our industry partners are taking greater steps toward openness and enabling users to share their information around the web. We hope, though, that we can collectively find a model that allows users to share data while protecting the privacy of our users’ data and ensuring that the user is always in control.

In the past, when we found applications passing user data to another party (for instance, to ad networks for the purpose of targeting), we suspended those applications and worked with those developers to ensure they respect user privacy. Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose.

Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News

Understanding Twitter & Social Dynamics

Stephan Baker's blog post plus link to the BW Online story below:

Here it is. Got held up a bit because BW Online wanted to run an edited version. This is what I sent Tuesday night. Please suggest fixes and adds.

It’s easy to laugh at nonsense on Twitter, the micro-blogging rage. “my nose is leaking,” writes someone called Zapples. “so imma go to sleep now…” But I’ve heard lots of similar drivel (and even produced some myself) on the phone—an important technology if there ever was one. The key question today isn’t what’s dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with chicklet-sized messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary.

Here's why I'm looking. In the last few months, the traffic on Twitter has exploded, growing far beyond its circles of bleeding-edge tech enthusiasts and hard-core social networkers. Businesses such as H&R Block and Zappos are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the May 12 China earthquake within minutes.) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the micro-blogging service could become a powerhouse in social media.

Blogspotting The Twitter Story I've been working on - BusinessWeek

The Geo-tagged Life

Interesting and innovative. Would be nice to see this implemented for participants within a VoIP call, web conferencing, etc. as well as video broadcast:

Seero - Putting Video on the Map

Seero.com is a geo-broadcasting platform for users to broadcast and experience destinations around the world. Seero fuses live and on-demand video with GPS mapping to create a rich and unique user experience. Our goal is to shake the foundations of how you see video with a platform that promotes exploration and geographical awareness.

Seero's Features

Broadcast live video and archive it for on-demand playback.

Track GPS position in real-time and archive a course for playback with video.

Explore the world and discover video through an innovative geo-navigational interface.

Geo-tag your video clips to showcase the destinations where they take place.

Experience location specific factoids and feeds with a video broadcast.

Seero - Putting Video on the Map

The Dawn Of Federated Social Networks?

The road to data portability and a universal social graph across social networks and web sites is paved with good intentions. But we are still very early in the evolution of such efforts (with some prior bad memories to erase - as this NY Times points out). Without proper controls and credible services related to identity, intermediaries, relationships, information ownership/stewardship, decision rights, authorization, privacy, compliance and so on - I am pretty sure that the law of unintended consequences will kick in at some point (especially in more serious use case scenarios).

For now, an initial level of irrational exuberance is natural - and to some degree that's a good thing - it's nice to see progress as long as we remain pragmatic about how complex this challenge really is... the question is my mind is whether these competing solar systems will next move to a federated model for interoperability as we have in the world of instant messaging and presence (e.g., similar to Microsoft and Yahoo! or similar to enterprise environments and consumer IM/presence networks) - or will we see a different type of interoperability model emerge that balances user needs with the business models of these vendors.

Three’s Company Or Three’s A Crowd? Google To Launch “Friend Connect” On Monday

Well, regardless, we’ve heard from multiple sources that Google will launch a new product on Monday called “Friend Connect,” which will be a set of APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites.

MySpace launched Data Availability on Thursday, a competing product. Yesterday, in a suspiciously timed pre-release announcement, we heard about Facebook Connect, another similar product (with a nearly identical name to Google’s Friend Connect).

Like Data Availability and Facebook Connect, Google’s Friend Connect will be a way to securely send personal profile data, including friend lists, presence/status information, etc., to third party applications, say our sources. The primary benefit of these services is to allow users to maintain a single friends list and to coordinate social activities across different sites that perform different services. See my post on the Centralized Me for more of my thoughts on this.

Three’s Company Or Three’s A Crowd? Google To Launch “Friend Connect” On Monday

Facebook to open the gates with 'Facebook Connect' | The Social - CNET News.com

Social network Facebook announced Friday the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external Web sites. It makes the company the latest major Web site to embrace the concept of data portability.

The formal announcement was made through a post on Facebook's developer blog by senior platform manager Dave Morin, who has been one of the company's most visible evangelists in the developer community over the past year. Facebook Connect will launch within the next few weeks.

Through Facebook Connect, members will be able to use their Facebook identities across the Web--profile photos, names, photos, friends, groups, events, and other information. Facebook profile content, for example, could appear on other social sites, and Facebook event listings could theoretically connect with external event and invitation services.

Facebook to open the gates with 'Facebook Connect' | The Social - CNET News.com

Facebook 'Connect' To Let Users Share Profiles -- Facebook -- InformationWeek

A day after rival MySpace announced it would let users share their profiles and other personal data across the Web, Facebook said it would do the same in the next several weeks.

The new features, called Facebook Connect, were introduced on the company's blog as the next iteration of Facebook's platform for developers building applications to run within the social network. Facebook Connect would make it possible for developers to build applications that connect to Facebook from other Web sites. Facebook users, however, would maintain control over their personal data and would have to agree to share it.

Facebook 'Connect' To Let Users Share Profiles -- Facebook -- InformationWeek

Facebook Developers News

Today we are announcing Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to "connect" their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook.

Here are just a few of the coming features of Facebook Connect:

Trusted Authentication
Users will be able to connect their Facebook account with any partner website using a trusted authentication method. Whether at login, or anywhere else a developer would like to add social context, the user will be able to authenticate and connect their account in a trusted environment. The user will have total control of the permissions granted.

Real Identity
Facebook users represent themselves with their real names and real identities. With Facebook Connect, users can bring their real identity information with them wherever they go on the Web, including: basic profile information, profile picture, name, friends, photos, events, groups, and more.

Friends Access
Users count on Facebook to stay connected to their friends and family. With Facebook Connect, users can take their friends with them wherever they go on the Web. Developers will be able to add rich social context to their websites. Developers will even be able to dynamically show which of their Facebook friends already have accounts on their sites.

Dynamic Privacy
As a user moves around the open Web, their privacy settings will follow, ensuring that users' information and privacy rules are always up-to-date. For example, if a user changes their profile picture, or removes a friend connection, this will be automatically updated in the external website.

Facebook Developers | Facebook Developers News

A Display Of Sportsmanship Worth Noting

Having coached Little League/Ponytail softball for 11 years, this story just struck me as an inspiring and selfless act that deserves attention (it has gotten a lot of coverage). The teams involved were battling for a playoff spot. The player who was hurt (Sara Tucholsky) was a career .153 hitter and this was her first home run - ever. She was a senior and it was senior-day. The opposing player (Mallory Holtman) who came up with the idea to help her was the all-time home run leader for the conference. While the team that carried her around the bases eventually lost the game, they accomplished something much more important.  Watch the video - it will make your day.

Actual Video

Additional Stories

What is sportsmanship

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

By Travis David Sports Writer

Central Washington's Liz Wallace (left) and Mallory Holtman (right) are pictured carrying Western Oregon's Sara Tucholsky around the bases. Tucholsky was injured as she tried to round the bases on her own after a home run. (Submitted photo).

... As I was skimming through espn.com the other day I came across a very touching sports story involving sportsmanship in the positive way. The story came from a Western Oregon and Central Washington (Div. II) softball game on Saturday in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference game.

Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky stepped to the plate in the top second inning in a scoreless game. The senior was batting a woeful .088 on the season heading into the game. Then on an 0-1 pitch she belted a three-run homer over the center field fence for an early lead. The homer was the first of Tucholshy's career.

As Tucholsky was approaching second base when rounding the bases, she realized she had missed first base, and as she was circling back to touch the base, her knee gave out, collapsing just short of first base.

Before head coach Pam Knox motioned for a substitute runner to take the place of the fallen batter, opposing first base man Mallory Holtman, who is incidentally the career leader in home runs for Central Washington, and Central Washington's shortstop Liz Wallace picked up Tucholsky and carried the injured player around the base paths, helping her gingerly touch each base and giving way to a swarm of Tucholsky's teammates waiting at home plate.

At the time it was made clear that if Tucholsky could not round the bases on her own power a substitute could be brought in and take over at first base, giving her credit for only a two-run SINGLE and not a home run. But Holtman, a senior herself, playing on senior day knew that her and her teammates could help and it still count as a home run.

Greene County Daily World: Story: What is sportsmanship

The New World of Work

Insightful interview with Dan Rasmus who shares his perspective on globalization and its impact on business and the workplace. Note: requires Silverlight to be installed.

One of the other interesting things that Dan talks about is the different types of generation that are now in the workplace and the expectations of these workers and also how they are accustomed to work and how technology can complement these new styles.  Delving into mobile working and the concept of "always on, always connected" world,  Emma asks what the opportunities and challenges are for doing business in this new and exciting environment.

Partner-TV: telling it like it is : Partner TV: The New World of Work