frogpond

The social Web in 2010

Dion nails some of the (pressing) problems we face with “social web in 2010” – and it informs us as well “in the enterprise”, if only because it’s related with the common response “No, we don’t have time for engaging in this”.

To me it’s a mix of perceived information overload, filter failure, acquired incompetencies and the overwhelming complexities of choosing from a plethora of singular channels competing for attention (when some of them are trying to lock their users in) that is making it hard – to “coherently [engage] in social activity”, to separate the wheat from the chuff, to know whom to “go to and ask” etc.

Dion presents an overview of the things in the making – from PubSubHubBub to OpenID, so check them out for an overview on what will hopefully ease the pains of “enterprise knowledge workers” in the future, err 2010 and on (Open activity streams; Portable identity, contacts, and data; Better social and location capabilities added to the core of mobile devices; Better distributed models for the social Web).

Posted via web from stirring the frogpond

10 Levels of Intimacy

via 1.bp.blogspot.com

Found this picture via Oscar Berg (Common and real concerns about internal micro-blogging) – originally it’s a real continuum, going from 10 to 1 in one straight line … good question included here:

“The digital age has transformed the ways in which we communicate with each other. The combination of technology and power of information brings new ways on HOW, WITH WHOM and WHY we communicate. We are connected with more people than ever before. Do more options to communicate with each other connect us or alienate us more?”

Yet, I wouldn’t say that Twitter is confined to level 1 light-weight “broadcasting” – as it allows for a myriad of individual uses that might entail a high dose of “ambient intimacy” too.

Posted via web from stirring the frogpond

Is it really Enterprise 2.0?

Because of these facts, I usually dodge questions about specific vendors and their offerings, and instead answer how I’d look at any particular deployment of collaboration software to see if it met my definition of Enterprise 2.0.

I find this pretty easy to do. I check to see if the environment meets three criteria: Is it freeform? How frictionless is contribution? And is it emergent?

via forbes.com

Small article, earmarked – Andrew McAfee explains what is interesting and important when evaluating social software offerings and “solutions”. Great examples to illustrate the points freeform, frictionless and emergent too …

Posted via web from stirring the frogpond

Is it a New Lotus?

A new Lotus has begun to emerge…

A Lotus that:

is assured of its place in the market, ready to compete head on with all the social/collaboration/appdev vendors, not just Microsoft

is confident of its future, within the market, within IBM and under the new leadership of Alistair Rennie

embraces and holds dear the rich history of Notes and Domino, and is definitive about its place in the brave new world of integrated always-on real-time social collaboration

realises that Google Wave is a game-changer, and is ready to step up and face it head-on

is becoming a greater influence on IBM as a whole, both through the industry focus on social collaboration in 2010 and beyond, and because of the continued stature of the previous 5 Lotus GMs

continues to learn the significance of social media (blogs, Twitter and much more)

fully recognises the importance of the Lotus community and the special (perhaps unique) relationship that Lotus software has with its user and partner base

that now has one defined vision for all its products to work towards over the next few years – none of the other vendors has anything close right now.

via blog.collaborationmatters.com

Stuart refines some of his #ls10 impressions into a list – I have like 93% agreement with it, but would add a seen (& heard) “IBM is commited to open standards (at least when it’s useful)”.

Perhaps trading it in against the “rich history” makes sense? After all this is not a thing one should rest upon, sometimes it can be limiting … better learn from it, as to not be bound to repeat it …

Posted via web from stirring the frogpond

Lotusphere 2010: Even more analyst briefings (days 2 & 3)

More write-ups and notes pile up – so I will give you an roundup of my day 2 and 3 appointments:

Q&A with Uffe Sorensen, Lotus Messaging & Collaboration Director, CEEMEA

We talked about the different selling approaches it needs – whether you’re in an emerging (BRIC etc.) market or if you’re in western economies. Most interesting that even when some common traits exist, emerging economies are leapfrogging the western hemisphere. Employing new and fresh technologies is obviously a lot easier if you don’t have a legacy heritage to protect and defend (plus as the price for data transmission is dropping all over the world, SaaS offerings are becoming more attractive – even when on-premise models have their place for some time. I guess that Lotus is well positioned – given the hybrid model of on-site and cloud-based that they seem to allow).

On the topic of social software in the enterprise adoptions we’ve shortly tackled the importance and role of different local cultures – but Uffe sees that new modern generations, that are accustomed to the new tools and ask for them are a fact all over the world. Also he thinks that the common meme of “the US is more tech friendly than Europe” is just a myth.

More topics included:

– Crowdsourcing and innovating – IBM does employ and leverage the BRIC creativity, eg. there are labs in Hong Kong, Johannesburg etc.
– Uffe believes in employee surveys, retention numbers, etc. as qualitative measuring of social software ROI – like that, numbers are easy.
– we have a lot of use cases and real pain points we can improve with social software in the enterprise – if we look close enough …
– he was quite critical of the name “Enterprise 2.0” – something I don’t buy in, for me it’s more than marketing hype, it’s a useful mental shortcut, much like the Collaboration Agenda IBM is putting forth themselves
– I liked his take on industry focus and knowledge about specific processes – the „how can I improve how a company does this and that“ is a very good starting point for discussion and helps “getting it real”.

Q&A with Doug Heintzman, Director Lotus Strategy & Collaboration

We were talking about the market positioning of Lotus in contrast to Microsoft Sharepoint – something I won’t comment on now, would I? Small wonder that he’s seeing significant deficiencies of MOSS, and a lack of understanding and commitment to the social web in the enterprise.

Small wonder too that he sees Lotus as a system of systems much better positioned, offering customers the flexibility and scalability they need (and that allow for the tailoring of best of breed functionality – think Open Source integration et al.).

Well, there were some more meetings and encounters – but this will have to do for now, I want to visit the labs one more time. And I sure don’t want to be late for tonight’s treat, meeting with old and new friends (did I say that it’s great to put some real people behind all those twitter acquaintances?) and enjoying the rollercoaster rides.

Lotusphere 2010: Labs of all kind

LotusLive Labs and the initial offerings made me go pay a visit to the Labs people at Lotusphere. Here’s a picture to give you an impression of the athmosphere in the Lab rooms:

And they had answers too. And yes, the research people are demoing all sorts of cool stuff, that you’re not supposed to photograph, albeit I’ve understood that these innovations are tested out by IBM employees already inhouse. Anyway – I had to step outside of the room to take that picture …

Got a demo of Project Concord, something that Ed Brill comments on like this:

this project demonstrates some very cool collaborative document editing, contextual commenting, smart tables, and task and attention management. It is designed to work with installed editors (e.g. Symphony), browser users, and even mobile users

[…] LotusLive Labs is intended to be an incubator for new cloud-based capabilities, and Project Concord is just one of those.

I’ve also checked out some ideas of social data visualization, part of the IBM ideas and plans around Social Analytics – plus the real-time crowdsourcing of presentation building with Shared Presentation.