Portals and KM

67 Social Media Web Reputation Monitoring Tools and Sites

I short while back I posted on Ten Ways to Track Your Online Reputation. Marc Meyer went 57 varieties further and posted on How to listen in a bad economy - 67 social media/web/reputation management tools and sites. Some are free, some are cheap and some are pricey. I say generally you get what you pay for.

His first one was Google Alerts, free with many false positives and it misses a lot but the price is right. He also listed tow others I use with are better, Techrigy and Filtrbox. I use the free version of Techrigy and the least expensive version of Filtrbox. They both give me stuff that Goggle misses, including coverage of Twitter. I learned about them when I interviewed their CEOs for blog posts.

There are 64 over options including the ten in my prior post. What web monitoring tools work best for you?

Another Enterprise 2.0 Knowledge Sharing Success Story - VistaWiki

VistaPrint is an online supplier of graphic design services and customized printed products to small businesses and consumers. I spoke with Dan Barrett, who led the implementation of their enterprise wiki for knowledge sharing, VistaWiki. Dan is a software developer but has always been interested in the intersection of technology and people. He recently published the O’Reilly book, MediaWiki.

Three years ago VistaPrint was concerned about their intranet and its inability to handle their growing knowledge sharing needs. They had plans to hire a number of recent college graduates and many of their process and practices were not documented. Dan, recognizing that knowledge management is a “people” problem more than a software problem, began the process of designing the new system independent of technology. The software development organization was chosen as the first place to implement the new system. Dan led focus groups to define the information needs and develop a taxonomy to address these requirements. Only then did they look at technology.

MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, was selected. They started by creating over 1,000 blank wiki pages covering the complete taxonomy and related processes. This was counter to the Wikipedia advice to never provide blank pages but Dan wanted to offer a structure for employees to document knowledge. Employees now simply needed to fill in the blanks and they did not have to address structural issues. This simplified the effort and content was quickly generated.

Dan’s team monitored the content to refine it and add links. They also monitored group emails. Whenever anyone supplied content that would best fit in the wiki, this team could offer a specific home for this content within the pre-established structure of the wiki. People got the message and more content went directly into the wiki, reducing the load on email. It became very popular within software development. In the first six months they had more content than the prior intranet had managed to gather in three years.

Based on this initial popularity ten other departments lined up to have a wiki for their use. At this point, Dan advocated for an enterprise wiki rather than ten separate efforts. This enterprise effort was approved and taxonomies were developed for the rest of the organization. Dan’s team continued to monitor and refine content but the scope has called for them to recruit people in the other departments to help with this effort to keep the quality level high. When they went beyond the software developers, Dan tested business users to see it they could learn wiki mark-up language. It was not a problem.

They also created wiki extensions to further the capabilities of VistaWiki. Now you can see live data, such as sales figures, feed directly from other enterprise systems. It has become a central clearing house for all company data. Over 80% of central office employees are registered wiki users. They have created over 20,000 articles. The average number of articles per employee is 40 but there is wide variance here. There have been 175,000 page edits with over 15,000 per month.

VistaPrint employees found using the wiki format valuable for many reasons including: ease of use (based on open-source code), ability to track “live” documents and the simplicity of the design layout. I think it is great example of how to successfully implement a comprehensive enterprise wiki and a demonstration of its value.

Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook Top Growing Social Media Marketing

Here is another study on the growing use of social media in marketing. In a survey, Social Media Marketing Industry Report, by Michael Stelzner with almost 700 responses an overwhelming majority (88%) of marketers say they are using some form of social media to market their business, though 72% of those using it say they have only been at it a few months or less. The Media Buyer Planner reported that the study found that Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook - in that order - are the top four social media tools used by marketers. See below for links to other studies.

I would imagine that many of the Twitter uses fall into the recent category. I wonder what the relative ranking was a year ago and what it will be within a year. It is nice to see blogs up there. As I written many times, I think Twitter and blogs complement each other. Twitter gets attention and blogs can provide substance. I am now advising my blog clients on Twitter use, although some have used it longer than me and I learned new stuff from them.

Here is perhaps the most interesting statistic. The survey ‘found that there is a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning, the median weekly time commitment is two hours per week. For those who have been at it for months, the median jumps to 10 hours per week. For those who report social media marketing use for years, the median is 20+ hours each week.”

This would seem to indicate that the value of social media becomes more evident the longer you use it. Then you invest more time for this benefit. Of course, we have to be careful that correlation does not equal causation. It could be that it is the really committed to who stick around to be included in the longer time social media groups. I would want to see the total numbers in each time of use category.

The respondents also reported that the top benefit of social media marketing is gaining attention for the business, and 81% say their social media efforts have accomplished this goal. Next comes improving traffic, followed by building new partnerships. Owners of small businesses (2 - 100 employees) are more likely than others to report benefits. More than half of participants say a major benefit is the resultant rise in search engine rankings that often comes with increased efforts. Social media has long helped the small businesses gain attention they could not get otherwise. It helps to level the playing field. I learned of many cases like this when I did my business blog book.

This study is very consistent with others and more good news for business bloggers. See for example:

Forrester Says Firms to Increase Marketing Investment in Blogs

Business Blogs Trump Social Networking Sites as New Business Drivers

Blogs are Climbing the Gartner Slope of Enlightenment

Blogs Still Matter for Social Media Marketing in 2009

Predicted Increase in Social Media Marketing in 2009

So blog on but remember that it takes a while to gain a Blog following – be persistent.

With Facebook, Twitter, and Multiple Blogs, is There Any Reason to use FriendFeed?

I was an early blogger and slow to get to Facebook but like it okay. I am a passive LinkedIn user. I made fun of Twitter for months (see Unending Growth? Part Two - Twitter) but some experienced people showed me how to use it right (@euan @robpatrob @rotpatchen). Now I am an Twitter addict (Concluding Twitter Week: Predictions on How Twitter Will Change Blogs in 2009). So what about FriendFeed? I am not a tools person. I use Facebook a lot less now that I have Twitter.

Here is TechCrunch post that says, New FriendFeed: Simpler, Faster, Better (Maybe Too Fast). It says that FriendFeed is often the innovator and the others copy its features. But do we need another social media tool?

After my Twitter experience I am not passing judgment but looking for advice.

Stand by Me Across the Globe Through Music

Here is a music video, Stand by Me, I found through Twitter – thanks @reneclemens. It starts in the Santa Monica, goes through my hometown, New Orleans, and continues around the world to places like Zuni New Mexico, Amsterdam, South Africa, Pisa, Moscow, Caracas, and Barcelona. I have listened to it several times and wanted to share it here. It sponsored by Playing for a Change.

Here is John Lennon’s version of Stand by Me.

Here is the original Ben E. King version.

Here is U2 and Bruce Springsteen doing Stand by Me.

I never get tired of this song. If only I could sing.

The California Coast Through Edward Weston's Lens

I have always been a fan of Edward Weston. The New York Times had a nice article, In Point Lobos, Where Edward Weston Saw the World Anew and slide show, The California Coast Through Edward Weston's Lens. There are ten excellent examples of his work in the slide show. His son, Kim Weston, provides commentary on the slides.

The travel article, starts, “One exception to this biographic amnesia, and a worthy candidate for a plaque from the National Register of Historic Places, is Edward Weston’s house on the Monterey Peninsula. If American modernist photography can be said to have a spiritual birthplace that can still be visited, it’s his home on Wildcat Hill in Carmel Highlands where he lived off and on from 1938 until his death in 1958.”

The house is in the slide show. Many of his great photos were taken in the area and he made many of his prints in the house. This is a beautiful part of the world. His life is an inspiration to any artist. I would love to live in a place that I can paint and photograph.

Tethys Solutions Moves Business Process Automation into Enterprise 2.0

Business process automation traditionally required large-scale applications and armies of systems integrators resulting in big budgets and long development cycles. It also meant that knowledge sharing and business processes were usually siloed in separate tools. As a former member of a large consulting firm I have had plenty of opportunity to witness this first hand. This limited implementations to large enterprises and even then to a few processes. Enterprise 2.0 is changing the paradigm here and Tethys Solutions is a prime example. I recently spoke with Tethys CEO, Mihir Shukla.

Tethys Solutions was founded in 2003 and the name comes form the Greek goddess of water. They want to make business process automation available everywhere to everyone and be a ubiquitous as water. They have an R&D center in India and their main sales office is in San Jose. Unlike the big enterprise software firms, Tethys targets the millions of business processes valued between 2K and 100K, the long tail of business processes. Most large-scale business process implementations result in the top down dictation of business process, driven, in part by the software. Automation Anywhere allows for the bottom up creation of business process automation designed by the user.

Mihir said they are aiming to replace the scripting applications that are now hand done within organizations. The focus is supporting all aspect of end-to-end business processes. The flagship product is Automation Anywhere, available in both licensed software and cloud versions. Target processes include the collection of data from several sources and emailing it to stakeholders, the transfer of patient records from a mainframe application to a patient database, and automated invoice processing. Here is a screen shot of the visual designer of processes.

Automation Anywhere first has you go through the business process while it records the process. This supplies both an automated way to execute the process in the future and a documentation of the process. You can then edit the process if needed through a visual drag and drop interface with no programming required. In addition, there are more than 300 actions than can be added like Lego blocks, such as Internet, conditional, loop, prompt, file management, database and system with faster speeds, automatic email notifications, task chaining, hotkey, variables and logging, etc. Here is a sample screen showing a task actions list and other process details.

I especially like the way that Tethys documents the process in the act of recording it for automation. You are creating a knowledge management system in the process of creating the automation. In the early 90s, I was involved in helping a major insurance company create new business process. We found the experts in each area and documented their best practices in large sheets of brown paper. Then we built new applications aligned with these processes, beginning with a prototype. Next, we documented the processes and built a knowledge management system to support the new processes. This took an army of consultants and several years. I wish I had Automation Anywhere then to have the experts create the software and the documentation in a few days instead.

Mihir said they have used a similar method with a number of clients. For example, a major telco was able to create the software support and documentation for their provisioning processes by turning a few experts loose with Automation Anywhere and operating in their normal manner. In a few days they had all the variations of the process covered in a best practice manner for the rest of the organization. He also pointed out the built in ROI calculator so you can see the cost savings grow as you use the tool – see an screen shot below

I asked Mihir how they were doing in the down economy. He said quite well despite reduced budgets in some places. He had expected that their initial target market would be the small to midsize business. However, the majority of their initial clients are actually large corporations who see the value of optimizing micro-decisions, as Tom Davenport refers to it (see - Microdecisions for Macro Impact). Client examples in the IT sector ironically include a number of the firms in the large enterprise application space such as Oracle, IBM, Accenture, Siemens, and HP. In a down economy there is less room for error and inefficiency. Rapidly automating every day business processes in a cost effective manner is aligned with the times.

Headlines for Dummies: Facebook Dumbs You Down

Yesterday I wrote about the CNN article, Scientists warn of Twitter dangers. Even CNN thought this a bit of a distortion, as they changed the headline to read, Scientists warn of rapid-fire media dangers. They also toned down the text to be less focused on Twitter. See my response: Scientists Perhaps Jumped to this Conclusion on Warning of Twitter Dangers.

Now this TG Daily piece goes a step further in the misleading hype department with their title: Facebook dumbs you down. They refer to a study from Ohio State University but do not give much detail. It is based on a small sample for this type of work. Said Aryn Karpinski, the researcher at Ohio State who quizzed 219 students for his study (apparently about their grades and whether they use Facebook), said “It is the equivalent of the difference between getting an A and a B.” The headline writers clearly confused correlation with causation with the use of the verb “makes” instead of something like “correlates” or “associated with” even though the study people were more modest in their claims.

The article states, “If you use Facebook, you are probably driven by the inane status updates that spew out of your friends across your pages. The joy of a muffin, the pictures of a party where everyone got drunk and dressed up like a slutty leprechaun, and the obligatory question that hopes to solicit a comment because you want to make sure someone in your network is reading your pathetic attempts at making the minutiae of your existence seem interesting.”

I think the attempt to be clever got in the way of sense. Perhaps the writer spends too much time on Facebook. While there may be many who fit this profile, I also know a lot of smart people who use Facebook for business and social reasons and a lot of smart students who use Facebook for social reasons and still get top grades. We did not have Facebook in my college days but we where able to find many things to distract us from our studies. I can see the headlines, “dating make you dumb.”

Most comments to the article were very negative on the study as they should be. At least the readers had some sense.

The TG Daily also picked up on the story I mentioned at the beginning of this post and covered yesterday with this clever title, Will Twitter make you morally callous? At least CNN recognized their over reach. I have seen an increasing amount of research on social media but I have not been impressed with some of what I see from academia. In addition to these last two here is another that seems to have flaws (see Are There Medium-Specific Cognitive Effects from the Web?), It is too bad because good creative studies are needed beyond the analyst’s surveys. Do you know of any good studies?

Scientists Perhaps Jumped to this Conclusion on Warning of Twitter Dangers

We have to be careful amount jumping on the sound bytes, especially when reading about scientific studies. This is a cross-post from Fast Forward as I am interested in your reaction. Here is a catchy CNN headline, Scientists warn of Twitter dangers. I found this is through Twitter (@charlesyeo) so be careful reading it in case there is an infection. The article starts with: “rapid-fire TV news bulletins or updates on Twitter or Facebook could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.” Now being a former research psychologist I look at this with a bit of skepticism. There have to be a lot of operational definitions for starters. The original work on moral development turned out to be more about reading comprehension. I do know that Twitter has also alerted people to a lot of human suffering in crisis situations (e.g. Mumbai attacks) and helped to bring others closer to what is happening.

I read more. It goes on. “Brain scans showed humans can process and respond very quickly to signs of physical pain in others, but took longer to show admiration of compassion. "For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and refection," said Immordio-Yang.

Now, I have often reflected on the content of Twitter and tweets have raised awareness of something that I would not have known about otherwise. Just because you see something quickly does not mean that you process it quickly. Another scientist comments in the report, “USC sociologist Manuel Castells said the study raised more concerns over fast-moving TV than the online environment.”

I would agree with Manuel as TV is non-stop. Remember Twitter is still an asynchronous communication channel, just a fast one. The reader has to read and can set their own pace to reflect or not. Also, many Twitter feeds of value actually link to a longer piece like a blog post where you can get the details, like the Twitter post that alerted me to this story. I scan Twitter feeds, look more closely at the interesting ones and then click on the link for the details.

In this case about Twitter dangers you certainly need to go beyond the headline. At the end the article mentions that “Research leader Antonio Damasio, director of USC's Brain and Creativity Institute, said the findings stressed the need for slower delivery of the news, and highlighted the importance of slow-burn emotions like admiration.” I do not think they should jump to this conclusion so fast.

Twitter should not be viewed in isolation. It is an awareness tool that can lead to slower more in-depth reflection through other channels that allow for longer and more reflective content. I do know that studies have shown that reading print can cause more reflection in certain situations than seeing video because the reader is in more control of the speed of processing and uses their imagination more. Of course, in other situations video gives a richer experience. There are no easy answers here and more work needs to be done.

Happy Birthday Queen and Commoner

Queen Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary) was born on April 21, 1926 at 17 Bruton Street, London. Her birthday is officially celebrated in Britain on the 3rd Saturday of June each year.

I was born on the same day twenty years later in Stillwater, Oklahoma. My birthday is officially celebrated on my actual birthday. My father returned from World War Two in the Pacific and married my mother on St. Patrick's Day in 1945 a few days later. They had met while working in an Army office before he was sent to the Pacific.

He first went on commando raids behind enemy lines as part of the pre-invasion planning in New Guinea. He came ashore by way of a PT boat at night. At one point he wrote his family how he had been behind enemy lines without a gun. After the invasion he checked on the morale of troops on the front lines in New Guinea, moving from fox hole to fox hole. Later, he spent time in the bars and other recreation places in Sydney Australia reporting on the morale of the soldiers on leave. During this time he sometimes posed as a war correspondent. He sent a picture of himself in an officer’s war correspondent uniform, thinking his family would recognize this was not his normal uniform since he could not directly say what his role was for security reasons. A family friend living in their town, Greenville, SC, who had been in a similar role, told the family what he was doing.

When my parents married my father was still in the Army, now a Staff Sergeant, and my mother was a civilian employee of the Army. They lived in St. Louis while he continued his duty in Army Intelligence and attended many St. Louis Browns baseball games. After discharge from the Army, my parents briefly went to my mother's home town, Stillwater OK. Her father was a country doctor in Oklahoma before it was a state and she was raised on the family farm. My grandmother ran the farm to support the family as my grandfather made very little money as a doctor since his patients did not have much money to pay him. He was often paid with farm products.

I was born in the same hospital as my mother. They then returned to Austin, TX so my father could finish his doctoral work, interrupted by the war. In 1950 we went New Orleans where he got his first teaching job at Tulane and I was raised to great food and music.

Podcast on Social Media Inside and Outside the Enterprise

I recently did a podcast for the InMagic blog. Inmagic provides web-based solutions for social knowledge management, library automation and information management needs.

In this interview I first talked a bit about how I came into blogging. Then I covered what types of companies are well suited for blogging, how to know if you should be blogging, and how to identify what you should be using it for. I also mentioned tools for monitoring your online image.

Then I offered my opinion on why social tools work better inside the enterprise, rather than externally, and how social media is ideally suited for helping companies increase their productivity. It was nice to have a chance to discuss these issues.

Driving Through the English Countryside in the Cotswolds: Part Two

Here is the second part of the our photos from driving through the Cotswolds. You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

Driving Through the English Countryside in the Cotswolds: Part One

The Cotswolds is one of the many beautiful areas to enjoy the English countryside. There are many one track roads where the road is often only wide enough for one car. Here are some photos of the area as we drove through in late March. There will be more photos tomorrow.

Making Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Media More Relevant

As someone who occasionally blogs and tweets about what I had for breakfast, I could take offense at Craig Underwood's, post title, I really don’t care what you had for breakfast - how social sub-network tagging can end irrelevance on Facebook, Twitter, etc. But I don't as the post is on target with some excellent points and good suggestions. At least I usually include pictures and the web site and other details about the place I ate (e.g., Photos of Breakfast at Square One in Los Angeles).

As Craig writes, relevance is subjective. Some people come to this blog because of the food, arts, music, and other stuff I write about on the weekend, others for the enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, etc. stuff I write about during the week. A few might even come for both. But I am probably the only one who is interested in all the stuff I cover. Actually, that is good as I also use this site as a personal knowledge management system. I am starting to do that with Twitter also to save links with context, but what about the rest of you do not want it all? Perhaps I should be like the New York Times and offer the weekender subscription.

Craig offers some useful suggestions starting with the concept of social sub-networks and social sub-network tagging. Of course tags are not new, but more could be done with them. We need to be more creative here and allow for more receiver control as Craig suggests. We need to work on the intersection of writer, tags, and reader. I cannot subscribe to particular categories of a blog or particular hash tags of a Twitterer. Of course, I can browse a blog’s categories or search twitter hash tags. But this is only a start. See Craig's post for more good ideas.

Should Enterprise 2.0 Software Vendors Offer Professional Services?

Here is re-post from FastForward as I wanted to see if I could stir up some more conversation on the topic. An interesting question was raised in the post, Should Software Vendors Also Sell Professional Services?, by Stewart Mader. He quotes Oliver Marks, "The reality for all "social community" roll outs is that the software is a relatively minor component compared to the change management required to drive uptake and usage and to weave the software into the business fabric of day to day use." I certainly agree here and was even part of a panel at Enterprise 2.0 Conference in 2007 titled: 90% people, 10% technology.

Stewart goes on to quote Jive's Gia Lyons, "Most of what we do could be done with almost any other social software tool, but naturally, we only make ourselves available to Jive customers." Stewart then writes in reaction, "If most of what they do could be done with other software, then why only make themselves available to Jive customers? After all, isn't professional services an even larger source of revenue than the software? That's how SharePoint works. Microsoft sells a basic infrastructure on which lots of 3rd party consultants build and customize tools that meet each company╒s needs."

I would certainly agree with the last statement about revenue sources. When I was part of a large consulting firm we usually figured the system integration costs were about 3 to 5 times the software costs.

Stewart then implies that software vendors will not have the objectivity of third party implementers who can use a variety of tools. Having been on all sides of this equation, I think that this is a complex issue. I like Jon Mell's comment to the post, "I think it╒s slightly more subtle than vendors only trying to validate the sale. If a customer invests in Jive (or any other product) there is a mutual interest in making sure the solution works. If that also happens to validate the vendor╒s sale it doesn╒t automatically mean it╒s wrong and not in the customer╒s best interests."

I would add that just because the professional services firm is independent of the software vendors, there are many alliances that will provide motivation similar to an internal services provider. I was the alliance sponsor for three portal software firms while working for a large consulting firm. There were several tiers of alliances and many wide-ranging agreements and motivations. In the end you have to be able to trust your service provider, whether they are inside or outside the official software provider and trust that there is full disclosure

I have also seen situations where the software firm's internal people partner with a third party developer. This happen on a knowledge management project I led in the early 2000s. It worked well because the internal experts gave us their unique knowledge to help with the implementation and served as a connection to the software firm. The project was a success and promoted by both the very large software firm and the consulting firm, my employer.

In the 80s I was involved in another situation were it made sense to use the software firm's service providers. My employer was a firm that sold CBT software. This firm originally thought that over half their income would come from selling software. I was the head of customer development and we only used our tools. What actually happen was that selling software accounted for only about 10% of our revenue. The rest came from custom development, as our clients would rather pay us to use our tools than purchase the tool themselves. Now software for learning development is a bit of a specialized case, as you need expertise in creating good learning materials as well as using the software.

In the end the answer to the question is not yes or no but the old "it depends." There are many issues to making enterprise 2.0 work (see McKinsey on Making Enterprise 2.0 Work is Reminder of Process Centric KM in Early 90s) and I think there is a role for software firms to engage in this implementation for everyone╒s success.

What has been your experience on this issue?

Post Script. Thanks to Social Computing Journal for republishing this.

The Evolving Google Rankings Algorithm

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz's CEO, recently posted his personal opinion of how some of the key factors in Google's ranking system have changed through the years he has been in SEO. I learned about this from @o0x on Twitter. Now I do not claim to be a technical SEO expert but I have figured out how to get blog posts on the front page of Google. I did this first just for fun and now (warning commercial coming) to help others. So I was very interested in his opinions. He covered the four big factors. I provide a brief summary of what he said for each. Go to this blog for the details. These factors were the ones I knew so I was very interested in the graphic on his blog that shows their relative rise and decline.

Domain Trust/Authority – He said came this into consciousness in 2003 and over the last couple of years, has become the dominant factor in the success of rankings at Google. Anchor Text in External Links – He said while this is still a very powerful ranking tactic, it's not as it was before 2004. I really felt that it didn't carry the same power it did for those years afterwards. “Today, my belief is that anchor text has come to be regarded much as PageRank was after its dominance in the algorithm - as a technique that SEOs have focused on gaming to such an extent that much of it has become noise, and it's only really valuable when found in conjunction with other positive signals.”

On-Page Keyword Usage – He said that it not lost all of its ranking power, but it “still sits in the middle as an essential element, but one where "more" won't help you. This is in direct contrast to the other elements I've included in this diagram (where more does equal better rankings).”
_

Raw PageRank / Link Juice - PageRank used to be everything and it built industries of link sellers and buyers. PageRank has been on decline as a ranking factor so some time. Remember Google keeps its methods secret and is always changing them to stay ahead of the gamers. So this is just his opinion. However, it is consistent with my intuition and experience.

My advice is to not game but do what best communicates to your readers. I use the second and third factors above more but with the goal of providing better information to readers. My understanding is that the first goal is more something you achieve than technique. I stay away from gaming methods on both blogs and Twitter and just try to have meaningful conversations. Also, remember that you have to speak to two audiences, Google and your readers. If you only speak to Google you might get readers but they will not stay or come back.

What has been your experience?

Post Script Thanks to Searchnewz for reposting this.

Your Favorite Portals and KM Posts for Last Quarter and Last Year

A few days ago this blog passed the 500,000 page view mark. It took almost five years to get there and I know some bloggers do this in a month but it does feel like a milestone. I never thought I would still be blogging five years later when I started in May 2004. Now I do not see stopping.

Last year at about this time I started using Google Analytics. Here are the most popular posts that drove the most visits in the last quarter and last year according to this tool. I tell my blog clients that they are putting up content that will be accessible for as long as they keep the blog available. With this in mind it is useful to supply a mix of posts that include many that will have a long shelf life of relevance.

These stats support this concept, as there is a mix of years in the most popular ones for this blog. I added the year to the title so you can see when I put them up. They are listed in rank order. I added an asterik to the ones on the last quarter list that are also on the list for the past year.

Tops in Last Quarter

Ten Ways to Track Your Online Reputation - 2009

Central Desktop Using Twitter for Sales, Service, and Brand Monitoring Conversations - 2009

Knowledge Management 2.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) – 2006*

Google AdSense Success Stories - 2007*

Bob Dylan on You Tube - 2007*

Sample Action Plan for Business Blogging - 2008

History of Knowledge Management in Six Parts: Introduction - 2004*

Tops in Last Year (not also in Last Quarter) These rank 5, 6, and 7 in the order below.

How Barack Obama is Using Web and Enterprise 2.0 in the US Primary Campaign Through Central Desktop - 2008

Serena has Adopted Facebook as their Intranet - 2007

Some Knowledge Management Blogs - 2005

Post Scrip t- See Tony Karrer's post for another way of looking at this

Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America via Flowing Data

Here is a great visualization effort by the Flowing Data people. You can see how Walmart, like kudzu on the left , spread across the US South. It started in 1964 and first invaded the South. Then it passed the kudzu limits during the 1980s to spread across the rest of the country. It is a bit scary. I wonder what the Starbucks story would look like. I found this through the PSFK people. Kudzu image is from the Wikipedia.

Litchfield Jazz Festival 2009 Announces Line Up

One of my favorite music events is the Litchfield Jazz Festival, held in Kent, CT. I have been several times and hope to get back this year. Here is the line up. I have CDs of a number of these artists. Hope to see you there.

Friday Night

Lewis Nash Quintet

Jane Monheit

Saturday

Dafnis Prieto Si o Si Quartet

Trio Da Paz with Leny Andrade

Wycliffe Gordon & Jay Leonhart Quartet

Benny Green and Bucky Pizzarelli

Bill Henderson Quartet

Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Sunday

Ted Nash Quartet - The Mancini Project

Lionel Loueke Trio

Dena DeRose Quartet featuring Claudio Roditi

Houston Person Quartet

Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band

Bee Gees on You Tube

Remember the late 1970s? Was disco a dream? The Bee Gees always bring back memories of that era for me. I was really a 60s person but I have a soft spot for these guys. They are so different from the 60s rock and soul. I went through the YouTube offerings and picked out seven performances from the era by the Bee Gees. This is one of a number of YouTube anthologies I have done - browse music and food for more. Enjoy.

Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive (Full Version) - Great music video with the real guys done at the time it came out over 4 million views

Bee Gees How Deep Is Your Love-Live

Bee Gees - Night Fever

Bee Gees - Nights on Broadway

Bee Gees – Massachusetts

Bee Gees Words..and words are all I have

Too Much Heaven - Bee Gees – has the words for karaoke

Twitter Search Traffic Ready to Pass Google Blog Search

Steve Rubel recently posted, Twitter Search Traffic Poised to Eclipse Google Blog Search. He wrote, “As of February, Twitter Search attracted 1.35 million users while Google Blog Search, which has been plagued by relevance issues, sits at 1.38 million users.” Now this is impressive for Twitter search but I am sure there is no comparison to Google web search. I never use Google blog search since blogs show up quite well on Google web search and you get a more complete picture. So, if my actions are at all typical I am not surprised that Google blog search is flat.

I have recently started using Twitter search for a variety of reasons. I use it primarily to search on topics and not to find mentions of my own work or presence. I have other tools for this purpose that pick up Twittering (e.g., Techrigy and Filtrbox). But twitter search is useful to look at what is being said about events (e.g. FastFoward 09) or issues (e.g., knowledge management aka KM).

Steve closes with this thought, “Keep an eye on the social search space. It's not a short-term threat to Google, but it certainly represents a major shift in where and how we will search for relevant news and information by layering in trusted sources.” I think this is the future of gathering content from the Web, the mix of trusted sources with topic search.

My Fast Forward Posts for March 2008

Here is the monthly listing of my Fast Forward blog posts. I find it helps me with an archive and hopefully is also useful to you. There is a separate category for these summaries in my right side column on this blog. There will be more in April.

How Three Software Vendors are Using Twitter for Sales, Service, and Brand Monitoring Conversations

Steve Rubel Says Forrester Says Paying Bloggers is OK Provided There are Disclosures

McKinsey Report on Making Enterprise 2.0 Work Brings Back Memories of Process Centric KM in Early 90s.

Enterprise 2.0 for an Enterprise of One

Enterprise 2.0 Tools Align with McKinsey Steps for Making Good Business Decisions

Tom Davenport on the Importance of Micro-decisions

The Semantic Web is Now AKA Web 3.0 But is It Reality?

Discussions about the semantic web have certainly been around longer than web 2.0. I always felt the irony of a term that included the word “semantic” was that its definition always seemed a bit fuzzy to me or perhaps illusive. In the past think I understand it and then it would be hard to make it concrete. I have even done consulting to a Spanish firm on market positioning in the early 00s that considered itself in this space and used RDF. We had some great conversations over dinners in Madrid. I see that it is still around but I have not kept up with them.

Now some people are calling the semantic web – web 3.0. Not surprisingly, others are objecting. The term Web 2.0 filled a need to describe something very concrete that did not have a good name. In the case of the semantic web, there is already a name so I do not see the need for another terms, especially one that will seem like hype to many.

Marta Strickland did a very good post, What the Semantic Web -- or Web 3.0 -- Can Do for Marketers, a while back (11/24/08) that I saved and have been meaning to post and reflect. This is mainly for my own education so it you are an expert on the semantic web jump to the comment field and offer your definition. If not, here is a summary of my understanding of where we are based on Marta’s excellent post.

Marta writes, “Right now, computers are good at sending data back and forth but not great at discerning the meaning of that data. Semantic web aims to change that.” She goes on “By using natural language processing and artificial intelligence, semantic advertising solutions, like Peer39, can look at the structure of a sentence and interpret word meaning and sentiment. Semantic text analysis relies on synonyms and relationships between concepts, rather than rudimentary keyword scanning. Identifying sentiment is becoming invaluable for advertising on user-generated sites such as blogs, where you wouldn't want to place ads on a negative post. “

Matra asks another questions, “So how do we dynamically pull smarter and more relevant content into ads? “ Then she offers an answer, “That's where the efforts like Dapper MashupAds come into play. In addition to pulling from a brand site database, the dynamically generated ads can scan social content sites like Yelp and Flickr for the newest (positive) reviews and photos of your restaurant. It's the power of your brand message only promoted by your consumers.”

In both cases what is added is the sentiment. Now you can also use key words to define sentiment so I do not think that is the difference that the semantic web brings but rather how it gets at the sentiment. Marta says, “Semantic technology is able to pull together connections between words and phrases. How often is concept "X" said in the same breath as concept "Y"? This is part way to meaning but I think I need more so I went to the Wikipedia for its take on semantic web.

I found that Tim Berners-Lee had a dream in 1999:

“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”

However, he said in 2006 "This simple idea, however, remains largely unrealized.” This is what I thought.

The Semantic Web.Org site states that, “The Semantic Web is the extension of the World Wide Web that enables people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications and websites. It has been described in rather different ways: as a utopic vision, as a web of data, or merely as a natural paradigm shift in our daily use of the Web. Most of all, the Semantic Web has inspired and engaged many people to create innovative semantic technologies and applications. semanticweb.org is the common platform for this community.”

Under success stories there were two examples and there was a warning that one might be a scam to harvest and copy other people’s business ideas. However, they do list a lot of meetings. So does anyone know of real business applications of the semantic web?

Help Us Save the Boston Globe

Many of you may have read recently about the threat of possible closure faced by the Boston Globe. A number of Boston-based bloggers who care about the continued existence of the Globe have banded together in conducting a blog rally. We are simultaneously posting this paragraph to solicit your ideas of steps the Globe could take to improve its financial picture.

We view the Globe as an important community resource, and we think that lots of people in the region agree and might have creative ideas that might help in this situation. So, here's your chance. Please don't write with nasty comments and sarcasm: Use this forum for thoughtful and interesting steps you would recommend to the management that would improve readership, enhance the Globe's community presence, and make money. Who knows, someone here might come up with an idea that will work, or at least help. Thank you.

I am a long subscriber to the Globe and rely on it despite all the online news outlets I also use. I have saved my front page Globe stories of great Boston sports events and consider the Globe as the official report on such efforts. The same goes for other big news items. Thanks to Paul Levy, who organized this blog rally to gather support and ideas on how to save the Globe. Thanks also to Jessica Lipnack who told me about this effort.

Post Script

Boston Globe article on the rally.

Paul Levy on Rally

Jessica Lipnack on rally.

Comments on Jeff McKenna's Agile Development Blog

Jeff McKenna recently started the Agile Development Blog to share his thoughts on Agile development and the broader issues of team dynamics that go beyond Agile and software. Jeff is an Agile evangelist for Serena Software and long time participant in Agile and preceding modes of software development. As the tagline states, “In this blog we explore topics, issues, questions and puzzles regarding Agile Software Development as it is applied in the Enterprise. A particular focus is the impact on the people doing the work, the people specifying the work and the people depending on the work.” So the blog is more about the people side of software development than the technical side.

Here is video interview between Jeff and Ward Cunnigham, wiki inventor. Jeff worked with Ward in the late 1980's at Tektronix in Oregon. They were working on Smalltalk and working on Patterns and the beginnings of the development style now known as Agile.

I am working with Jeff on the blog (see below for more on this) and here is an interview I did with him on Achieving Immediate and Continuous Bug Fixes in Agile Development. Jeff had mentioned earlier how a team he was on was able to do away with spending noticeable time prioritizing and dealing with long lists of bugs. Instead, they detected and fixed them right away. So this post interview is a more in-depth exploration on how that occurred.

Jeff will also cover events he attends such as the recent Scrum Gathering in Orlando. Here is a review of Amr Elssamadisy's new book Agile Adoption Patterns and here are his thoughts on whether Agile development requires UML.

As a disclosure, I am engaged to provide a partner and outside perspective to the discussions. Since this blog is about conversations, we will be starting many of these conversations between ourselves. Operating under the model of two heads being better than one, at times I may interview Jeff, challenge what he presents, or act as a sounding board on discussions. In some cases I may contribute posts to offer another perspective. However, we will be clear on the authorship on all posts and list whether it is post by Jeff, me, or a combined effort. Here is one of mine, Agile Myth Busters at Serena Tag 2008.

You can see the author or authors as a category at the bottom of each post and browse the posts in each category in our right side bar. We also do conversations between the two of us and they are categorized as interviews such as the one mentioned above and Conducting Release Retrospectives in Agile Development. The release retrospectives discussion reminded me a bit of Nancy Dixon’s work. e.g., Trust Versus Psychological Safety. We see this as an opportunity to experiment with different models of conversation and blog collaboration in a transparent manner. We plan to have fun and hope it is contagious.

I think this will be an important resource for Agile development and I am very pleased to be part of this effort. I hope you stop by and take a look. We welcome your input.

Photos of Breakfast at Square One in Los Angeles

Square One provided our first breakfast in LA (see - Los Angeles Dining Update – February 2009) last month. This place also offered some of the best photo ops which I am sharing a few below. I especially like the embracing bacon. I had a variation on eggs benedict with salmon on a potato pancake and grits on the side. How could I resist this? Fortunately my cholesterol runs low. It is located at 4854 Fountain Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90029 (323) 661.1109.

The London Sculpture Show

I was recently in London and had dinner with my artist friend, Karen Ay. Karen is participating in an upcoming exhibit, The Sculpture Show in London sponsored by V22 Presents. Here is a photo of the space from the show site.

V22 Presents is a series of projects produced in collaboration with artists, curators and art organisations in a variety of venues around London. For the second project V22 PRESENTS invited five artist curators to select works that engage with current developments and critiques in contemporary Sculpture. The site stated:

“The archaic term Sculpture can no longer contain the multiple directions and potentials that artists have attributed to it throughout its history. Through bringing together diverse approaches and understanding from international artists, groups and projects V22 PRESENTS: The Sculpture Show is an opportunity to engage with the diverse potentials that have come to encapsulate, and exist within, the definition Sculpture.”

The Sculpture Show 
will appear 26 April – 31 May 2009 and be open Wed – Sun 12 – 6pm at The Almond Building, The Biscuit Factory, Bermondsey, London.

It is organized into three groups. Karen Ay’s wrk is part of the Oysters Ain't which is curated by Simon Bill & Cedric Christie. They described the grouping in the following manner.

“Apparently there’s no workable, universally agreed, definition of sculpture these days. Your safest bet is to define it negatively - a sculpture can be absolutely anything in the world provided it’s not a painting…Oysters were, incidentally, until about 1850, the food of the poor. And ‘ain’t’ used to be something Gentlemen said. ‘It ain’t sculpture, damn you Sir!’ is the sort of thing they probably used to say. Now, of course, all that’s changed. “

I wish I got get back to see it and recommend it to anyone in London at the time. You can see Karen’s work at her new Karen Ay web site.

Forrester Says Firms to Increase Marketing Investment in Blogs

Here is more good news for business blogs. ReadWriteWeb recently covered a Forrester report, Despite The Recession, More Than 50% Of Marketers Will Pursue Social Applications, by Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester. Jeremiah surveyed 145 global interactive marketers in both B2B and B2C companies with more than 250 employees on their social media marketing plans. Blogs are included in the social media mix and they had the highest combined total for increasing or staying the same in marketing investments.

One question was, “Assuming that the economy us in recession in the net six months, how would you change your investment in the following marketing channels.” The results included: Blogs – increase 65% stay the same 31%% decrease 4%; Social networking – increase 72% stay the same 22% decrease 6%; Display ads – increase 16% stay the same 44% decrease 40%.

I continue to see active interest in business blogs in the many software venders I speak with, supporting these results. The key to success is to align the blog with your business objectives. At the same time, you do not want to simply use your blog as a PR and marketing channel but provide value to your readers. If you have a business blog, what are your plans?

My App Gap Posts for March 2009

Here are my App Gap posts for March. In addition to the Fast Forward blog (see side bar for links), I am writing in another Corante blog, the App Gap, sponsored by QuickBase, The posts began toward the end of January 2008. In this case, I am primarily doing product commentaries with a few other things thrown in. Below are the ones for March. There will be more in April.

BlogBridge Release 6.6 Integrates Twitter with Comprehensive RSS Reader Capabilities

Traction Software Releases Team Page 4.1 - Better Enabling the Social Side of Work

IT Business Edge Moving Toward Greater Audience Engagement

Novell Teaming Brings Kempinski Hotels into Enterprise 2.0

TrackVia Provides Ease of Use with Useful Functions

Code Glide Offers Integrated Suite of Productivity Tools Including Mashups with Fusion

SkillSoft and SuccessFactors Link eLearning to Talent Management

RightNow February ?09 Release Adds Product Registration Capabilities

Nancy Dixon’s Conversations Matters Blog

I have known Nancy Dixon for some time and have always respected her work in knowledge management and organizational learning. So I am very pleased that she has started a blog. Nancy is well known for her many books, including Common Knowledge and heads her consulting firm, Common Knowledge Associates. Her blog, Conversation Matters, continues this work with very comprehensive thought pieces.

Some recent examples of posts include, Five Actions Organizations Can Take to Increase Knowledge Sharing. She lists these as: 1. Help people build relationships with each other 2. Build knowledge sharing processes into the workflow 3. Design physical space that encourages conversation 4. Deliver an actionable leadership message about knowledge sharing 5. Develop and then practice conversation skills

Nancy then goes on to provide a number of examples for each action. I have seen all of these in action, especially two, three, and four. My introduction to knowledge management began with building knowledge sharing processes into the workflow for a major insurance company in the early 90s. I still think that this process orientation is a essential component to any successful knowledge management system.

I once heard the former head of a major London university describe how they finally got two critical departments to start collaborating after several unsuccessful mandated approaches. They simply created an attractive space for coffee between the departments. Nokia and other Scandinavian firms are noted for this. Leadership needs to both led by example and provide ways for others to follow. The key element of all five of Nancy’s factors is that they are action oriented.

The preceding post was on The Incentive Question or Why People Share Knowledge. This is always a critical one in any knowledge management effort. Nancy goes into detail on several factors: people are willing to share their knowledge, peer recognition, and relationships. She brings in research, as well as experience. I would like to add another. There is an incentive for knowledge sharing if it is tied into their work process and supports this process. That was one of Nancy's five points for knowledge sharing in the post described above. This is also one of the benefits of some of the new workflow based enterprise 2.0 tools. You can have the means for knowledge sharing build into the process of performing work at the point where it is most meaningful and at the point where it does not require extra work.

I recommend taking a look at her blog. There is much more like this. As a disclaimer, I advised Nancy in starting her new Typepad blog. However, this post is independent of that effort and is written after it was completed. As I said at the beginning, I have respected Nancy’s work for some time so I would be writing this in any circumstances. She has long been one of the thought leaders in knowledge management. It is nice to have her blogging now.