Portals and KM

How to Enhance TV Viewing with Social Media and Interactivity

PSFK recently posted on How To Enhance The Viewing Experience, Rather Than Interrupt It. The increasing availability of smart phones and tablets such as the increases the number of screens that consumer can view – or interact with – TV programming.   But will each medium take advantage of its characteristics to enhance the experience. Bob Greenberg, CEO at R/GA, recently provided some additional perspective in AdWeek in his post, The Future of TV. He notes that as TV use broadens the convergence of Web and broadcast TV will continue.  He also offers some predictions and suggestions.

Utility-driven marketing and interactive TV viewing: the experience of watching TV has shifted to a more active experience rather than the traditional passive couch potato image. Many consumers view TV while surfing the Web, texting or chatting. TV people need to recognize this and enhance this experience.

Social TV: Bob offers an example: last year’s partnership between Facebook Connect and CNN’s presidential inauguration; many players are creating a conduit for viewers to interact during programming. There are many others. Darwin is working on one through a PBS affiliate.

Social interactivity (via co-viewership, gaming): MTV turned TV watching into a gaming experience by inviting viewers during episodes of the The Hills to join chat rooms to write and rate comments. Comments with positive ratings accumulated points and respective winners. The one with the most points wins. There are many other examples.

TV commerce: The click of a mouse or the touch of a screen will eventually allow us to purchase products directly from video content. Operators will no longer need to be standing by.

The traditional media people who best integrate with new social media will be the winners.

 

Painting after Gaugin's Still Life with Peaches

I did this painting by studying Gauguin's Still Life with peaches at Harvard's Fogg Museum. I did this work to attempt to learn more about Gauguin's techniques with still life. It is an 18 x 24 acrylic. Like many of my works is available for sale at Artsetter.com. 

 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods Part Fifteen: West End, New Orleans

This is the fifteenth a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

These pictures below were taken in 2005 and 2006 as I was not able to get back there in my short stay in 21010. According to the Wikipedia, the boundaries of the West End  as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Lake Pontchartrain to the north, the New Basin Canal and Pontchartrain Boulevard to the east, Robert E. Lee Boulevard to the south and the 17th Street Canal to the west. The area was largely built on land reclaimed from Lake Pontchartrain in the 1920s.

The West End was a popular music venue in the early days of jazz. Joe "King" Oliver wrote the tune West End Blues in commemoration of the area; a recording of the number by Louis Armstrong is one of the most famous jazz recordings of the 1920s. 

In the 1950s we used go often to Bruning’s, a seafood place built on piles over the lake. My parents would always get a dozen hard shell crabs served on a cafeteria platter along with Jax beer.  I had shrimp and would finish much quicker so usually an adult would take me over to play the slot machines. These were illegal but often ignored.  I was told later that if the police did come and there was not time to move the slots, they were throw in the lake and some remain there. There were still music places in the area in the 1950s, as well as a famous female impersonator club, the My O My Club. This club was destroyed on Hurricane Betsy and moved to the French Quarter to be finally close din 1972. There is now a My O My review based on it.   

Burnnig’s (seen first below) was badly damaged by a Hurricane Georges in 1998  and the over water place was closed. They re-opened nearby. The next picture is the house of the owner of Brunning’s and it was used in a party scene in the movie, The Big Easy. The next pictures are of another lake front place pre-Katrinia. 

                
 
The area is adjacent to the site of the levee breach on the 17th Street Canal during Hurricane Katrina which inundated and devastated all of West End. The heavy winds and storm surge also destroyed every restaurant and music club built out over the lake. The pictures below were taken post-Katrina in April 2006. Sadly, Bruning's is now closed. There is a post-Katrina write up that includes some pre-Georges pictures of Bruning's. In 2006 there was no evidence that the places on the lake ever existed. 

    
 
 
 
 
  

 
 

More Americans Paying For Broadcast TV

Despite the growth of free, on-demand entertainment options it paying TV customers appear to be growing. As PSFK posts, a new report by SNL Kagan shows that even though people purport to be moving away from traditional media sources such as cable and satellite, they are actually sticking with the familiar more than expected.

The New York Times explains in More Americans Are Paying for Television:

“Regardless, more people are paying for TV: 99.9 million at the end of 2009, up from 97 million at the end of 2008. The gain can be explained in part by the nation’s gradual population growth, but also by the enduring popularity of television in a fragmented media marketplace.

According to SNL Kagan, cable (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, among the companies in the category) lost a total of 500,000 subscribers between 2008 and 2009; satellite (DirecTV, Dish Network) gained 1.4 million; and telecommunications (Verizon, AT&T) gained 2 million. Cable providers still dominate, however, with 62.1 million subscribers, while satellite competitors have 32.7 million and telecommunications companies have only 5.1 million.”

If you add the numbers watching the various forms of Web TV, there is only growth in this media. How to explain these results? The Times concludes that we may seeing a gap between how people feel and how they actually behave.  This is not new. Many psychology studies have found this gap in many areas. In fact, attitudes or perceptions and actions often do not align. The Times adds that there is already a history of this gap in the television industry: it has been well established that Americans underestimate the amount of daily TV they watch.

 

Yammer Extends Its Enterprise Microblogging Offering with Communities

Yammer was one of the first enterprise microblogging tools, and it continues to add features to extend the original concept of Twitter into an enterprise business application. A while back, I wrote about one case example, Implementing Enterprise Micro-messaging with Yammer at Océ., Océ is still an active user of Yammer. I was pleased to recently speak with Yammer’s VP of Marketing, Steve Apfelberg, about their capabilities and latest developments.  Steve said that many of their new features came from customer input. Here is a sample screen.

We began with an overview of some of the ways Yammer has extended the functionality of microblogging beyond Twitter to better serve business needs. First, they have not placed a 140 character limit on updates, or Yams, as they call them. There is a suggestion to keep things crisp but many business messages require more than 140 characters. I agree and have reluctantly avoided Twitter at times for this reason when it would have served a good purpose. 

Next, Yammer allows for file attachments. Twitter allows for links to documents but often you want to use microblogging as an internal distribution channel for things like the latest sales presentation. These attachments are stored in the Yammer cloud and become searchable in their own right, a useful feature.

Steve said that Yammer allows for public or private groups within each Yammer network. This is not like Tweetdeck groups as the feature allows you to indicate who can receive what updates and provides different access levels. Yammer also has more social networking functionality than Twitter as there is an enriched profile feature.  Samuel Dreissen at Océ said that the Yammer profiles helped spread usage. Samuel said he got more compliance with the profile completion in Yammer than in knowledge management systems because of the simplicity of the form.  As new users complete their profiles, the system guides you to invite your colleagues, which support the viral adoption of Yammer.

To further enhance social networking, Yammer also offers org charts that connect profiles. You can see how participants are connected and this can help you decide who to follow. Yammer provides suggestions on who you might want to follow that are partially based on the org charts. You can see a sample org chart below.

Yammer provides auto updates or Yams based on user actions such as joining a group or adjusting an org chart. There is two-way email integration. Steve said they did this since some people still live within email. You get email notifications if you want and can post to Yammer from email.

Users can “like” an update. This will then display the update in the message feed of all of their followers who do not follow the original message poster. I really liked this feature as it avoids spamming people with redundant messages but also does the work for you of trying to figure out who already saw the message and who did not.

You can use tagging through a hashtag in the same way you do with Twitter. Steve said this is something frequently used within their own firm to segment information into searchable topics.

We next discussed their latest major feature,Yammer Communities.  Steve said that many customers who were using Yammer for internal communication asked them if they could additionally utilize Yammer to collaborate with their external business network, including customers, partners, suppliers, and vendors.  Until now, this was not possible as Yammer required all members of a Yammer network to share a common, work email domain. 

Now Yammer Communities enables companies to create a new type of Yammer network that is not restricted to a common email domain.  The Communities option provides companies with a secure, private, and separate space to communicate with their external business contacts.  Membership, messages and other data in the Community are completely separate from membership, messages and data in the parent company network; users must toggle between networks to access these separate Community networks. It has all the features of the traditional or “canonical” instance of Yammer. People within a company can use both. Steve gave the example of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston that has used Yammer Communities to allow newly diagnosed cancer patients to communicate with cancer survivors in a secure manner.

Yammer provides both a free version and premium paid versions with expanded features. More than 10,000 companies and organizations created new Yammer networks in Q1 2010, bringing the total to more than 70,000. More than 70% of Fortune 500 companies are using Yammer and there are over 800,000 users. This is a testimony to the power of microblogging and to what Yammer brings to this capability. 

Join Us at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston

My Darwin colleague, Thierry Hubert, and I are pleased to be presenting at the 2010 Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.  Our session, Using Chaos Theory Principals to Overcome Information Overload within the Enterprise and on the Web, occurs on Wednesday June 15 from 1 – 2 PM.  We are in the track: Use Search to Tame Complexity and Discover Opportunity, charied by Larry Cannell, Analyst, Collaboration and Content Strategies, Burton Group

This will be the fourth year I have presented at this conference and have greatly enjoyed it each year. It is a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends and meet new people in this space.  We hope to see you there.

Here is our session description.

With the addition of social media to the already increasing amount of Web content, companies are spending more resources trying to make sense of what is happening. In addition, the connections between formal, informal, structured and unstructured information are becoming more difficult to establish. It may only get worse with the advent of auto-generated content and other content "farms." In this session we will explore and discuss how the application of chaos theory to this issue can help break the silos of information and allow the emergence of meaningful awareness for better decision making.  This new paradigm moves beyond Page Rank to reduce the impact of traditional SEO techniques that can elevate low quality content.  We will look at how the visualization of connections between content related to a particular theme can reveal new relationships and help with the discovery and awareness of trends, both anticipated and unanticipated.

 

NewsGator Ramps Up Activity Streams and Analytics and Becomes More Mobile

I have written about NewsGator before (see NewsGator Offers Social Sites ™: A Comprehensive Enterprise Social Networking Suite). I have been a fan of NewsGator for some time as they were my first RSS reader in early 2004 (see Finally, I’m Scanning the Web through NewsGator).  I recently spoke with Brian Kellner, VP of Product Management to catch up on their latest moves.

We started with the iPhone offering. NewsGator is offering a native social iPhone client for Social Sites on SharePoint. They have wisely taken a subset of the Social Sites features, picking the ones most likely to be used through a smart phone. The features center around a sophisticated microblogging suite to provide a focused activity stream that goes across applications. The idea is to provide a central place to receive updates of all types, comment, and pass them on.

Brian recently wrote about this concept in a blog post, “The Trojan Horse Battle for Your Event Store.”  He writes that, “in only a few years, a central event store will be a standard part of nearly all enterprises, and that architectural decision currently is being made indirectly at many organizations.” I certainly agree with this and have written related posts on several occasions. He goes on to write that, “microblogging seems to be achieving its greatest value in the context of broader activity streams that serve as a kind of nervous system for the company.”  This broader role for microblogging, as it becomes more widespread within enterprises, represents a great opportunity for both users and vendors. NewsGator has recognized this and is offering an application to provide the unifying activity stream or “event store.”

The latest NewsGator application for the iPhone is a large step in this direction. You can attach updates to an object or a link. You can attach an update to a context such as an event or a project, and you can react to updates from others, maintaining the context. To support these three capabilities, mobile users can use an iPhone to send status updates, videos and photos to Social Sites for distribution. They can comment on and “like” updates they value and see notifications when others comment on or like their updates. Below you can see an example of the iPhone interface.

Participation in community discussions is also enabled and users can target a question to a person or group. They see the updates that are radiating to others, view updates from a specific colleague or community, and look up contact information for colleagues. Below you can see comments on an activity. They can begin threaded discussions to maintain the context.

They are now planning a BlackBerry version to extend their smart phone coverage. The initial iPad client will contain all the iPhone features. NewsGator is also exploring what additional capabilities, such as content creation, should be added to the iPad client.

The enhanced microblogging features are also part of the desktop version of Social Sites 3.1 that is fully integrated with SharePoint. This SharePoint integration provides enhanced security and leverages existing SharePoint features such as the user profile, reducing redundant requirements. Below is an example of a Social Sites workspace within SharePoint. The iPhone version provides the functionality shown in the central column, while the web version offers the broader content in the three columns.

You can also have Social Sites as a desktop client independent of SharePoint and within your desktop as shown below. In addition, you can work with Social Sites through email notifications and replies. You can also get activity digests through email and respond back still within email.

We next turned to the enhanced analytics that Social Sites now offers.  The activity stream sets up a rich opportunity for analytics around the conversations and knowledge work within the enterprise. I think this is one of the major benefits of operating within an Enterprise 2.0 environment. NewsGator has recognized this and has done some nice work with data visualization. For example, you can get a tag cloud (as shown below) of the top 100 themes within the activity stream.

Clicking on any of these terms brings you to the instances of their use. You can also see the top ten experts on each term (as shown below). The person closest to the term in the middle is the most active. Several factors such as content authored, ideas generated, and tag usage weighs into the expertise scoring. You can see specific contributions for each expert in the right column.

This allows you to quickly see who is saying what to whom and stay better attuned to the pulse of the organization.  There are a number of other creative visualizations. For example, you can drill down into the actions of an individual in the chart above.

The enhancements to NewsGator demonstrate some of the exciting business possibilities that are arising as the consumer Web 2.0 tools get greater usage within the enterprise.  I look forward to seeing more.

The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Notes Part There: Positioning IT as an Innovation Engine

I recently attended the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium for the second time. It is an annual one-day conference, held on the MIT campus. This is part three of my notes. I attended a session, Positioning IT as an Innovation Engine, led by Martin Reeves, Senior Partner, Boston Consulting Group. Panel members include: Ananth Krishman, CTO, TCS, Daxi Li, Chairman Chinese Association for Science and Business, Roy Rosin, VP of Innovation, Intuit, and Marco Orellana, CIO Codelco. The session picked up on some of the themes covered in the solving the CIO paradox session I reported on earlier

Martin said that this panel operates on the assumption that IT can drive innovation.  This is still an issue at many firms. So he asked the panel if IT does drive innovation. Roy said that the essence of innovation today is to fail fast before investing a lot in the wrong direction. The CIO can be a big part of this.  Get things done quickly to fail fast.  The challenge is how to get into the right data to test ideas, how to set up a Web site quickly or do a prototype.  Intuit uses IT to both create innovation and to run the company. For example, need to understand customer problems on such issues as how get billing processed faster.  IT can help here.

Daxi said IT can drive innovation.  CIOs play an important role in Chinese companies in innovation. For example, one Chinese company, a consortium from 19 universities, is expanding into new markets. IT can help collaboration between the parties and make processes more efficient. 

Ananth discussed the gap between the potential of IT to drive innovation and what actually happens. Companies expect IT to drive innovation while making things run smoothly.  If you do not do this part, you are not credible in the innovation space.  Expectations are also around proving the platform for innovation and bringing things from the latest technologies.  The credibility to introduce new technologies in dependent on success in the first two expectations.  In his firm, they have separated the functions so the CIO runs things and the CTO does the other two, more innovation focused functions.

Martin raised the information overload issue.  How do you shift through all the ideas that are generated? Ananth said he used to have to sort through the 30,000 new ideas that were suggested by employees. Now there is more control over this process but he still wants to capture the wisdom of crowds.

Roy said that innovation requires collaboration and accessibility. He looked at existing tools but found them to create silos. So they built their own tool, Brainstorm. I have reviewed it (see Intuit Brainstorm Offers Innovation Management). It is built around the notion of subscriptions so you see only the areas you want.  They also look at the energy as many people circle around a topic.  This is a signal to pay attention.

Martin said after awareness comes experimentation. For example, he said that some people will buy a Google ad word just to see if there is interest.  In another example, their Turbo Tax people found that about 25% of people who get tax refunds do not have a bank account to receive it electronically, So they loaded the cash into a debit card and did hundreds of thousands of these rapidly through technology to meet this customer demand.

Daxi gave an example of a Chinese wind power company that wants to tap into wind at 10,000 meters high where it is much stronger. It could provide much of the world’s power needs. But how to access this power?  It will be very expensive to test. IT allows for simulation to test ideas at a much lower cost.

Roy said that much of the innovation is a change management issue.  Metrics come into play here, both project specific metrics and overall metrics.  You need to pick what to measure, what to make visible, what to celebrate. This can change the culture of the company.

Ananth said there are metrics for incremental improvements such as ROI. Then there is innovation that is transformational and affects the entire company. These need program style measures such as time to market.  For the truly disruptive innovations he measures things like failure rate and expenses. What is the throughput of new ideas? Also how does do the ideas affect the overall market?

Martin asked what culture needs to be in place for IT driven innovation? Daxi said that in China the CIO role is like an IT manager.  He said that Chinese companies need to be able to establish a culture that encourages risk. Roy said it is about how to take intelligent risks and celebrating things that effect leading indicators and not simply rewarding large impacts on current revenue. 

One questioner noted that only one member of the panel was actually a CIO. He asked if you need to set up a separate function to support innovation while IT is running the business.  This was the case for two of the panel members. This seems to be an issue in many companies from what I heard today. 

Roy pointed out that there are many types of innovation: product, marketing, commercialization, process. IT plays a different role in each. He pointed about the need to create slack in processes and mentioned an example using Quickbase to create process innovation for P&G. I reviewed another Quickbase example for XM Radio (see Changing Organization Behavior at XM Radio through Enterprise 2.0 and QuickBase). Putting transparency into the process was the big innovation here and that was enabled by an enterprise 2.0 technology.  I think that using enterprise 2.0 tools is a way the companies can drive process innovation. Firms were IT plays a leading role in adopting these enterprise 2.0 tools provide a chance for IT to drive innovation if it focuses on this opportunity. If IT supports ways for the firm to capture process innovations that emerge and makes them easier to share and adopt, it can drive this type of innovation.

The audience said that money was less of a barrier to innovation than culture.  Another big barrier was an obsession with efficiency so lessons are not learned.

 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2010 Part Fourteen: New Orleans Cemetery

This is the fourteenth in a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

The New Orleans Cemetery is located in the Uptown area off Carrollton Avenue covered in the last post. Like most New Orleans cemeteries, many of the tombs are raised because of the swamp underneath.  It was one block from my house and served as a major playground for us.  When there were no funerals going on or visits we would re-enact the battles of World War Two in the miniature village created by the raised tombs. We never got too loud because of the feeling of the place. It remains a very quite place. 

                               
 
 
 
 
 

Painting of Apples in a Blue Brown Bowl

Here is a 20" x 24" acrylic painting of apples in a blue brown ceramic bowl. This is the second time I have done apples in this bowl. See this January 2008 post, recent paintings. 

 
 

The 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Part Two: Solving the CIO Paradox

I recently attended the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium for the second time. It is an annual one-day conference, held on the MIT campus. This is my second set of notes. I attended a session, Solving the CIO Paradox, led by led by Maryfran Johnson, Editor in Chief, CIO Magazine. Panel members include:  Anne Marguiles, CIO Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Bill Brown, former CIO, Iron Mountain, James McGlennon, Liberty Mutual, and Tom Pyke, former CIO U.S. Department of Energy.

Maryfran said they were going to try to solve the CIO paradox as the role is always changing.  They have to drive innovation, manage risk, and control costs and these goals can be at cross purposes.  They often inherit costly legacy systems and then are told to go forth and innovate.  There is a column in CIO Magazine called the CIO Paradox. The writer has now determined over a dozen paradoxes.

Maryfran went over a number of the paradoxes – being strategic and managing risk, enabler of services and business driver, run critical function but always have to prove value, success are often not seen but mistakes are highly visible. Accountable for project success and yet often business manages. Staff are often very technology oriented but now have to deal with people (users), something they may have wanted to avoid.  Technology is a long-term investment but companies are often run by quarters. Tools cost a fortune but have a high defect rate.

Bill Brown began by noting that the life of a CIO is the paradox. The biggest aspect of the paradox is the wild swings between the need for innovation and practicality.  Being able to deliver on both areas is the big challenge. James said that IT can be its own worst enemy as it takes on new things and ownership for outcomes. You need the right mix of responsibility and accountability.  Anne is facing budget cuts at the Massachusetts state government that makes it harder to balance the strategic and tactical.  She said CIO can stand for career is over. She has been more business focused and interested in the people part prior to her current role and continues to look from this dimension. CIOs are now victims of their own success in obtaining the C suite so they now need to be tactical and strategic at the same time.

Tom mentioned the CIO as an opportunity leader. They need to remain strategic while handling the tactical. He says part of his role is cheerleader for smart applications of technology.  Maryfran mentioned the need to move the CIO role from order taker to leader. James said that you need to have the tactical under control before taking the strategic path. 

Anne said that there had not been a strategic plan for technology in the state of Massachusetts since 2003 when she took over under Deval Patrick.  There had also been underinvestment in long term efforts. So a strategic plan was the first thing she did under the direction of the Governor.  One of the first directions was the need to consolidate. They also needed standardization to innovate on top of it.  There was massive decentralization of IT and the organizations. She has pulled over 100 agencies into 8 secretary level groups.

Bill discussed two levels of approaching IT issues at Iron Mountain.  They took on looking at the business processes they were supporting to see if improvements could be made to the processes before technology was applied.  They staffed business process improvement people in IT to address this.

Tom talked about all the stakeholders in any Federal government projects who often have conflicting agendas.  They have increased the defenses against cyber warfare but the attackers continue to get more sophisticated. There is a need to balance risk management and other functions.

James said they have increased support for collaboration through wikis, forums, and other tools at Liberty Mutual. He said that the concept is not new but the tools are better.  Getting people to participate and see value remains a challenge.  They have set up an internal YouTube type function. The uses are not predetermined and he is not sure how it will be used.

Maryfran said that an increasing number of the CIO 100 innovation awards have gone to collaboration activities that have led to innovation.  Bill said that people coming into the workforce now have no tolerance for email. That is something you send to old people. New employees are looking to involve networks through social tools.

Anne said that with 30% budget cuts they have not been able to hire a lot of these young people. Tom said that many young people and young at heart people are entering federal government IT service. Tom does a lot of texting. Facebook and YouTube are used a lot, along with internal equivalents.  He wants to be a leader in encouraging and using new technology.

Maryfran talked about the industry paradox. The vendors play up to the CIOs but they also run around them to sell directly to the business.  What should CIOs do with this? Bill said that you need to develop trust with both the business users and with the vendors.  Have them become your partner and not try to go around you.  James said to engage with the business teams so you are not surprised by IT related activities.  It is not a turf war but there is a need to work together, especially with the cloud.

Anne talked about the development of iPhone apps in state government as a way to involve others in innovation. It started with the White House move to put public data available. So Massachusetts wanted to be one of the first states to have an open data site.  Then they ran competitions for who could develop the best iPhone apps to creatively use the open data such as bus schedules.  Anne wanted to open the data for innovation by those outside government. I really like this creative way to support innovation in a budget constrained environment by crowd sourcing it.

From listening to these CIOs, it seems that the CIO paradox Is not something to solve and put to rest but something to acknowledge and embrace.  Looking for ways to open up data and involve others in innovation with this data as Massachusetts did with the iPhone apps is a good example.  Too much control can be counter productive.  Trust is more useful. 

The 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Notes: Enterprise 3.0?

I recently attended the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium for the second time. It is an annual one-day conference, held on the MIT campus. The site describes it as an event “where CIOs and other senior business executives from around the world gather to explore how leading-edge academic research and innovative technologies can help address the practical challenges faced in today's changing economy.”

I attended a session, Enterprise 3.0 led by Andy McAfee, now Research Scientist, Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management. Panel members included Ralph Swick
, COO, W3C, Gregg Hansen, VP of IT, Advanced MicroDevices, Gene Rodgers
President and COO
Clearway, and Edward Curry, Research Scientist, DERI.

Andy held up his Enterprise 2.0 book and said to hurry up and buy it as it may become obsolete as we are now on to Enterprise 3.0. He promised to define the term during the session. That was my question: WTF is enterprise 3.0?

Ralph mentioned that the Web is only twenty years old. Many people have only known its premise and not its absence. Many Web 2.0 features such as writing to the Web were part of the original proposal 20 years ago.  It just took a while for them to take hold. Andy asked for definitions of Web 3.0 and he admitted it was fuzzy for him.

Ed said Web 3.0 is trying to break down barriers between data. Andy interrupted and said that this was part of Web 2.0. Ed said that the Web 2.0 effort was related to documents (and other content.) Now he is talking about standardized ways to work with data (inside content as well in data warehouses). Now we need to integrate data, rather than simply systems, and make it easier to work with data. There have been three barriers – need to make data available, need to make it easy to access the data – do not require learning different technology for each data set, need to be able see relationships to other data that is relevant. Web 2.0 did this to documents (assume that means any Web content including blog posts) and Web 3.0 tries to do it to data.

Ralph added that we are not talking about a massive consolidation of data warehouses but opening access to it where it lives. The reason to open data is to discover new things to do with it. (sounds a bit like mashups to me – and they said this later). Andy says that he gets confused when he hears about the semantic web (me too). Is it making it easier for people to find data and connect it or for systems to find data and link it? Ralph said the current step is to make data available, presumably to both people and systems. 

Gene said he is still trying to understand enterprise 20 but he sees enterprise 3.0 as driving context and insights on top of data use, His development teams work globally, not sharing language or time. They are using new tools for this. His teams collaborate using web 2.0 methods but what is missing is context - can you bring a bug tracking system itself as part of the conversation on how to make it better – enterprise 2.0 creates its own silos, It needs the enable greater connections to enterprise apps and people.  I agree and have written about this a bit. He said with enterprise 3.0 search becomes the key enabler. It becomes a system for deriving insight and sharing it with a team.

Gregg said that people need to be able to add their context to data and share it so perspectives are shared. Then insight gets aggregated. We need to avoid having to start from scratch each time when working on a problem. We need to see complete history of efforts easily.

Ralph said enterprise 3.0 is finding the relevant information and bringing it into the conversation. Andy says that this sounds like a lot of work. Ralph said it does not have to be complex if you set things up right. You can go back to find stuff when it as needed. 

Andy asked if we need to go back and retrofit the existing legacy systems? Ralph said that you can drill holes into existing systems to gain access and do not have to wait for them to die. So you will have to do some work but not have to throw them away.  You also need to find the high value data sets and focus efforts there. You do not have to have everything connected before you start. It can be evolutionary.

Gregg mentioned Attivio and ways to join structured and unstructured data.  (see my recent video with Arttivio CTO, Sid Probstein) This use is built around dashboards and mashups.  For example, today marketing teams mine social media for sentiment. They create reports. Meanwhile the sales teams in the same firm may be using old style technology to manage accounts. It would be a logical extension to get the sales teams using social media for their own communication. Then you can more easily feed in the sentiment analysis form the Web as preparation for sales calls.

Andy asked about the difference between the new world of mashups and the old world of systems integration. Gregg said it is in the interface and the intelligence. Ralph said the big difference is that now users can do it themselves and not have to bring a system integration team.  Andy asked if are we making a geek mistake to assume that regular people will want to this themselves? Ralph said that 90% of the people will just want to push a button. But the 10% power users will want to do things themselves and then they can share it with other 90%. 

Andy said the enriched data connections (of semantic tech) always seems to be just around the corner – for the past dozen years – why is it going to happen now?  Gregg said it is already happening now but the challenge of handling data is complex. The point about enabling power users to lead the way Is spot on. But it is hard and that is why it has been so slow.  Some of the early adoptions of semantic technology have been inside the enterprise (where there is more control) rather than on the outside Web.  This more controlled environment makes it easier.

I think this clears away a bit of the fog around enterprise 3.0 (aka semantic web). But it still seems to be an aspiration that is only emerging (see my Enterprise Search Summit post - Is Semantic Technology Real?). I would also not use the enterprise 3.0 label for something that has been around before enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0. Why not just call it the semantic web?

My Favorite Tweets for May 1 - 15 2010

Here is the sixteenth in a series of posts that provide access to my favorite tweets that contain links to useful information.  Some of these I did to link to things I found useful and others are RTs that I want to save for the same reason. Since Twitter archiving is an oxymoron, I am now going to post my favorite links for the month so they can be easily accessed later. I will repeat this once or twice a month depending on volume.

I spot tested the reduced shortened urls and they all should work. I hope this is also useful for you.  Let me know your favorite tweets for the month.

Also see the Darwineco favorite tweets.

Increasing Numbers Of Americans Are Paying For TV http://bit.ly/bWPjDC via @psfk  May 14

Have books been bad for us? from @robpatrob http://bit.ly/azTAwH > great read and age old debate May 13th

You don’t need a PR agency You need a blog from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/196688 May 12th

RT @michellemanafy: RT @dtunkelang: notes on Peter Morville's #ESS10 on search design patterns at #thenoisychannel http://bit.ly/cw1C5O  May 12th

Is Googl;e Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr http://bit.ly/cXNeCU #ESS10  May 12th

Twitter adds Twitter Business Center http://bit.ly/9eIWLs  May 11th

RT @20Community: Implementing #E20 at Océ Pt 4: Operational and Financial Impact by Jacob Morgan http://su.pr/2IRwXK  May 10th

Steve Jobs Simplicity Test for PowerPoint Presentations http://bit.ly/d5Lg7s  May 10th

5 Differences Between Social Media and Social Networking http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/194754 May 6th

7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America http://bit.ly/9NGwSF  May 6th

RT @hebsgaard: Enterprise 2.0 best practices vs. recommendations #e20 http://bit.ly/bzpire May 5th

RT @DearingGroup: The Future of TV: Five Lessons for Mark Cuban http://bit.ly/ahZRjE May 5

via @GeorgeDearing: Does Leadership Change in a Web 2.0 World? @HarvardBiz http://bit.ly/cZMvKy > it should IMO  May 4th

Tim O'Reilly as Oracle of Silicon Valley http://bit.ly/cXDcsA  May 4th

RT @skemsley: Blog: Using Business Space for Human Workflows http://goo.gl/fb/mqHw9 #bpm #ibm #mashups  May 3rd

RT @rossdawson: Enterprise 2.0 & The Future of Work by @webtechman http://bit.ly/bDY4kn  May 2nd

Twitter: More a News Medium Than Social Network http://bit.ly/cCFql3  Apr 30th

Twitter known by 87%, just 7% of Americans use Twitter. To me that 17 M users is huge not failure http://bit.ly/9ZGAe9

 

 

 

 

Summary of My Enterprise Search Summit 2010 Notes

I recently attended the 2010 Enterprise Search Summit in New York. It was a very useful conference. My Darwin partner Thierry Hubert and I presented a session, Deriving Order From Chaos Through Discovery and Awareness.  Here are my notes from other sessions. I hope they are useful.

Enterprise Search Summit 2010 Notes: Search for Customer Satisfaction at Standard & Poor’s

Enterprise Search Summit 2010 Notes: Improving Findability Inside the Firewall

Enterprise Search Summit 2010 Notes: Sharpening Enterprise Search Performance and More

Enterprise Search Summit 2010 Notes: Search and Discovery Patterns

Enterprise Search Summit 2010 Notes: BI in the Age of Social Media

Social Software Gaining Greater Traction with the Enterprise and Vendors Respond

Forrester’s Rob Koplowitz writes that 2010 will be a defining year for enterprise 2.0 in his report, Enterprise Social Networking 2010 Market Overview. He goes on the writes that “a very broad and rich landscape of technology vendors will differentiate to stay relevant in this crowded market. With enterprise social technologies, buyers must now assess vendors pursuing three distinct strategies: commoditization, horizontal and vertical solutions, and integration with adjacent technologies.” I would add that vendors are creating very feature rich tools as the many of the more pure play offerings are now adding such additions as micro-blogging within their suite.

I was especially interested in his data on social media adoption through a survey of US and European KM decision makers. Rob found that in 2010 nearly one-third of enterprises will officially support internal and or external social networking.  In addition, wiki adoption will approach 50% in 2010 and they are the most popular tool. He found that the wikipedia model can enable a broad community to generate and maintain content. Another popular use case for wikis is as “a lightweight workspace and project management tool where teams can author content or coordinate activities and tasks with confidence that the information is up to date.”

The use cases for collaborative platforms were interesting. Collaboration on content (such as office documents was the top instance at 51%. Next was using a collaboration platform as a network fileshare at 48%. Then 39% of the respondents said they were integrating our collaboration platform’s calendaring, scheduling, and task management features with their email messaging system and 28% said they were using a collaboration platform’s Web 2.0 features such as blogs, Wikis, and RSS feeds, Finally 28% said they are using a collaboration platform to facilitate sharing of documents and other content with their external partners and customer and 20% are not using a collaborative platform.  

The report goes on to document how the vendors are responding to these trends. IBM Lotus and Microsoft attempting to extend their dominant positions in collaboration and messaging to social software. The many other venders are vendors pursuing “three distinct strategies: commoditization, horizontal and vertical solutions, and integration with adjacent technologies.” I have reviewed many of the venders sited include a number I have reviewed here and on the AppGap blog such as Atlassian, Box, Central Desktop, CubeTree, EMC, Jive, MindTouch, NewsGator, Novell, OpenText, PB Works, Socialtext, and Telligent.  The report can be found on the Forrester web site. 

Updated Index to Cities and Towns with Restaurant Picks – May 2010

I have now provided restaurant picks by friends for an increasing number of cities and towns. I also do a few myself. This blog post serves as an index to them with links for easy access. I will continue to update this index as I add more places. It was time to update it as I last posted the index on June 08.

Why do I write about restaurant picks by friends when Zagat and other places have plenty of reviews for most cities? My reviews are by people I know and trust their tastes. I do not know the people in Zagat’s or Gourmet. etc. and I do not always agree with them even though I do use them as useful input. You just have to decide how much you trust me versus the “official” guides. I certainly do not pretend to be an expert but I also am not connected with any places or have an agenda except to give my opinion and those of people I trust. I just know what I like and the list is part of my personal knowledge management system. I often consult it myself went going on a holiday or business trip. I hope it helps you, also. Here is a post that explains it in more detail, Restaurant Reviews – Why I Blog Them. In this post I also show how I both agree and disagree with another ’official” reviewer, Gourmet Magazine.

Here are the places:

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Belmont and Somerville, MA lunches

Boston, MA - city limits

Boston, MA - surroundings

Boston and New York - Where to get good coffee

Boston Chinatown

Boston Late Night

Boston Massachusetts Restaurants: A Local’s Favorites for 2007

Boston Area Restaurants 2007: Part Two Surrounding Area

Boston and Cambridge Restaurants – August 07

Boston’s Best Fried Chicken

Carolina BBQ

Cambridge, MA (1)

Cambridge, MA (2) update

Finding the Best Fried Clams on Cape Cod

Detroit

Detroit 2008

Detroit Restaurants: Part Two: Heavy Eating

Detroit - Steve Carter's Taste of Motown

Detroit Restaurants: A Local’s Favorites – 2009

Hanover, NH

Iowa City

Jackson, Wyoming

Jackson. Wyoming Update (2/06)

Jackson, Wyoming Cowboy Dance Bars

Jackson Update 5/07

Jackson Wyoming- January 08

Los Angeles

Los Angeles Fast Food

Los Angeles Dining Update – February 2009

Maggie Valley, NC

Middle Tennessee

New York – Midtown and Village

New York - Upper West Side

New York – ICoppi & Savoy

New York – Spotted Pig & Magnolia Bakery

New Orleans – my picks

New Orleans – Harmony St. Charles

New Orleans Update 5/05

New Orleans 11/05 update

New Orleans Update 4/06

New Orleans 2007 Update on Restaurants

New Orleans Restaurant Update Winter 2010

New South Cusine

Northern Michigan

Ocean City and Biloxi, Mississippi

Omaha, Nebraska Restaurants: A Local’s Favorites

Oklahoma Barbecue

Favorite Vietnam Restaurants in Oklahoma City

Onset, MA – An Occasional Visitor’s Favorites

Philly Cheese Steak

Pioneer Valley (Amherst) MA Area

Pioneer Valley (Amherst) MA Area Brew Pubs

Providence Rhode Island

San Francisco – unlimited budget

San Francisco - ethnic

San Francisco –good value

San Francisco - Cafe Kati

San Francisco Italian

San Francisco - 11/06 Update'

Update on the San Francisco Restaurants – 5/07

Update on the San Francisco Bay Area (and Wine Country) Restaurants – 5/07

Santa Fe

Santa Fe Update

Seattle

Seattle (healthy)

Somerville, MA - Cafe Belo

St. Louis

Update on St. Louis Restaurants

St. Louis Restaurants: 2009 Updates on 2006 and 2008 Local’s Favorites

Tampa, FL Part One

Tampa, FL Part Two

Tampa Florida Restaurant Log, Part Three – November, 2008

Tuckee, Nevada

Upper Cape Cod Massachusetts

Vermont Country Inns

Victor, Idaho

Breakfast and Lunch in Watertown and Belmont, MA

Washington, DC

Western Michigan

Williamsburg (Brooklyn) New York

Williamburg Update 4/06

Canada

Quebec (1)

Quebec (2)

Quebec Country Inns – Eastern Townships

Quebec Restaurants October 2007

Quebec City Restaurants: 2010 Update

Toronto

Toronto Update (3/06)

Vancouver

Europe & Asia

Barnes, UK

Bombay (Mumbai), India

Geneva, Switzerland

Istanbul, Turkey

Lucca, Italy

Lugano, Italy

Paris (1)

Paris (2) – Frenchguys.com

Meals in Paris September 2006

Eating in Honfleur, Normandy Coast

Rome

Sardinia & one from Rome

Sardinian Beach Bars

Singapore

Singapore Restaurants Update 2009 Via Local Twitters

Zurich, Switzerland

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2010 Part Thirteen: Uptown Off Carrollton and Our First House

This is the thirteenth in a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

This unofficial area runs on either side of Carrollton running north from River Bend (see Part Twelve for River Bend. This area includes the East Carrollton neighborhood on the east side of Carrollton Ave, and the Leonidas neighborhood on the west side (also known as West Carrollton.  In the Leonidas area there is the Oak Street shopping area with the Maple Leaf Bar for great live music and Jacques-Imo's for funky Creole cooking, as well as nearby Mat and Naddies’ s for modern Creole cooking. I lived on the other side of Carrollton after living in River Bend (see at bottom for pictures and more description).  My friends and I would go the Oak Street area to see the Saturday matinee at a theater that does exist now and spend our allowances as a toy store.  You can click on any image to make it larger.

                              

THe last three pictures above show the elementary school that I attended, The Lusher School, and two banners the school children created for the Super Bowl that were hanging on the school fence. The four before the school were in my immediate neighborhood.  A friend lived in the purple house and we created a vast city in the dirt in the crawl space under the house. It was not purple then. 

 Below is the house we lived in in the late 1950s. It was my parents first house and was three stories. We lived in the middle floor and rented out the top and bottom floors. My parents said it was a raised bungalow. This meant it was originally two stories and was raised to add the bottom floor.  We used to play baseball on the intersection shown below. The street signs embedded in the four sideway corners were the bases (see second base on the left). Passing cars stopped the game but traffic was not too heavy.  The New Orleans Cemetery was a block away and this was another playground.

The first black and white picture shows the house at the corner of Jeannette and Lowerline when we lived there in the 1950s.  It was white with grey front steps. The next one shows it pre-Katrina in the Spring of 2005. It had been painted a maroon color and the front steps were also painted maroon.  The next three pictures show the house as it was being repaired after Katrina, as well as the destruction to the sidewalk in front. The last one shows it in 2010. It is now a bright yellow with white trim and they returned the front steps to grey which I think is much better. The owners restored it to its original condition and did not seem to make any exterior changes. 

 
           
After really big rains, my friends and I played with our toy boats by the side of Lowerline Street as the poor drainage formed a lake next to the curb.  Sometimes we would toss Cherry Bombs at the boats. These fireworks were illegal then but we got them at a shop on the Orleans Parish line without our parents knowledge. It was a shot gun house and the story was that they would move the fireworks to the Jefferson Parish end when the Orleans Parish police showed up and then the reverse when the Jefferson Parish police came. This might be a myth but the Cherry Bombs were real. One day the city decided to fix the drainage on the street.  They sent a crew of seven armed with one pickaxe to take on the problem.  Six supervised while one swung the axe. Fortunately, the lake returned after the next big rain. 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

Using Darwin to Track Social Media Buzz

We have set up a special instance of the Darwin Awareness Engine ™ to track social media buzz. We targeted around 300 of the top social media bloggers and the relevant news sties. I am now monitoring it and have been finding interesting things to blog and tweet about. Below is the overall screen. At the top is the Buzz Tracker ™showing the rising and falling starts. At the top left you can see that it is set to catch what is happening in the past hour. The Scan Cloud ™ shows the top themes emerging in the target sites. The right columns show the stories under these themes with links to the actual story.

Now here is a close up of the Scan Cloud so you read it better.

I noticed the reference to Knoxville in the middle of the Scan Cloud. I clicked on it and this caused the stories in the right column to shift to thoise related to Knoxville and I found the two stories about use of social media related to the recent floods in the area.

Then I looked at the what was under Twitter in the scan cloud and found these two stories, among others.

I linked to one of the stories in OPC Magazine as you can see below.

I have found this to be a useful additional way to monitor social media buzz and explore topics that interest me, especially ones that I was not looking for. 

Can Enterprise 2.0 Adoptions Learn Anything from ERP Implementations?

I recently received a survey that looked at ERP Implementation strategies. The results made sense to me.  It said the three most widely discussed are:

Big bang - Implementation happens in a single instance. All users move to the new system on a given date.

Phased rollout - Changeover occurs in phases over an extended period of time. Users move onto new system in a series of steps.

Parallel adoption - Both the legacy and new ERP system run at the same time. Users learn the new system while working on the old.

It turns out that 40% used a phased roll out, 38% used the big bang approach, 11% used a combo of biog bang and phased, and only 9% used parallel adoption. 

Now I have yet to hear of a broad Enterprise 2.0 adoption effort that did not use some form of parallel adoption. E20 approach is likely lead by example, internal viral marketing, and demonstrate value through use rather than the top down edict than is implicit, if not explicit in the ERP efforts. 

ERP provides infrastructure that often requires work processes to confound to the software structure.  Enterprise 2.0 is often attempting to provide tools that will conform to your work practices.  With ERP adoption is not the issue, except in the 9% of cases where parallel adoption is used, With ERP the issue is implementation, as people are generally required to use the system. The study stated than 83% of the ERP implementations studied were considered successful.

Despite is low use, parallel adoption is thought to be the least risky implementation process. “It includes running both the old and new ERP system at the same time. This way users can learn the new system while performing regular work activities on the old system. After requirements for the new system are met, then the legacy system is decommissioned.” It is also the most expensive method because of the heavier requirements and this accounts for its lower use.

I think the first lesson is not to mimic ERP as it is very different as described above. However, looking for opportunities to reduce and gradually eliminate parallel adoption is good strategy as you can potentially reduce costs and have the enterprise 2.0 become the “way of doing business.” 

I was involved in one example were a blog was substituted for email and attachments as the way to support collaboration by a task force. The members had no choice and it was not presented as a big deal, just a switch in tools.  So the increased value of using a transparent tool became immediately apparent to the users and there was not a major adoption problem. It was basically a “big bang” approach on a micro-level.  I guess you might refer to this as phased approach in looking at the enterprise context.  So another lesson for me is looking for ways to introduce enterprise 2.0 as the way of doing business or a task without a look of fanfare.  Sometimes the fanfare can get in the way, especially when old ways of doing business remain an option.

What do you see that enterprise 2.0 can learn form ERP, if anything?

Is Social Media Better Than ???? - Addiction Study

Be careful or you might find yourself getting addicted to social media. I have raised this question before and now there is more supporting data from a Retrevo study. Retrevo is a consumer electronics shopping and review site. Their "Gadgetology Report" is an ongoing study of people and electronics from consumer electronics shopping site.  The study addresses the question: Is Social Media a New Addiction? I reported on last year’s results (see: A Study of Social Media Addiction from Retrevo).

The data for this new study came from a study of online individuals conducted by an independent panel. The sample size was just over 1,000 distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States.

Here are some of the highlights. The report found that 48% of people check/update FaceBook and/or Twitter after they go to bed. Personally, I am with the majority her. While I do often check Tweetdeck and my email before going to bed, I never do it afterwards. Now is where some of the addiction shows up. They found 18% of people under 25 years old can't go more than a couple hours without checking in on FaceBook (vs. 11% over 25) and 61% of people under 25 have to check in on FaceBook at least once a day (vs. 55% over 25).  I am no longer a big Facebook user since I got involved with Twitter so this is not an issue for me.

Smart phones have made this addiction more accessible. The study found that 28% of iPhone users check/update Twitter before they get out of bed, a similar number do it before they turn on their TV, and a the same percentage use Twitter for their morning news.

Twitter is not the only driver of social media addiction on mobile phones. The study found that 49% of people under 25 years old can be interrupted by an electronic message during a meal. (27% for people over 25 years of age). It even asked and found that 11% of people under 25 years old can be interrupted by an electronic message during sex (The number drops to 6% of people over 25 years old. I never allow my iPhone to near by when I do not want to be interrupted but then I am over 25. On a more mundane note, 22% of people under 25 years old can be interrupted by an electronic message during a meeting. (11% of people over 25 years of age). I do not do text messaging and I never liked IM as I like to keep my channels to monitor to a minimum.  That is a reason that I dropped looking at Facebook when I got involved with Twitter. 

Should we require warning labels on social media such as Facebook and Twitter or even enterprise apps? Of course, this is the fear of some who want to stop it from entering the enterprise. While these results are interesting, I do not see them as over-riding the benefits from a better connected organization. I also would not blame the media for what the users do. 

Google Joins with Intel and Sony to Go After TV

I have written on how Apple might impact the television business model. Google is also getting into the act. Amy Vernon writes how Google's Open-Source TV: Coming soon to a set near you.  She notes that it goes beyond a simple set top box and is truly being more of an OS.  If it goes the open-source route it's said to be headed in the impact will be huge.

With print, the Web has initially been a competitor that has brought many outlets down (see Who killed the Rocky Mountain News? from John Temple). Now, print is slowly beginning to learn how to co-exist with the Web. However, with TV, it seems that the Web firms are trying to better integrate and the traditional TV content producers are mostly on board to make this work.

Google represents one of the latest Web firms to get into the TV action. Amy writes: “if anyone is down for the democratization of Internet-based TV viewing, it's Google. And with a built-in browser plus expected apps from YouTube, Hulu and Netflix just for starters, it's conceivable that the pace with which the average consumer has been moving from the broadcast/cable/satellite model (which are all pretty much the same, just different technology and channel capacity) could accelerate exponentially.”

Now Google is partnering with Intel and Sony for technology and content. This is a smart move.  Recently they brought in Logitech to offer a single remote for all this stuff, including your laptop.

The High Def Digest picks up the story and notes that, “Google has learned a lot from Apple, and it’s pretty evident that they’ve taken those lessons to heart. What was once a humble search engine based out of a garage is now the company behind the Nexus One phone, Android operating system, Chrome OS, Chrome internet browser and now open source TV software and, potentially, a set-top box or two. The guys at Google have also learned a bit about what not to do. With Google TV, they’re taking a full 180 from the incredibly restrictive Apple TV.”

They note that Google TV is not a standalone product but an operating system for set-tops.  It will have a built-in browser so you can go after unlimited content.  This will open up a lot of ad space for them. It will also up more opportunities for Web-based services to provide analytics on TV related content such as our vision for Darwin.

 

My App Gap Posts for April 2010

Here are my AppGap posts for April. I am also writing in another Corante blog, FastForward (see right side bar for links), The AppGap posts began toward the end of January 2008.  Here, I am primarily doing product commentaries with a few other things thrown in. Below are the ones for April. There will be more in May.

Inmagic Offers Social Knowledge Networks with Presto 3.3

Socialcast Loads up with New Features, Outlook Integration, and Enhanced Metrics

Sid Probstein, Attivio CTO, on Mining the Unstructured Data in Enterprise 2.0

Mainsoft Opens Door from Outlook to Google Docs.

JackBe Provides Enterprise Mashup Platform on the Cloud and Previews Presto 3.0

RightNow Continues to Become More Social in its Offerings

 

 

Painting of my Art Duffle Bag: Number 2

Here is a second version of my art duffle bag where I carry my art supplies. I posted the first one on April 24. It is a 20" x 24" acrylic painting. I varied the colors and the state of the bag. I have done a four part a series on this image, varying the colors more extremely.

  

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2010 Part Twelve: Uptown – Riverbend and Our First Apartment

This in the twelfth in a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

The Riverbend area gets its name from the bend the Mississippi River takes at this point. St. Charles Avenue turns to the right to follow this bend and become Carrolton Avenue. The St. Charles Avenue street car continues up to Claiborne Avenue. It is part of the site of the village of Carrolton started in 1833 and annexed by New Orleans in 1874 and part of the East Carrollton neighborhood. The Camillia Grill is great for breakfast (see below)

 I lived here in the 1950s. We had an apartment that was on the right side of the real estate office seen in the first picture after the map.  You can see my father, my dog and I on the left in our small front yard. We had just returned from a fishing trip to the bayous.  My father would rent a pirogue and we would catch a lot of fish, all of which were eaten. My father cleaned them, my mother cooked. The real estate office has now taken over the whole building. When I lived there, a pottery studio was on the left side.  You can see the bend of St. Charles as it becomes Carrolton Avenue in the next picture after our building. Then the next picture looks the other way up Carrolton Avenue.  Like the Uptown area south of Magazine Street there are a lot of shotgun houses. 

Like many areas in the city there are blue on white tiles on the street corner side walks that designate the streets. I lived at the corner of Maple and Short and you can see the tiles below. By some accounts, the tiles started being planted in New Orleans sidewalks in the 1870s.

                                  
 
 
 

My Fast Forward Posts for April 2010

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 May.

Will Google Make Us Stupid?

What Can Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Learn from ERP Implementations?

Can Enterprise 2.0, Twitter, and Social Media Catch Up to Facebook?

Get Your MBA in Social Media?

Forbes Study Says Business and IT Leaders Need to Better Align Their Thinking

Are Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Best Practices Useful?

Are You a Digital Spy?

I have been covering some of the interesting Retreveo studies (see recent post - Is Social Media Better Than ???? - Addiction Study - and last year’s Study of Social Media Addiction from Retrevo). The latest Retrevo Gadgetology study asked people whether or not they found it too tempting to spy on someone else’s email. They discovered that 38% those under 25, in a dating relationship have “snooped” on their boyfriends or girlfriends messages. Unfortunately, 10% of that age group who “snooped” discovered that the other person was unfaithful and ended up breaking off the relationship. When they expand the group to include everyone, the percentage of email snoopers goes down to 28%.

While couples in a dating relationship snoop slightly more than married couples, 36% of couples in a committed relationship (spouses and partners) indicated they check emails or call histories without their significant other’s knowledge. Compared to the 10% of dating couples who discovered infidelities only 3% of this group in committed relationships discovered they were being cheated on, still not a good result.

Is this high level of spying a reflection of a lack of trust or the tempting curiosity facilitated by the ease of checking things out?  Is it related to the social media addiction I wrote about before?  What would you do? 

My Favorite Tweets for April 16 - 31 2010

Here is the fifteenth in a series of posts that provide access to my favorite tweets that contain links to useful information.  Some of these I did to link to things I found useful and others are RTs that I want to save for the same reason. Since Twitter archiving is an oxymoron, I am now going to post my favorite links for the month so they can be easily accessed later. I will repeat this once or twice a month depending on volume.

I spot tested the reduced shortened urls and they all should work. I hope this is also useful for you.  Let me know your favorite tweets for the month.

Also see the Darwineco favorite tweets.

RT @DearingGroup: Beet.TV: Online Video Advertising to Increase 35 Precent in 2010, eMarketer CEO http://bit.ly/ceSpZf  April 29

from @tobyward Social networking community for intranet managers http://bit.ly/crwxHz > looks useful April 29

from @psfk Now We’re All Editors http://bit.ly/d9U3DT April 29

RT @GeorgeDearing: Ann Taylor Case Shows FTC Keeping Close Eye on Blogging [AdAge] http://bit.ly/aVNMnW April 28

RT @michellemanafy: RT @rww: Infochimps Release Twitter Data, "Trst.Me" App and API for Ranking Twitter Users http://bit.ly/cOF6eT April 28

10 Dos and Don’ts for Brands on Twitter from @mashable http://bit.ly/cjjnNe April 28

The Creation Project: Viewers Suggest Storylines For TV Show http://bit.ly/9gghPM April 28

How business leaders view social media from @SBoSM http://bit.ly/9GJcEl April 27

powerpoint for “hypnotizing chickens” NYT http://nyti.ms/cDNEVk April 27

from @robpatrob Plato’s Cave 2.0 A New Myth for Adoption http://bit.ly/aEXfXN April 27

RT @SmartDataCo: 20 Top Twitter Monitoring and Analytics Tools http://goo.gl/fb/V91md #cloud April 26

RT @socialmedia2day: Searching For Past Tweets With Google Replay http://goo.gl/fb/hJVaj #sm April 26

RT @mfauscette: Google Adds Local Business Annotations to Street View http://tinyurl.com/237gz99 April 26

via @georgedearing Good read on cassette tape [NYT] http://ping.fm/9dBAs > I have many  Apr 24th

RT @20Community: Holistic CIO lessons from Peter Drucker by Michael Krigsman #e2adoption http://su.pr/2Tn7cl  Apr 24th

RT @ConversationAge: 10 Lessons Comic Books Can Teach Us About Blogging and Content Marketing http://ow.ly/1CDbj  Apr 24th

Visualizing The Technology Of 2020 http://bit.ly/acD7aO via @psfk April 22

Good Brands Report 2010: Google (#1) http://bit.ly/cZSNcb from @psfk April 22

Top Twitter Cities of the World http://bit.ly/ake0dr  Apr 22nd

Did Facebook Just Seized Control Of The Web? http://tcrn.ch/aRU3Ov  Apr 22nd

from ReadwriteWeb - disecting a tweet http://bit.ly/9zyoQa 1:25 PM Apr 22nd

Identity Swap Concept Allows Twitter Users To Allow Impersonators http://bit.ly/9QVt2U April 21

RT @socialmedia2day: Twitter Strategy: Branded vs. Individual Twitter Accounts http://goo.gl/fb/RVYO7 #sm  Apr 20th

RT @elsua: [Blog] Email's Reign Is Over, Social Networking Is New King / http://bit.ly/am2upx #awwe 7:44 PM Apr 19th

via @michellemanafyRT @emarketer http://bit.ly/aHMfpk Online was largest segment of media time in 2009 April 19, 2010

Companies Slowly Join Cloud-Computing http://nyti.ms/dtmp9G NYT April 19

RT @socialmedia2day: Small Business: Is Twitter Important? http://goo.gl/fb/Tv7zO #sm  Apr 18th

RT @socialmedia2day: The free ride in social media is coming to an end http://goo.gl/fb/dL4lg #sm  Apr 16th

RT @socialmedia2day: Study: Twitter Usage Doubles Lead Flow for Sm Biz http://goo.gl/fb/p8Jrp #sm  Apr 16th

RT @marciamarcia: Use Microblogging to Increase Productivity HT @eugenelee @socialtext http://bit.ly/aVeWWf  Apr 16th

Reflecting on the Edges of Time

A few weeks ago I read an interesting blog post, The Edges, by Edward Harran, that I found through Twitter from Ross Dawson.  He began with the idea that “The past, present, and the future are all one and the same” and added, “new things always happen on the edges.” However, he goes to add that it is hard to see the new things because you do not know they exist and do not know where the edges are located.

Edward summarizes this issue as follows: 'The Future' is the continual emergence of the edges in the present. 'The Past', similiarly, is the continual understanding of the edges that were discovered and, that which we are now, attempting to put into context.
'The Present' is, thereby, in the intersection of these two ongoing investigations. They are all built and interwoven into each other.

Edward concludes with a quote of Eckart Tolle, "The present is the only thing we will ever experience. The now." He adds, “so we better start understanding it.”

This is our mission at Darwin. We try to provide the context for the present in real time thorough our Buzz Tracker™ and Scan Cloud™ so you can better understand the past, anticipate the future, and better live in the present.

Years ago I wrote a poem that contained these lines within it,

A baby cries and laughs

through the eternity of every second,

existing in a world devoid of tense,

until he learns to live for tomorrow

by rules from the past.

 

And belief is built on belief.

 

When is the present?

It becomes the past before you can grasp it…

 

…and Bert and Walter sat in the corner,

sharing their wine and worldly views.,

and talking in the past and future tense… 

While real time is actually a relative statement, understanding its context will help you better find the edges.  Thanks to Eddie for bring me back to this topic. 

Sixth Anniversary of Portals and KM

Yesterday I started my sixth year with this blog. On May 2, 2004 I did my first posts. There were three, Is KM the Killer App for Portals?, Some good articles on blogs and blogs on blogs, and Is RSS TNBT? Recently, I passed 600,000 page views and 2600 posts. Since a brief lapse during a trip to Italy in the summer of 2005, I have put up at least one post a day. It has become addictive.

Two people encouraged me to start a blog, Cesar Brea and Jack Vinson and they remain active boggers. I also attended Dave Winer's sessions at the Berkman Center. Dave has gone but the sessions continue. Writing an article on blogs for Portals Magazine is what got we started with this blog. Writing about web 2.0 inside and outside the firewall remains the core of what I cover during the week. Now I am also part of two group blogs, Fast Forward and the AppGap, both on enterprise 2.0 and am writing for the Darwin Discovery Engine Blog.  I also spend almost all my consulting time helping businesses with their blogs.

Some of my favorite posts on this blog are under Previous Posts in the right column. A few of the ones that were most fun to do include: Slow Cooked Ribs and Cajun Music that got me started on the food and music on weekends and Sunday with Ray Charles that got me started on music and non-work topics in the first place. I still get responses to some of these old posts such as the two part series on the Newport Jazz Festival in 1968 and 1969, see Early Newport Jazz Festivals Relived for some of these responses to are The Original Newport Jazz Festival: 1968 and Before and The Original Newport Jazz Festival: 1969 – 1971.

I look forward to the seventh anniversary, as well as the ability to continue to look back over what I was thinking about the past few years. 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods Part Eleven: Audubon Zoo

This is eleventh in a series on New Orleans neighborhoods. This time I cover the animals whose neighborhood is the Audubon Zoo. It is located where Magazine Street goes through Audubon Park at 6500 Magazine Street. I played my first golf at the course in Audubon Park and we went to the zoo a lot when I was a kid.  The zoo is part of Audubon Park and the Audubon neighborhood that is near the Tulane and Loyola Universities. These pictures were taken pre-Katrina in the Spring of 2005 but the zoo is back in operation. I start with a elephant series and finish with their bayou. 

                                       
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Painting of Woman with Maroon Hat

Here is an 18" x 24" acrylic painting of a woman with a maroon hat. I added a yellow background with a distant horizon to go with landscape theme and take the model out of th studio. Like many of my works, it is available for sale at Artsetter.com.