Portals and KM

Luis Suarez on the Power of Activity Streams for Enterprise Collaboration

Last month Luis Suarez provided a very useful summary of the power that activity streams can bring to the enterprise in his post, 5 Reasons Why Activity Streams Will Save You From Information Overload. I want to bring this to your attention in case you missed it as I think activity streams can be transformative. Being fans of reducing information overload, i applaud his choice of words to describe some of the benefits of activity streams. I agree with his assessment of the transformative role that this innovation can bring to the enterprise. I see the vendors all enhancing their capabilities in this direction.

Here are the highlights from Luis’s post. I recommend that you go to his work to get all the details.

“Activity Streams permeate throughout transparency and openness.”  You will have much more control over the amount and type of alerts that you receive, reducing noise while giving you access to what you want.

“They help you, greatly, be done with the obsession to read AND respond to everything.”  Luis and others have written that our email inbox seems to be the one place where we feel the need to read and respond to everything. We need to bring habits form other tools like Twitter to be more selective. I agree completely. Perhaps I am on the leading edge but I have long ago learned to delete the vast majority of my emails without reading them. Sorry to those deleted but you have to prioritize. 

“They facilitate serendipity and Informal Learning.” This has long been a byproduct of social media. Luis adds, “both serendipitous knowledge discoveries and informal learning, a.k.a. social learning, are fully immersed, rich experiences that one cannot avoid, but fully embrace when bumping into them time and time again.”  If you have more control of what you receive and you do not have to spend time going to different places to find it, then you have more time and space for innovation and discovery. I have found this with the Darwin Awareness Engine.™

“They help flatten organisations and traditionally hierarchical structures.” Now you can become “more agile, proactive and responsive to customers’ problems, requirements, needs and wants.” You allow for communication up and down the organizational structure without the filter of middle managers. New ideas can better reach those that can act on them.

“They inspire an open knowledge sharing culture.” This builds on the last point. It puts knowledge out in the open and limits the gatekeepers.

Thanks to Luis for making all these points about the pivotal role that activity streams can play. I have been promoting activity streams in several blogs but he offers us a comprehensive set of reasons for their power. 

 

My Fast Forward Posts for June 2011

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 July.

Enterprise Search Trends – Forrester

Examining Corporate Social Media Policies

New Nielsen Study Reveals Changing Role of Tablets and Television

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Summary of E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner’s Workshop

Complete List of My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Boston Conference Notes

 

 

Review of We First: On Brands, Consumers, and Social Media

I was pleased to receive a review copy of We First: How Brands & Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World by Simon Mainwaring. It covers the rise in consumer power brought on by social media and how brands can best respond. He goes on the add that this rise in consumer power can be good for society and not simply the brands who recognize and act on it in the appropriate ways. The book goes beyond the topic of social media marketing to provide a new look at capitalism. While Simon is supportive of free markets, he wants to make them better with more direct consumer participation.

Simon uses the book title, We First, to discuss a new twist on capitalism – We First Capitalism rather than the Me First. He states that looking for the greater good will actually help the individual. It makes sense because healthy markets and consumers with jobs are necessary to buy the goods and services that create corporate profits and drive more jobs.

The Internet began the rise of consumer power and now smart phones and other mobile devices are accelerating it. He argues that there is a growing interest in doing business with socially responsible corporations and that now consumers have more power to push firms in this direction. I hope he is right on both counts.

Simon argues that the social technology is enabling us to be more human as we can establish greater connections to discover shared concerns. The values of We First capitalism are; sustainability, fairness of reward, fiscal responsibility, accountability, purposefulness, dialogue, and global citizenship. Sounds good to me.

He goes on to argue that a better world and market will occur when consumers and brands work together, A number of companies have recognized this and created online communities for consumer feedback, both private and public. There is also a rise in crowd sourcing. Simon writes that consumers are now in a better position through social media to help co-create a better world that more closely reflects their interests.

I recently saw a study by Communispace, a company that builds and maintains online consumer communities for brands.  It founds that the vast majority of respondent sat all levels of technology adoption saw technology as a positive force in their lives (84%) with the more advance adopters (tech fast forward) slightly ahead (87%) on this measure. In a related question: Will technology make of break us? All segments respond make 72% of the time and 85% of the fast forward said make. When asked if technology better connect or creates more distance, 72% of all segments said better connect and 80% of the tech fast forward sided with this view.   This is an overall quite positive view and one that I share. The tech fast forward group is also more optimistic about the future. Let’s hope that they and Simon are right.  We First contains a useful premise that can serve as a good grounding for social media efforts by both consumers and brands.

 

 

Is Twitter Text, Speech, or Something New?

I read an interesting article in the Neiman Labs blog, Is Twitter writing, or is it speech? Why we need a new paradigm for our social media platforms.   It asks the question: Is Twitter writing, or is it speech? It clarified the reason for this question as we treated these two forms of expression quite differently. Text is seen as stable and more permanent and this has legal implications.

The article compares the two as follows: “Text, we figure, is: conclusive, in that its words are the deliberate products of discourse; inclusive, in that it is available equally to anyone who happens to read it; exclusive, in that it filters those words selectively; archival, in that it preserves information for posterity; and static, in that, once published, its words are final. And speech, while we’re at it, is discursive and ephemeral and, importantly, continual.”

The article concludes: “The framework of text and speech falls apart once we recognize that Twitter is both and neither at once. It’s its own thing, a new category. Our language, however, doesn’t yet recognize that. Our rhetoric hasn’t yet caught up to our reality — for Twitter and, by extension, for other social media.”

I find it interesting that this debate occurred when text as we know it was first introduced through the Greek phonetic alphabet. Plato commented on this latest information technology breakthrough of his time. He said in The Republic that text is a better means, than the oral tradition, to convey and store information. Then he cautioned the limits of text in Phaedrus that meaning is better derived from the dialog of viewpoints.

When blogs first appeared similar discussions about the hybrid nature of social media arose. The researcher Alexander Halavais said that blogs offer “Discourse at the boundary between conversation and publication.” They can give greater context and connection.

Blogs took the conversational aspects part way through their informal style and the opportunity for comments. Now Twitter moves the dialog much further through its real time ease of use. The Neiman article noted and interesting twist in this direction. It commented that, “Wall Street Journal outreach editor Zach Seward talked about being, essentially, the voice of the outlet’s news feed on Twitter. When readers tweeted responses to news stories, @WSJ might respond in kind — possibly surprising them and probably delighting them and maybe, just for a second, sort of freaking them out.”  Now the Web talks back at you through Twitter, more so and faster than with blogs.

The article notes that text has been “considered an artifact and a construct, has generally been a noun rather than a verb, defined by its solidity, by its thingness — and, in that, by its passive willingness to be the object of interpretation by active human minds.” But now this could be changing as it becomes more dynamic.

They note that Twitter is not very good at the archival part yet but it should improve. This is one reason that I post my favorite tweets on this blog every two weeks so I can go back to them. I also find it an interesting recap of what I found useful in the past two weeks when I set up the post. One thing that is needed is better curation tools and they mentioned, Storify. It allows you to create stories using social media.

This is where the Darwin Awareness Engine™ can come into play. It offers “organic curation” by allowing the content to self-organize through Chaos Theory principles and avoid the influence of SEO. You can see the emerging themes on your topics of interest in real time and explore what interests you.

The article concludes that “our text-ordered world is resolving back into something more traditionally oral — more conversational and, yes, more ephemeral. ‘Chaos is our lot,’ Clay Shirky notes; ‘the best we can do is identify the various forces at work shaping various possible futures.’ One of those forces — and, indeed, one of those futures — is the hybrid linguistic form that we are shaping online even as it shapes us… A paradigm we might call “Twitter. I would add that the paradigm we call “awareness” is the perfect complement to this new hybrid form of communication.

 

 

Images of New Orleans 2011: French Market Area

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post covers the French Market area in the upper French Quarter and near the Marigny. It is a series of shops and stalls. It stretches just inland from the Mississippi River in the section of the French Quarter downriver from Jackson Square, with the famous Café du Monde at the upriver end, down to the flea market stalls across from the New Orleans Mint building. I like to go to the outdoor Gazebo Bar for live music in the afternoons and it is featured in the first pictures. I also have had several great meals at the Meals from the Heart Café run by Marilyn Doucette and Averill Lazard. It covered in the next photos and is in the stalls with stools and also offers take out. The café focuses on healthy food that still tastes great in the New Orleans tradition such as crab cakes. I highly recommend it. It is open from 9AM to 6PM daily. 

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                                          






 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2011: Faubourg Marigny

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post covers the Faubourg Marigny or simply the Marigny. It is a subdistrict of the Bywater District Area and its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: North Rampart Street and St. Claude Avenue to the north, Franklin Avenue to the east, the Mississippi River to the south and Esplanade Avenue to the west. The initial photos are of Frenchmen Street with many music clubs. The live music is from the Spotted Cat.

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                                  

















 

 

Complete Listing of My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Boston Conference Notes

Here is the complete series of notes I took on the 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston so I could remember what I experienced. These are close to real time so I have an excuse for typos this time. It was a great event and opportunity to see old friends, see some virtual friends for the first time in person, and make new friends. Here are the notes I posted over the four days of the event. I hope you find them useful.

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part One

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part Two

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part Three

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part Four

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: First Tuesday Keynote

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Second Tuesday Keynote

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Selling Enterprise Sales Collaboration Up the Chain

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Online Communities - A Strategic Imperative

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: UC + Social Computing = Best of Both Worlds?

Views from the Top of Boston

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Second Wednesday Keynote

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: How Do You Measure That?

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Business Leadership Roundtable with Andrew McAfee

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Got Strategy? How to Capitalize on the Mobile Revolution

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Big Data Analytics for Social Media

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Enterprise Social Collaboration & Innovation - Strategy & Implementation

 

Summary of My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes for Wednesday June 22

Here are notes from the five sessions I attended yesterday, Wednesday June 22. This is the fifth year I have attended the event and it continues to be a great place to stay current with the ideas and people in this space.

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Second Wednesday Keynote

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: How Do You Measure That?

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Business Leadership Roundtable with Andrew McAfee

Here are the summaries of the prior two days:

Summary of My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes for Tuesday June 21

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Summary

 

Views from the Top of Boston

I went to the Adobe event last evening at the Top of the Hub while at the Enterprise 2.0 conference here in Boston. They provided good food and drink but also excellent views. Here is what we saw as we walked around the top of Boston. I was with Mary Abraham and Geoff Bock. The last slide shows Fenway Park.

                       

PostScript: I was at the MFA recenlty and took a picture at dusk looking back up at the Pru.

Summary of My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes for Tuesday June 21

Here are notes from the five sessions I attended yesterday, Tuesday June 21. This is the fifth year I have attended the event and it continues to be a great place to stay current with the ideas and people in this space.

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: First Tuesday Keynote

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Second Tuesday Keynote

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Selling Enterprise Sales Collaboration Up the Chain

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: Online Communities - A Strategic Imperative

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: UC + Social Computing = Best of Both Worlds?

 

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Summary

Here is another in a series of notes on the 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. These are close to real time so I have an excuse for typos this time. I attended the excellent E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's In-Depth Workshop.  Susan Scrupski is the organizer. I wrote about the day-long session in four blog posts with links below.

In reflection I was struck by how similar many of the adoption issues were to what we faced and discussed in the early 90s as what became known as knowledge management emerged. I do not see this as a bad thing, actually the reverse. It shows to me the lasting value of involving participants in the creation and implementation of business software. I never liked the term knowledge management, as controlling knowledge seemed the wrong approach. I like the more dynamic and people centric approach that is advocated in today’s enterprise 2.0 best practices.

Here is part of the session description: “Members of The Social Business Council, a peer-led community, have had an early mover advantage in thinking through the difficult transformational issues that are required to create a more connected, participatory, engaging enterprise ready to embrace the future. In this full-day lecture and interactive workshop, learn first hand from practitioners who have tackled adoption, architecture, change management, community management, education, governance, and the realities of living through an Enterprise 2.0 transformation.”

Here are my four blog posts on the session.

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part One

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part Two

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part Three

My 2011 Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes: E2.0 Black Belt Practitioner's Workshop – Part Four

 

Attempted Gaming of Google on Mother’s Day

I hope you had a good Father's day. Last month the New York Times ran the article, Trying to Game Google on ‘Mother’s Day Flowers, that demonstrates the unintended consequences of Google’s approach to search. Of course, Google remains the gold standard of Web search but this is in part, because of its constant watch for cheaters. The article reported that internet marketing experts say that several well known flower sellers are trying to elevate their Web sites in search results with a strategy that violates Google’s guidelines.

While the companies deny it, they all have links on Web sites that are riddled with paid links, many of which include phrases like “mothers day flowers,” “mothers day arrangements” and “cheap mothers day flowers.” As the Times said, anyone who clicks on those backlinks, as they are known, gets sent to the floral retailer who paid for them.

This is risky because if Google catches companies in link-buying schemes, they are often penalized by being sent way down in its search results, sometimes for months. When confronted by the Times, Google’s Jake Hubert, sent this statement: “None of the links shared by The New York Times had a significant impact on our rankings, due to automated systems we have in place to assess the relevance of links. As always, we investigate spam reports and take corrective action where appropriate.”

In other words, while they were trying to cheat, Google felt they were not effective so they were not going to penalize them.  This is like saying a badly botched robbery is not a crime because of the incompetence of the crooks. But then this is not an actual crime, just a misuse of links to game a system that is susceptible   to it. 

The Times quoted one person on conditions of confidentiality that she received $30 a month to post a “mothers day flowers” link on her home page. Of course, as the Times notes, “it is impossible to double-check Google’s conclusion that few of the links of the florist companies helped in search results. The particulars of Google’s algorithm are shrouded in secrecy for the same reason that a bank does not publicize the route to its vault.”

This is why we use a different approach for the Darwin Awareness Engine™.  Rather than using an external framework that is open to gaming to organize search results, The Awareness Engine makes use of Chaos Theory based algorithms that let the content self organize. You cannot SEO or spam it unless you control the entire set of targeted content.  Links to do not matter, only content. Now, the Darwin Awareness Engine is not designed to replace Google but it can be used to complement it and find the content that you might not expect or know to look for in an area of interest. 

 

Images of New Orleans 2011: Algiers

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post covers the town of Algiers on the west bank of the Mississippi opposite New Orleans.  It is only 15 minutes by ferry to the city on the ferry free for pedestrians. Algiers is a neighborhood within the city of New Orleans. It is the hometown of R&B singer Clarence "Frogman" Henry, one of my favorites. 

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                         














 

Images of New Orleans 2011: Algiers Ferry

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post does not cover a neighborhood, but a means to get there, the Algiers ferry. The next one will show what you find on the other end of the ferry, Algiers. You get a classic view of the city and it is free for pedestrians. Ferries depart daily from the West Bank on the hour and half hour, beginning at 6 a.m. Departures from the East Bank are on the quarter hour and three quarters hour, the last leaving at 12:15 a.m. The Ferry has been in regular service since 1827.

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                         

My Favorite Tweets for June 1 - 15 2011

Here is another 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 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.

Social Democracy: White House Learns To Listen http://bit.ly/k3zWOm

Collaboration: What’s Your Enterprise Social Networking Style? http://bit.ly/jj6zGl

25 Women Who Rock Social Media in 2011 http://bit.ly/jbXvg1

Facebook Sees Big Traffic Drops in US and Canada http://bit.ly/jJ6bb2

RT @outstart: RT @VMaryAbraham: How Online Education Is Changing Way We Learn http://j.mp/khM8ZF

RT @joemckendrick: RT @quicosala Next social computing frontier: highly social robots http://smrt.io/io8WC1

RT @outstart: Slow Hunch: How Innovation is Created Thru Group Intelligence http://rww.to/keOik9

Twitter Will Automate Ad-Buying by End of Year http://on.mash.to/kmoZYq >for SMB

RT @rossdawson: WSJ: Carriers sweat as texting cools off http://on.wsj.com/jPJdRM margins of 99%+ eventually get eroded

RT @VMaryAbraham: 9 Lessons From Successful Brands on #Twitter http://j.mp/jIS0nf #SM

AIIM + vendors collaborate on new guidelines for deployment of Social Business http://bit.ly/ig6sqY

RT @dhinchcliffe: Facebook? Twitter? CIOs share 7 tips for social media strategy http://ow.ly/5ear2 #socbiz #cio

The Language of Social Media http://bit.ly/iH3iDs

IT leaders should rely on quality of relationships, not quality of arguments > agree? http://bit.ly/kJm6YT

RT @thoughtfarmer: eek behind curtain: new series of stories about real intranet managers http://bit.ly/jUcEyP

MySpace a big loser for News Corp - will WSJ follow? http://on.wsj.com/iWIGWT

VMware scoops up Socialcast http://bit.ly/l4PnFa via http://socialenterprise.darwineco.com/

Facebook Accounts For 38% Of Sharing Traffic On Web http://tcrn.ch/mtWMdO

RT @darwineco: Facebook and the French Resistance http://nyti.ms/lVFeR3

Analysts cut PC sales growth forecasts http://bit.ly/l2aXJA

RT @joemckendrick: RT @jasonhiner Apple now worth more than Microsoft + Intel http://tek.io/iVhJ0H

No, Twitter Is Not a Replacement For Journalism http://bit.ly/mpWu3x

Words “FACEBOOK” AND “TWITTER” are banend from French airwaves http://bit.ly/ll5h7N

RT @jimworth: Brilliant! RT @MeganMurray Here we go.... http://bit.ly/kt1MAl #e2conf

Five Stages of Social Media Maturity http://bit.ly/mRygij

Is Twitter writing, or is it speech? http://bit.ly/iWDZ4n >great read

Why FTSE 100 prefer #Twitter to #Facebook http://bit.ly/jDsom8

RT @DearingGroup: Managing Social Technology By Stages // http://bit.ly/lXiAGF

RT @VMaryAbraham: When Knowledge Management Saves Lives http://j.mp/ivuymH #KM #KMers

RT @dhinchcliffe: Groundswell rises again by @peterkim: http://ow.ly/58AEd latest in #socbiz w @jbernoff

Pew: 13% of online adults use Twitter http://bit.ly/mIBgMe

RT @Pistachio: working on your company's social media policy? - 14 exs to cite! http://bit.ly/k7z0ND

9 Viral Videos That Are Actually Advertising http://on.mash.to/m6zrBk

 

 

 

Digital Distractions Are Expanding at the Workplace

Harmon.ie commissioned a recent study that reported digital distractions have become a major issue at work. They affect both work and time outside work hours, often blurring the distinction between the two. For example, the majority of people under the age of 40 stay digitally-connected in bed, and 44% of people stay connected during a night out at the movies. Of course many of these connections are for personal reasons, but often work is involved.   In the following result summaries the bullets are in the words of the study. Here are some of the work related findings:

• Two out of three users will interrupt a group meeting to communicate with someone else digitally, either by answering email (48%), answering a mobile phone (35%), chatting via IM (28%), updating their status on a social network (12%) or tweeting (9%).
• Relatively few workers disconnect to focus on a task (32%) or during virtual meetings or teleconferences (30%), webcasts (26%) or lunch (12%).
• A majority of workers turn off their devices only when their boss asks them to (85%) or during one-on-one meetings (63%).

Most of the distractions are digital.

• Users reported getting sidetracked in email processing (23%), switching windows to complete tasks (10%), personal online activities such as: Facebook (9%), instant messaging (6%), text messaging (5%) and Web search (3%).
• Multiple devices on the desktop contribute to the problem, with 65% of respondents reporting that they utilize up to three additional monitors and/or mobile devices simultaneously with their main computer screen as they work.

Companies have responded with strategies to limit these distractions. 

• 68% of respondents reported that their employers have implemented policies or technologies to minimize distractions, while 73% of end users have adopted self-imposed techniques to help maintain focus.
• The #1 corporate strategy used to discourage digital diversion is blocking access to public social networks such as Facebook and/or other non-business websites (48%).

A related, but different, problem is the difficulty in finding content. Respondents reported that they spend an average of 2-1/2 hours per week trying to find the documents needed in multiple local, corporate and cloud repositories.

• The user’s email inbox is the #1 location searched, with 76% of respondents reporting email as the first place they look. Other locations include the desktop (69%), file server (52%), shared workspace (34%), portable storage device (18%) and/or cloud storage (9%).
• The average user emails two or more documents per day to an average of five people for review, increasing email-based document volume by up to 50 documents per week. The fact that these attachments are stored on multiple local computers complicates the challenge of finding the latest document versions as well as merging feedback from multiple reviewers.

All of this points to a very disorganized workplace. The very tools that are supposed to help us are actually overwhelming us in some cases.  The solution starts with a unified strategy for digital communication and requires some smart policies, cultural issues and wise implementation of limited number of technologies. I wrote about this recently (see Taking Control of Our Knowledge Consumption and Our Social Presence). I quoted Nick Carr whose new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains address this issue, “companies need to challenge the assumption that employees should always be available. Some people do their best work when they’re disconnected, and companies should create a work culture that encourages it.”  It sounds like they need to actually force many people to disconnect. 

 

SpringCM Moves Beyond Content Management

SpringCM Cloud provides an robust enterprise content management platform. It was founded in 2005 by some industry veterans who wanted to go beyond traditional on-premise content management. They have done this and more as I learned when I recently spoke with CEO Christopher Junker and Dick Dosen about their new capabilities.

The cloud is transforming many software apps. First, of all it eliminates the need for end users to deal with software.  You just use it.  This makes ii way faster and cheaper to get started.  If the software is intuitive then you can also bypass IT. This possibility were brought to the attention of the business user through the consumer apps they have grown accustomed to. Christopher referred to this as the consumerization of IT and it has far reaching effects.

SpringCM is built to take advantage of all of these transformative capabilities within cloud applications. It is designed so the average business user can create process aligned content management use cases. It is these process aligned content management apps that allow Spring CM to go beyond traditional content management in function, as well as ease of implementation.

Spring CM refers to this capability as dynamic adaptive case management. It is a good term as it allows customers to drive more consistent content management processes, enhance team productivity and increase management visibility by giving them the ability to more efficiently and quickly organize people, tasks and content around document-intensive, collaborative business processes. That is a lot of words but basically it allows you to build the content components of work support around the way you work and avoid confirming to the limitations of a software package. SpringCM also provides templates to ease the task of creating custom work support tools. Below you can see a sample case management dashboard.

To facilitate the use of the case management approach, SpringCM has implemented a checklist model.  They did some research on the best approach and I agree with their selection. It does not attempt to dumb down the job. Checklists are used by experts. They do not tell you how to do things but help you remember all the things that need to be done.  Here is a sample checklist in use.

They also added an activity stream. I think this is a transformative feature for content management and collaboration tools as you can easily see what is going on in an area of interest. There are auto-generated updates based on user activity and you can also manually add updates Twitter-style. Below is a sample checklist with a related activity stream.

Since it a Web-based API you can create you own interface so users are not aware they are operating within SpringCM. This places your content in a better context for your specific work tasks. You can also integrate with other applications such as SharePoint and Salesforce.com.  For example, this allows you to overcome some of the limitations of SharePoint while still using your investment in it. You can place content from SharePoint within SpringCM for more functionality and then put it back into SharePoint once your work is done.

SpringCM has also invested in support for mobile apps including iPad compatibility.  This enables organizations to put content to work for executives and knowledge workers on the go so they can get work done where and when it needs to be. Mobile content management will only increase over the next few years. Below is a sample iPad interface.

I really like what they are doing and wish I had these capabilities when I was hand building content intense process aligned applications in the 1990s.  They need a new term as Spring M goes way beyond what we think of as content management to enable some of the visions within enterprise 2.0.

 

 

Participate in the North American Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises Nominations

Telos is now accepting nominations for the 10th annual North American Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study. The MAKE research program seeks to identify “those North American headquartered organizations (for-profit, non-profit and public sector) that are using knowledge-driven strategies to out-perform their peers by above average growth in intellectual capital and wealth creation (in the case of the public sector, increased societal capital and stakeholder value).” You can complete the nomination form by visiting the Teleos website and clicking on 'MAKE' in the left-hand navigation box and then clicking on 'MAKE Nominations'.

A list of the organizations nominated to date is found on the Telos web page. By participating in this study, you automatically will receive the 2011 North American MAKE Executive Summary by e-mail. Nominations close on June 30, 2011. This is great award. I used to attend the award sessions in the late 90sand it nice to see it still going strong. Here are the 2010 MAKE winners. 

 

An Alternative Approach for Social Media Analytics

Sandeep Raut recently provided some useful guidelines for Implementing and Using Social Media Analytics. As he noted companies have started using the huge unstructured text data with social media for customer service improvements, for understanding what customers are talking about themselves or competitors, and general market awareness.

Sandeep offers what he refers to as “typical steps in implementing social media analytics.”

• “Collect the huge amount of unstructured data – comments, blogs, call center notes, twits from social sites
• Using statistical analysis & Natural Language processing (NLP) on texts & words to break up the information into good or bad
• Use categorization, classification & association methods for text processing
• Further identify the categories on which these good or bad sentiment are applicable from the data

            - Brand awareness, trust, loyalty

            - Customer service

            - Product improvements

            - Competitor analysis

            - Geographic locations

• Produce the results using visualization tools”

Here is an alternative approach. Use the Darwin Awareness Engine™ and skip to the last step. Then use your topic expertise to quickly make sense of the emerging themes in your areas of expertise and interest. The Darwin Awareness Engine is designed to enable people to make sense of content and bypass reliance on complex technologies that are still working to become accurate. 

 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2011: Treme

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post covers Treme located next to the French Quarter. It is a subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are Esplanade Avenue to the north, North Rampart Street to the east, St. Louis Street to the south and North Broad Street to the west. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, and early in the city's history was the main neighborhood of free blacks. It is now home to a number of musicians including Kermit Ruffins.   The first pictures are from Willie Mae's Scotch House (2401 St. Ann Street, 504.822.9503). It serves some of the best fried chicken I have eaten: “caramel brown, audibly crisp, juicy as meat can naturally be.”

The last picture is of Dooky Chase’s, (2301 Orleans Ave (504) 821-0535) another great Treme restaurant and the picture came from Jason Perlow’s blog where he provides some great interior photos, as well as photos of the food. It is the only photo in this series that I did not take. Dooky’s was closed when we were there. Frommer’s wrote, “For decades, Leah and husband Dooky Chase have served prominent African-American politicians, musicians, and businesspeople Chef Leah's classic soul food as gloriously influenced by the city's French, Sicilian, and Italian traditions. This was the place people like Ray Charles (who wrote "Early in the Morning" about it) would come to after local shows and stay up until the wee hours telling stories and eating gumbo -- one of the city's best.”

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                  

 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2011: Magazine Street

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post covers Magazine Street that actually spans several neighborhoods. The pictures start with Surrey’s Juice Bar.  Now it does have good juice but the rest is not low cal. I had a wonderful shrimp and grits after being tempted by the sausage gravy and biscuits.  The dish was exceptional and a great way to start the day if you are looking to put on a few pounds. It is located at 1418 Magazine Street (504) 524-3828. Then there are images along with length of the street. The last images cover Tipitina’s one of my favorite music places that is a bit off Magazine at 501 Napoleon Ave. We saw Big Sam’s Funky Nation put on a high energy show.

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                           

 

Stepping Out of the Shallows: Moving from Push to Pull in Our Web Presence

I recently read two blog post commentaries on Nick Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.  One by Andy McAfee, Tune Out, Turn Off: A Mantra Needed for Our Times?, and another by Doris Nhan, Live from #gc2011: Nicholas Carr on how the Internet is hurting innovation. Carr’s book provides his research on how technology and the Internet have affected people’s ability to process information in a negative way. He argues that we are losing our ability to concentrate because of the Web.  And I thought it was my advancing years.  But I digress. Before I add my comments let me summarize what Andy and Doris wrote.

Andy said that he was first a skeptic but as he read Carr’s book and “reflected about my own habits, though, I started to get the uneasy feeling that he was on to something fundamental.” He adds that the 2.0 Era has put us put us immediately in touch with friends, family, colleagues, and strangers through easy to use software on the Web and increasingly available and portable hardware devices for access. Andy notes that this can be addictive and I would agree. Andy supports Nick’s claims that this also takes us away from deep thinking. His remedy is tune out and turn off but not before you provide your comments to his blog post. I did both in the order he suggested.

I have long been convinced of the need to gain a sense of isolation to concentrate, at least for me. I have always liked to work at home, starting as an academic in the 70s. I went to the office to meet with colleagues and students but my thought work was done at home away from those distractions.  Now I have come full circle as I mostly work at home but maintain a very active business social life outside the home. For me it is having control over when I want to concentrate and when I want to be social. For this reason I schedule phone calls rather than have people call me whenever. The Web also allows for this option because it is available for virtual socializing when I want it but I can also turn away.

Doris Nhan goes a step further in her discussions about Nick Carr’s book by offering some specific suggestions from Nick for work that align with my own thoughts above. She writes that “to regain a much-needed balance, Carr suggests dedicating time specifically for the Internet and time specifically for focused attention on one task.” I would certainly agree. This is what I do. I often turn to the social aspects of the Web as a break from focused work just as people might go to the water cooler or the coffee room in an office environment.

Nick also suggests that, “companies need to challenge the assumption that employees should always be available. Some people do their best work when they’re disconnected, and companies should create a work culture that encourages it.” Ahem. I have long believed in this. For example, I never liked IM. When required to use it by one employer, I just had my status always set at busy. When I finally got a cell phone in the late 90s, it took me a year to discover that the incoming call function was broken as I only used it for outbound calls. I still give out my office number rather than my cell number, except for specific situations like meeting someone. I know I may be extreme but it is my way for maintaining control over my social presence and my knowledge consumption so that I can accomplish the thought work I need to do like write this blog post.

There does need to be a balance. I do expect someone to always be available when I need help with my computer but then I would not assign these call center people with the additional task of developing the company’s strategic plan while on call center duty. The bottom line is creating a pull rather than push situation and the Web does allow us to use it this away if we choose to operate in this mode. Now it is easier for me as I am working part time on many assignments and mostly working from home.  I think that companies need to give their employees that same freedom if they want innovation and real productivity in thought work.  Granted someone needs to mind the store but someone also needs to be determining where to take the store next. This is why you have a team. 

 

The Darwin Awareness Engine™ White Paper Series

We have created a series of seven white papers covering aspects of how the Darwin Awareness Engine™ can help organizations address the information overload issue and how to effectively monitor the content that supports their goals. Here is a link to each one with a short description. They are all available for a free download through our web site. We will be producing more of these. We are always interested in your feedback.

Darwin Awareness Engine™ covers how Web event correlation is effective in supporting the decisions of professionals.

Community Awareness relates how the Darwin Awareness Engine™ facilitates serendipitous discoveries. It also covers the importance of relevance to create visitor loyalty and provides the keys to finding local & relevant content in an efficient way

Awareness Monitoring discusses how the Darwin Awareness Engine™ facilitates serendipitous discoveries. It also relates how the Public Service Media can benefit from harnessing awareness and measuring and monitoring the evolution of a theme over time or dimension.

Temporal Semantic Correlation provides information on how Semantic Technologies are continuously evolving. It also covers how the Temporal Semantic Correlation Model complements semantic technologies and how the Darwin Ecosystem employs the Temporal Semantic Correlation Model.

Real-Time Awareness covers how to accelerate your awareness, discovery and consumption of information. The different types of partnerships available for Darwin Awareness Engine subscription are also reviewed.

Trend & Movement Awareness discusses how the Darwin Awareness Engine facilitates the discovery of serendipitous discoveries. It also covers how more automation can result in less visibility and how waiting for monthly and quarterly meetings to be aware of emerging issues and trends is not sustainable anymore.

Frequently Asked Questions addresses how the Awareness Engine solves the problem of "Information Overload.” It also describes how the Awareness Engine works. The Awareness Engine is compared with analytic tools used for brand awareness, sentiment analysis. The difference between the Awareness Engine from search engines, alerts, RSS readers/aggregators is also discussed.  

 

Knowledge Management in 2011: New APQC Book

The subtitle of The New Edge in Knowledge is How Knowledge Management is Changing the Way We do Business. Knowledge management is becoming one of the longest running shows in business and Carla O’Dell and Cindy Hubert of APQC have been there from the beginning.

The book begins with a foreword by another of the KM All-stars, Larry Prusak.  He notes a 1995 conference at UC Berkeley and offers some of the main principles of knowledge management that were articulated at the time:

“Knowledge is a fixed pool, a collection of resources that can be measured and used by standard management practices.”

“Technology is the key tool to unlock the value of this resource,. The more technology the better.”

Now before you jump all over these old school ideas that gave KM a bad name, Larry does it for you. He notes that these principles were not suitable for working with an intangible such as knowledge. He adds that despite this KM did not die and is experiencing a resurgence. I would agree on both counts.

He modifies the principle as follows:

“Knowledge is better understood as a flow. It is highly dynamic, nonlinear, and difficult to measure or even manage.”

“Although technology surely has its place, working with knowledge is primarily a human activity…”

Carla and Cindy pick up on this and note several new trends that have increased the potential for knowledge management such as enterprise 2.0 tools and the increased reach of the digital world in the work place, including mobile access.

Now there are those that use knowledge management as a whipping boy in describing the benefits of enterprise 2.0. There are also those that prefer to show how enterprise 2.0 helps achieve some of the promise of knowledge management.  Clara and Cindy are in the latter group and I belong there as well. I think it is the more constructive approach. This promise is what first attracted me to the Web 2.0 tools seven years ago.

The book provides a comprehensive version of how best to implement knowledge management in 2011. It begins with an updated framework to guide program design initiatives and goes on to cover developing a value proposition. It then offers a variety of approaches to chose from and examples of successful ones. There is a chapter devoted to the new enterprise 2.0 tools and how they impact approaches. These tools are explored further as they go into detail on social networking. Following chapters cover governance, culture, and metrics. Four in-depth case studies conclude the book.

If you want a guide to implementing knowledge management in 2011, this is a good book for you. 

 

OutStart’s Hot Lava Offers a Flexible Mobile Communication Platform

OutStart's Hot Lava Mobile enables you to reach, train and communicate with your mobile workforce and on-the-go employees, partners, and customers. Hot Lava Mobile provides the ability to develop and deliver a variety of content and analyze results in support of corporate communications and mobile learning. It was the winner of eLearning! Magazine's Readership Award for 'Best Mobile Learning Solution' in each of the last two years.

I spoke with Mike Gregory from OutStart about its capabilities.  The tool was acquired in 2009 as part of the plan to expand their Knowledge Solutions offerings. I covered another component of these offerings in the post, OutStart’s Participate Supports the Social Side of Enterprise Work Processes. As a disclosure I am now working with OutStart on their social media efforts.

OutStart saw the rising capabilities of mobile devices as they progressed from being simple phones to becoming hand held computers with multiple capabilities. It also saw the increasing interest and potential of connecting to these powerful, always available, always connected devices. This makes a lot of sense to me. 

OutStart wanted a tool that was simple to use and was flexible enough to support a variety of use cases. Security was another concern, as was the ability to effectively handle audio and video. In addition, they wanted a tool that would operate on most, if not all, of the expanding number of mobile devices without any modifications. They wanted the ability for the tool to adjust messages to the many different screen sizes, resolution settings, and power within mobile devices.  Hot Lava Mobile effectively addressed all these issues. You create the content, and the technology figures out how to get to play properly on the many different mobile devices.

To create new content you can leverage the familiar PowerPoint environment to quickly develop mobile content once for deployment over 500 different internet-enabled mobile devices without the need for customization. There are many Hot Lava Mobile extensions to PowerPoint support the development of quizzes, polls, and assessments. Below you can see a PowerPoint being used to create a message.

 
Hot Lava Mobile also enables use of numerous content elements including rich audio and video, and Flash. With the ability to interact with users, enable instant feedback, reporting, and measurement you see how the content was received, read and understood. Hot Lava Mobile is a SaaS offering.

Here is an example of the capabilities within Hot Lava Mobile. A global insurance company used mobile learning as a way of reaching its workforce in a crisis situation. Polls were first sent to workers to gauge the situation to determine proper response. This secured engagement, as well as relevancy. Once assessed, information was then sent to workers in the form of text messages, audio, video, diagrams, and job aids such as check lists. A sample is shown below.

 
In each instance, real-time reporting ensured everyone had completed the poll, read instructions, taken training or simulations, passed assessments, and actually used the material on the job. You can see a sample assessment summary below.

 A post-crisis mobile survey indicated that emergency workers were able to assess damage 20% faster than in previous crisis situations.  This translates into cost savings to both the company and their subscribers. This case used the polling, multi-channel delivery, and assessment functions within Hot Lava

Here are some other examples: change management, employee engagement, and learning reinforcement. 

 

What is the Role of Social Media in Quality Journalism?

There are certainly two sides to this issue. I have been discussing both on this blog. See for example, Tech Reporters Losing Control of the Story to Social Media where noted that social media, and especially Twitter is spreading good and bad information equally quickly, and in volume.  See also The Rising Need for Content Curation Skills and Capabilities and The New Twitter Journalism. Mashable has added to this issue with an excellent and comprehensive post on Why Social Media Reinvigorates the Market for Quality Journalism.

It claims that social media has created a human filter for quality content. In support it notes that “recent analysis of the most-tweeted stories from The Daily iPad app revealed that users shared more hard news stories over gossip and opinion pieces.” This is like the old water cooler but with far more reach.

The post begins with a discussion of search that was suppose to bring out quality. The idea was that quality content would get linked to most. However, when content producers began to better understand how the search algorithms ranked content, they “started to create content “optimized” for search results by inter-linking content on their sites or monitoring search trends and filling the coverage with sub-par content to capitalize on search traffic, Sullivan said. And so we saw the explosion of content farms and a race for unique visitors to appease the advertising gods.”

So for true quality the Mashable article notes that sometimes it takes a human touch and this is where social media can play a part. However social media links have been devalued over time because they have been sold and gamed liked search. However, it is harder to game social media.  The behavior of some one using legitimately search and someone user social media is also different. “A user goes to search with an immediate need to find a specific piece of information and discovery is secondary. With social sites, users are consuming content in a leisurely and social state. Discovery takes the front seat.”

To support the last claim they provide some interesting data. A recent analysis of Mashable‘s social and traffic data, found “that Facebook and Twitter visitors spent 29% more time on Mashable.com and viewed 20% more pages than visitors arriving via search engines. This may suggest a more engaged or exploratory reader.”  The also noted that some traditional news outlets, such as the Washington Post, are getting increased incoming traffic from social media. In recognition of this they are making it easier for social media engagement with their sites. This has been referred to as seeing the rise of social media optimization but it is less gamey that traditional search engine optimization.

They close with the thought that “journalists have always “curated” content by grabbing pieces of information and contextualizing it into a story. The difference is that social media now provides efficiency in getting that information, often through first-hand sources who are micropublishing to their social profiles.”  This is a goal of the Darwin Awareness Engine ™ - to help journalist be more efficient in the curation process as it did with the PBS affiliate, KETC. 

 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2011: Audubon Zoo

Here is another in my series on New Orleans images 2011. This post covers some of 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 which I featured in yesterday’s post. The zoo has a number of local animals and features stuff from the Cajun swamps where I went fishing with my father went we lived in New Orleans in the 50s. Here is a post that covered pre-Katrina images of the zoo. 

Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                                     

              

 

Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods 2011: Audubon

I recently went back to my hometown, New Orleans for five days. Here is the first is a series of images from that trip, the Audubon neighborhood which includes the Audubon Zoo and Tulane University and falls between Jefferson Ave. on the east and Lowerline Street on the West. Most of these pictures were taken near the restaurant, Patois, on Laurel Street near the zoo and images of that restaurant are included.  We ate both lunch and dinner there and it was our favorite place during the trip that included a lot of wonderful meals. The dish you see is a potato gnocchi with crawfish. If you have one meal in New Orleans and want new school food go here. If you want traditional go to Willie Mae's Scotch House in Treme which I cover in an upcoming post. There is so much good food here.

The restaurant Patois may look familiar to those who watched the first season of the HBO series, Treme, as it served as the location for jeannette's restaurant. Here is a summary of images from my last trip in January 2010 when I provided a more extensive coverage of New Orleans neighborhoods. 

                                 

 

My Fast Forward Posts for May 2011

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 June.

Moving to Multi-application Approach to Handling Today’s More Complex Content Management Requirements

Are You a Happy Tweeter or a Gloomy One?

The Evolution of Site Search

How Large is the Cloud?

Taking Control of Our Social Presence and Knowledge Consumption

Social Software Market Predicted to Grow at 38% Through 2014

 

Can Cloud Computing Elevate the Role of IT, Making It More Strategic?

Here is an interesting study by IDG that found that cloud computing is enabling a more central role for IT in shaping business strategy and driving innovation. The research polled 200 IT managers in the U.S. and Europe. The vast majority (96 percent) believes that the primary role of IT has changed over the past five years, and 71 percent feel the trend to continue over the next two years.  While 54 percent of the survey participants acknowledge the current value of IT is largely defined by its role as owner and operator of IT infrastructure, they believe within two years, the primary value of IT will become managing the IT supply chain. Half feel that the cloud is contributing to this change.

Looking further into the results, IT professionals believe cloud computing can accelerate agility (63 percent), innovation (58 percent) and collaboration with the enterprise (57 percent). Respondents also anticipate cloud computing will boost IT productivity (55 percent) and decrease the resources dedicated to IT support (40 percent). These changes will likely trigger a demand for more business and management experience in senior IT professionals. Nearly 70 percent of respondents feel an increasing number of CIOs and senior IT staff will have a business (as opposed to a technology) background in the future.

The nimble nature of cloud based IT coupled with the reduction in maintenance needs, should allow CIOs to focus more on business issues. However this transition will set up challenges. At last year's MIT CIO Symposium, panelists talked about the CIO Paradox. 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.  I wonder what the talk will be at the 2011 session. I am planning to attend and will be reporting on it here. 

 

Tablets in the Enterprise in 2011

Over 15 million iPads have been sold. I have seen many in action and my wife is about to get one. Perhaps I will get inspired also. This is not all. Competitive products from Google and others are out or on the horizon. People want to replace bulky binders with sleek tablets. That is my wife’s goal. Even more replace carrying laptops to events such as my friends Thierry Hubert and Luis Suarez. Tablets’ portability, convenience, connectedness and application portfolio make them very attractive.  Now they are being used beyond the office in fields including construction, manufacturing, and retail as they offer more than smart phones in many ways.

This raises a new support requirement for enterprise IT departments, as well as business units. An enterprise tablet strategy is in order and that is the task addressed by Forrester’s Ted Schadler with his report, Tablets in the Enterprise in 2011. In most cases, tablets.serve as a third device for most employees who still need the productivity tools of a computer.  In 2011, IT must work with other business units to determine what employees will use tablets for tasks and what they can do to help workers get the most from the investment in these devices.  

The reports mentions that at the beginning of 2010, 56% of North American and European enterprises already supported personal mobile devices, and this will likely hold for tablets over the next three years. Many of the tablets are purchased by employees but for them to be aligned to work tasks, IT must plan on how best to set up work data and applications.

One issue is adapting thousands of business applications to run well on tablets and smart phones.  Ted notes that desktop virtualization may be the answer.  By running client applications on a server or an employee’s PC, you can make them available safely through a virtual desktop. He adds that tablets may be the killer motivator to embrace desktop virtualization.

There is more in the report that addresses an emerging issue of importance.