Portals and KM

Web 2.0: The Poster - Art for Bloggers

Happy New Year’s Eve. What some more art? Here is your web 2.0 poster displayed by Tech Crunch and made by Berlin-based eboy. It goes for 16 Euros plus shipping. Thanks to John Maloney for pointing this out.

James Brown, James Brown, James Brown

I have a frequently watched concert video of James Brown, Live in America, that begins with his name flashed three times across the screen. As the “hardest working man in show business” he was a great workout inspiration and this video was my favorite to put in front of the stationary bike. I was sad to hear that James Brown died a few day ago. I have always admired his music and recently bought James Brown - Live at the Apollo. Here is a piece about him from the New York Times, Godfather of Soul, and C.E.O. of His Band.

As the message about him at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame reads, “James Brown has had more honorifics attached to his name than any other performer in music history. He has variously been tagged "Soul Brother Number One," "the Godfather of Soul," "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" and even "the Original Disco Man." This much is certain: what became known as soul music in the Sixties, funk music in the Seventies and rap music in the Eighties is directly attributable to James Brown.”

What more can be said. He will be missed.

The Next Sunbelt Conference - 2007

The International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) is asking for proposals for individual papers and paper session organizers for the next Sunbelt social network conference, which will take place at the island of Corfu, May 1-6, 2007. Great spot and time to be there. This is the premier social network conference. It provides an interdisciplinary venue to present current work in the area of social networks. Proponents are invited to submit their paper titles and abstracts at the Sunbelt web page (full papers are not requested) until January 30, 2007. The process of evaluation of submitted papers will be finalized in February 2007.

Transforming the Enterprise

My first post on the FAST Forward blog was Will Enterprise Web 2.0 totally transform enterprise knowledge management? I won’t repeat it here but there were some good comments so I thought I would alert you on what others were saying on the topic. I wrote about the large change management effort required to get most people in today’s large organizations get used the transparency of enterprise 2.0.

Jevon MacDonald pointed to a post on some of the issues in From Inside to Outside: How do new organizations work? and referred to a book with right title, Trusted Space, with Robert Patterson. enterprise 2.0

Puneet Gupta, commented on the possibilities of social bookmarking as a useful component of a knowledge management system. Tom Mandel linked to a discussion by Robert Scoble on the topic.

Indus Khaitan commented on the post, “The aspects are definitely human; it requires evangelization in from of the CIO, or the Knowledge Officer. In corporations we’re still seeing initiatives around traditional Content Management System which give us nothing more than a “static intranet”. This is because the executive leadership does not see a visible ROI around “Writable Intranet.” His comments and those of Euan Semple (see below) prompted me to write, DIY KM and Recruitment.

Euan Semple’s, post on the FAST Foreward blog, Ten questions companies SHOULD be asking themselves about Enterprise 2.0 was written from the employees who get the needed changes. He followed it up with Business as usual? about some of the obstacles to implementing enterporise 2.0.

Here was a nice review of the FAST blog from IWR. enterprise social media

Get Your Free Web 2.0 Apps on Sourceforge

Sourceforge.net is a repository of free open source software, including stuff for business. Portals Magazine compiled the list below of the top 10 most popular Web 2.0-related applications available on the site. I am not sure of their criteria as these choices do not correspond to the Sourceforge community awards or the most downloaded ones. Perhaps these choices have changed since the Portals people did their research in November.

Even though I just learned about it, Sourceforge is not a secret. There were 136,923 registered projects and 1,460,448 registered users in mid-December. They also said they are hiring so check them out. The enterpise winner in the community awards was Zimbra Collaboration Suite – “An Open Source server and client technology for next-generation enterprise messaging and collaboration.” Not all the software is free. IBM is selling their software such as this IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition V1.1 based on Apache Geronimo. But that’s okay.

Here is the Portals Magazine Top Ten. They all look useful to Web 2.0 developers but with the exception of one or two they look beyond the normal business user.

qooxdoo is an advanced open-source JavaScript-based GUI toolkit. It continues where simple HTML leaves off. This way qooxdoo can help you implement your AJAX-enhanced web 2.0 application.

Pligg CMS is a Web 2.0 Content Management System (CMS). The user interface invites participation and gives visitors a reason to come back to your site by making them decide on the site's content and giving them the chance to build a social network.

BMForum: "BMForum is a open source forum based on PHP & MySQL. BMForum is a powerful forum with AJAX, Tags, RSS and more Web 2.0 Technology."

Plottable Tagboard System: "A tagboard (shoutbox) script written in PHP and uses MySQL as a backend. Features Web 2.0 AJAX features. Currently still in BETA."

Message Board Software: "NextBBS lets you create your own Community with unrivaled ease of use.” It claims to offers the most 'Web 2.0' experience currently available (whatever that means – you have to see it to know what they mean).

AjaxFTP: "A flexible widget to incorporate into your web 2.0 app to allow FTP access through a browser. AjaxFTP lets you browse, upload, and download files from remove servers using only Javascript and PHP. Built with customization in mind."

Scriptio: "Scriptio is a framework for presenting animations and educational content in a rich online experience. Featuring an easy-to-learn scripting language for fast prototyping and production-quality development, Scriptio is designed for Web 2.0 applications."

Atomic OS: "Atomic OS is a responsive Web 2.0 operating environment & development platform. Based on AJAX techniques, it emulates/provides standard operating system features including a command-line shell, interpreter, filesystem, database access and GUI services."

jsTracer: "jsTracer is a simple yet feature rich JavaScript logging and debugging tool. It is especially useful for debugging what has been coined 'Web 2.0' code."

NOAGrid: "A framework for Grid Computing using thin clients. The framework will support web browsers as clients, mainly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla. Utilizing newest web technologies - Web 2.0, Ajax (to the extreme..)"

Let me know if you have tried any of these and how they worked.

2006 MAKE winners

The 2006 Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) are out. I did not make up this acronym. Since Portals and KM is not eligible, the North American MAKE winners include, Apple Computer, Caterpillar, Fluor, Google, Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Raytheon, 3M, and US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA). Thanks to Stan Garfield for alerting me to this.

In the late 90s I used to represent my former firm at the rewards events in London. It seems so long ago and another generation of business budgets. I wonder if they have a live event. I did not see it listed in their calendar. One of the findings I liked in past reports was that the earnings for MAKE winners were higher than for the rest of companies, demonstrating a correlation between good KM and profits. But I am sure these firms are good at a lot of stuff.

You can get the report summaries for free at the MAKE site.

Holiday Video Ad via You Tube

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it today. I also send best wishes to everyone who celebrates a holiday this time of year. I am always amazed at the ability to share stuff on the Web now, including video, audio, etc. I guess growing up in the 50s and 60s causes this amazement with how far we have come. Here is a nice holiday related ad from the Scottish drink, Irn Bru. It is presented through YouTube which seems to have become the defacto means for much of video sharing. I got this from If! Newsletter as you will see. Enjoy.

SnapGenie - Share Stories Behind Photos

Here is another content sharing site. It is the holidays for many people where family pictures are taken and stories created. Thia site allows you to share stories behind your photos with MyFamily.com SnapGenie. You can build narrated sldies shopws of your pictures. As the site says, "Upload up to 50 photos per show. Use a phone to narrate your slide show. Publish it and share with family and friends. With the click of a button you are ready to share your SnapGenie show." This looks like a good idea. Is this the next You Tube?

Ambient Devices - Smart Umbrella that Forecasts Rain

It may be too late for most holiday shopping but here is a gift that no one will already have. It is an umbrella that forecasts if it might rain so you will not forget it. It is one of the latest products from Ambient Devices. “If the chances of rain are 100% the light in the handle will pulse 100 times per minute. If rain is less likely the pulse rate decreases proportionally.”

I wrote about them a while back, Glanceable Technology: Ambient Devices Opens a New Market. It provides a practical rendition of glanceable technology where physical devices undergo changes based on digital data fed to them through a pervasive low-cost wireless network. I now see that they have come a long way. Here is an idea to watch.

Flogging for WalMart - Opps!

It is the holiday shopping season. Here is one for the times. Some of you may have already read about this but it is worth mentioning as a cautionary tale. Tom Siebert writes, “What do you call a phony blog that's actually a front for a huge corporation? A "flog"?” in his article, Pro-Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches To A Halt. Apparently Walmart hired two people to produce a pro-Wal-Mart blog called "Wal-Marting Across America," It was supposed to be written by a pair of average Americans chronicling their cross-country travels in an RV and lodging in Wal-Mart parking lots.

Tom Siebert writes: “ The blog, launched Sept. 27, was profiled in this week's issue of BusinessWeek, which exposed the site as a promotional tactic engineered by Working Families for Wal-Mart (WFWM), an organization launched by Wal-Mart's public relations firm Edelman. WFWM paid for the RV and all travel expenses, rerouted the trip's original plan, and plastered a logo on the RV's side. Though a banner ad announced WFWM sponsored the site, it did not divulge Wal-Mart paid for the couple's RV, gas, food and other expenses.”

The venture lasted less than two days before it was outed by the watchdog organization Wal-Mart Watch. It is amazing what people think they can get away with on the transparent web.

Thanks to Rohit Bhargava for pointing this story out. web 2.0 marketing business blogs

Transumers – Waiting 2.0

A few weeks ago I wrote about the proliferation of 2.0 designations and jokingly said, “I am waiting for Food 2.0, Eating 2.0, Crossing the Street 2.0, etc. Well it may happen.

I recently read at PFSK about transumers which they define as “People who are in a state of hiatus, consumers who are either at an airport, train station or hotel.” These people are increasingly becoming target for marketers. This is something I have noticed with an increase in ads directed at you when you are filling up your gas tank or waiting in the grocery check out line and can see a video screen. PFSK pointed to a detailed report on transumers that goes more into the psychology of the people in this category, rather than simply the location.

Transumers “are consumers driven by experiences instead of the ‘fixed’, by entertainment, by discovery, by fighting boredom, who increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The fixed is replaced by an obsession with the current, an ever-shorter satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many experiences and stories as possible. In other words; the past is, well, over, and the future is uncertain, so all that remains is the present, living for the 'now'*.

There may be some wisdom here but regardless I think that many of us in transit activities are more likely to welcome a promotional message to fight boredom than when we are engaged in regular activities or simply at home. It will not take too long to look for increased participation of this audience with these messages rather than simply content distribution so we may get pumping gas 2.0 or waiting in the check out line 2.0 after all.

Crazy Patents – Free Patents Online

John Maloney alerted me to this site as part of a long email list discussion on the issue of patenting methods. I think the practice has been abused where organizations have patented things like knowledge management and training methods that are were developed by many simply because no one had patented them. Then they misuse the patent as a misleading sales tool, and even worse, as a club against competitors with smaller legal budgets. Anyway, here is the site that is both funny and sad that our patent office spends time and honors such things.

As the site says this section is for “Crazy Patents! For the USPTO to issue a patent, the invention must be novel, non-obvious, and "useful." The standard for usefulness is certainly the weakest of the three -- any possible utility, no matter how small, will suffice.”

Here are three examples in their words. There are many more.

Plug for and method of patching a hole in a wall – “Maybe not really crazy, but crazily obvious. This patent shows you how to patch a hole in a wall by cutting out a piece the same size as a pre-formed plug, and then inserting the plug and plastering over it. Isn't that pretty much the way drywall is always patched???”

Method of exercising a cat “In 1993 the USPTO issued this patent for using a laser pointer to exercise a cat (yes, by moving the laser pointer beam around and having the cat chase it). Come on now... Not only is this crazy to patent, but this idea had surely been thought of long before this patent came about. In fact, a bit of research turned up the book "One Hundred and Eighty-Seven Ways to Amuse a Bored Cat" (Ballantine Books; May, 1982) that describes the exact same idea, but using a flashlight. Sorry guys -- the use of a laser pointer for the same thing is obvious.”

User-operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user's buttocks - United States Patent 6293874 – “An amusement apparatus including a user-operated and controlled apparatus for self-infliction of repetitive blows to the user's buttocks by a plurality of elongated arms bearing flexible extensions that rotate under the user's control.”

FAST Forward Blog and Conference

I was recently asked to join a group blog on enterprise 2.0 issues in advance of the FAST Forward 07 conference on innovation to be held in San Diego, Feb, 7-9. The conference has a bunch of tracks moderated by John Battelle, author of The Search, that focus on Web 2.0 and business. Keynotes include: “Ray Lane, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; former COO of Oracle. Other keynotes include Tim O'Reilly, Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media, and Web 2.0 luminary; John M. Lervik, Founder and CEO, FAST, Matt Brown, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research, and several others.” It looks good.

The session is sponsored by the enterprise search engine, Fast, a firm based in Norway. Their site has a number of useful sounding on demand webinars on search related issues with various customer and analyst speakers, as well as live ones such as Finding the “Search” in Web 2.0.

The FAST Forward group blog is organized by Corante. Its focus is on “Enterprise 2.0 and how today's companies and individuals are harnessing technology to collaborate, innovate, manage knowledge.” The other bloggers so far include some on my favorite bloggers:

Rod Boothby
Jerry Bowles
George Dearing
Jim McGee
Joe McKendrick
Euan Semple
and I heard that Kathleen Gilroy is will be providing podcasts.

Everyone has put up at least one post, some more. The discussion is a good one so far but should only get better. Comments have started. We will go at least until the conference and I will be pointing to ones I especially liked such as Jim McGee on Implementing social technologies inside organizations and Euan Semple on Words, Words, Words. I will not repeat my own posts in this blog but I may refer to a few. Here was my first attempt, Will Enterprise Web 2.0 totally transform enterprise knowledge management? Now that I go the introduction out of the way, I will try to be more substantive next time. business blogs enterprise social media

Adding Social Network Analysis to Search

I wrote a piece for Enterprise Search Center on Adding Social Network Analysis to Search. It recently became available on line so I wanted to share this. I opened with, “The web today is about participation and participant-created content. The most effective web search tools take this participation into consideration in the process of delivering relevant results. A look at these techniques (and some of the problems with them) can lead to insights into exploring the relationship between social context and search results inside the firewall as well.” And then went on to compare Google and iQuest and other search tools. You can get the complete article for free by registering at the link above.

There are a lot of other useful features, white papers, research reports and other stuff at the site.

Classical Spanish Music by the Boston Symphony Orchestra

A friend gave me a free ticket to an afternoon performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was a series of great classical pieces by some of the best 20th century Spanish composers. Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos was the guest conductor. Included were Albenz’s Suite Espanoloa, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, Palmo’s Nocturnos de Andaluca, and Falla’s Suites from the ballet, The Three Corner Hat. Concierto de Aranjuez, is very well known because of Miles Davis and Gil Evans included and adaptation of the softer second movement as the lead number on the album, Sketches of Spain, one of my favorites. I had the vinyl in college and own the CD now. The classic Spanish guitarist, Pepe Romero, played the solos in both Rodrigo’s and Palmo’s work. Palmo wrote his piece in honor of Romero so the BSO brought together a wonderful combination.

Palomo was present at a pre-concert talk that added a lot to the performance for me. Before he came out the speaker talked about the difference between single instrument works for instruments like the piano or guitar. In the single instrument works, the piece can be more subtle and intimate. A full orchestra work involves broader themes and projection to a large audience. It needs to be more accessible, much like a private versus public conversation. In addition, the acoustic guitar’s sounds stops quickly, unlike the piano or violin where you can slide and prolong the sound. The Spanish composers added a lot of ornamentation to keep the sound going. The guitar also cannot compete with an orchestra so the playing alternates between guitar solos or solos with very mild accompaniment and the full orchestra so you can get a call and response.

The performance was powerful throughout with much of heroic nature of Spanish music and culture coming through. There as was great moment when the conductor, composer, and guitarist, all classics of Spanish music, came out together to respond to the chorus of applause. Spanish classical music is greatly influenced by dance, especially flamenco, and these themes came through. I have spent a good bit of time in Spain

Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos has been with the BSO many times before He led the best Boston Symphony Orchestra concert of the weekend Sunday afternoon in August 2005 at Tanglewood. He also offered two versions of the Don Quixote story. As the Globe said, “Manuel de Falla's ''Master Peter's Puppet Show" is a half-hour gem, a retelling for singers, puppets, and chamber orchestra of a single episode from Cervantes's masterpiece. Richard Strauss's ''Don Quixote" is a set of 10 variations for large orchestra and cello soloist; each variation depicts an episode from the book, or a different facet of the character of the knight of the woeful countenance.” The Globe has reviewed him many times but so far has done this amazing show. They even said in 2005 that, “Next to the installation of James Levine as music director, the return of Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos to the life of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2000 after an absence of 29 years has been one of the most heartening events in the institution's recent history.” Look for his next return.

Ahmet Ertegun

I was sad to learn that Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records died December 14 in Manhattan. For those who saw the move Ray, he was featured well in the development of Ray Charles and R&B in general (Aretha Franklin). He also was a big mover in jazz (John Coltrane) and rock (Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin). There was a nice piece about him in the NYT yesterday, Ahmet Ertegun, Music Executive, Dies at 83. It showed how he took a chance on an unusual career that supported his passion and succeeded.

I wrote a post, Sunday with Ray Charles, when Ray died. It is hard to think how the music I described there, and much more, would have happen without Ahmet. He was one of the founders of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where you can see his influence, as I did last Spring. I have many Atlantic CDs including the full R&B collection that is one of my most played iTunes playlist. Ahmet certainly supported many people who have made our lives richer.

Here is another story on Ahmet in the NYT that appeared today, A Mogul Who Helped Mold Pop Culture.

Fourth International Conference on Knowledge Management

The 4th International Conference on Knowledge Management (ICKM-2007) will be held in Vienna from 27 to 28 August 2007. The conference includes developers, academics and practioners in different areas of knowledge management. Unpublished papers are eligible for the main conference. Workshop contributions for the industry workshops and work in progress can be submitted as powerpoint presentations (same deadlines as papers and directly to the workshop chairs). On-line submission is required for both. The proceedings will be published. This is a great city for such an event and good time to be there.

Important Dates
Call for papers - submission of papers as of: Nov. 13, 2006 (using distribution lists of all partners)
Electronic submission of contributions closes: Feb. 28, 2007
Notification of paper acceptance: April 15, 2007
Camera-ready version of accepted papers: May 15, 2007

Helix Commerce Blogs

My friends at Helix Commerce have started several blogs. Cindy Gordon is writing about collaborative commerce and innovation. She recently wrote about the collaborative writing project, We are Smarter Than Me. This is a group developed book project. As Cindy writes, “Already more than 1,000 people have signed up to participate; a million more will soon be getting invitations to join. But even without an invitation, you can contribute — by writing, editing, making suggestions or adding graphics. Two of the biggest names in business education — the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — are backing the project. I got one of the millions of invitations and I am still thinking about it. The post, Innovation Through Interaction Intelligence using Wiki Solutions describes some of the importance of wikis and the need to change old behaviors to make them successful.

Martin Cleaver writes lot about wikis in his blog, one of his areas of expertise. Here is a useful post where writes about Wikis compared to Email, Discussion Groups and Blogs. In his words, “discussion forums (such as phpBB) centralize conversations, creating an asset for the organization that runs them. Blogs thread together conversations dispersed across blogs mostly belonging to individuals… Wikis are means for a group to truly negotiate over meaning, align on values and build action plans together.” While Martin is biased in favor of wikis he makes some good points.

I think these are two blogs to watch and I look forward to seeing how they evolve. business blogs

Who links to You?

This is a follow on to my post yesterday about transparency. There are many ways to find out who is linking to you without the added transparency that mybloglog.com offers.

If you simply want to know who is linking to you there are many choices. Who Links to me is a site that aggregates many of these tools. What is interesting is the wide diversity in results. Here are the recent results on my blog as an example.

Google Page Rank for this page: 6
Yahoo! has found 39,200 links to this site.
MSN Search has found 1,928 links to this site.
Blogrolling.com has found 16 blogrolls that contain this link.
Google Backlink Search: 1,540
Alexa Traffic Details: did not work
Technorati Search: 489 links (or 219 links from 123 sources
Icerocket Search: 137 sources
Del.icio.us Bookmarks: no history

I guess I should set up something in del.icio.us. I do not do enough to promote this blog. Do you know of other tools? What has been your experience?

How much transparency do you really want?

The web has a great ability to generate transparency and people who have similar interest to each other. I recently got an email from uPlayMe, “a free social networking application designed to link people with similar tastes in musical artists, songs or genres... Once installed, the uPlayMe application automatically scans for music recently played on your computer or iPod and then connects you with other uPlayMe users who share your music tastes. The program continues to run in the background, constantly updating your matches based on what you're listening to.’ I did not want to have a tool want to have a tool making these connections but I am sure some people do and it will be successful in today’s web psyche.

David Gurteen recently alerted an email group that I belong to about Mybloglog.com. As Davd said it, “allows anyone with a weblog or a personal website like mine to build a proper community around the site - you could say a bit like MySpace for bloggers!... The first shows a list of people plus their photos who have recently visited my site - they of course need to be members of MyBlogLog - and if you click through you get to see their profiles.and a whole load more. The second panel shows the top five links that readers have clicked on.”

His comment generated a flurry of responses on the pros and cons of such a tool. One with concerns came from Mathemagenic that featured a link to Jill Walker’s blog post on the tool.

Jill Walker is an associate professor at the University of Bergen, and who does research on how people tell stories online. She talkd about mybloglog.com recently and said it is “a site that provides stats about your blog and that also has a social network thing set up…I can upload my photo and specify that I read Boing Boing or Water Cooler Games and from there, others can see I’m “in” those “communities” and so on…but there are certainly websites I visit that I do NOT want my image permanently afixed to so everyone who visits that website thereafter can see that I was there.”

Now I always assume that my internet activities can be tracked if someone really wants to. Look at the use of Google searches in legal proceedings. I do not go places that I would not want to be public information. However, I think that services should make their users aware of the transparency their services generates so people can make a conscious decision on what they opt into. Jill’s blog post has a number of comments that allow you to pursue the issue further. In fairness to Mybloglog, they are trying to respond to concerns such as Jill’s.

Here is more on the issue from Mathemagenic that alerted me to Jill’s post.

Add Wikipedia Search to Your Blog

You may noticed that if you scroll down the right side of my blog, just after the subscribe link your find a wikipedia search box that works. You can add this to your blog also. I found it from Dave Taylor's blog. John Maloney pointed to his work. Dave responds to questions from bloggers and others in his Ask Dave Taylor blog.

Nice Photos from Provence - Howard Dinin

Howard recently passed out some good photos hear his place in Provence, Late Fall in Fox-Amphoux 2006. Take a look.

Wings of Desire - American Repertory Theater

We have season tickets to the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge that has brought us some good plays and some really great ones. On Thursday we saw a very interesting play that is worth seeing, somewhere between good and great. Wings of Desire is a stage adaptation by Gideon Lester and Dirkje Houtman after the film Wings of Desire (Himmel uber Berlin), directed by Wim Wenders, with screenplay by Wim Wenders, Peter Handke, and Richard Reitinger. It is done in association with Toneelgroep Amsterdam and directed by Ola Mafaalani. The ART hosts the world premier from November 25 to December 17, 2006
at the Loeb Drama Center.

I would urge you to see it. The performances are strong and the staging is very experimental, which is often the case at the ART, but it works. A trapeze artist flies over a lunch truck doing amazing moves and angels look down on earth. There is very creative use of sand as a metaphor and stage prop. Our fellow Cambridge resident, Robin Young of NPR, reads the news of that night and even offers the weather a bit later, adding an immediate contemporary note. There are other Boston references as the play does not try to recreate Berlin of the 50s as shown in the movie. I think this is a good move as it simplifies the themes and makes it very current. The rock music could be better and softer but that was my only complaint. The Boston Globe thought it was one to see also. BTW the ART now has a ART blog.

Here is Paul Tamburello's review which makes alot of sense, although I think I enjoyed it more than Paul.

Enterprise Irregulars - Group Blog

Here is a group blog, Enterprise Irregulars, by such people as Rod Boothby and David Terrar. One post,Software as a Service (SaaS): An Enterprise Perspective, covered some of the statements that Microsoft is making in this space and a link to an Microsoft white paper by Fred Chong and Gianpaolo Carraro (who have blogs) by the same name, Software as a Service (SaaS): An Enterprise Perspective.

This paper provides a nice summary of the topic from a company that mostly sells the opposite – on premises software. The simple definition from the artice, “Simply put, SaaS can be defined as "software deployed as a hosted service and accessed over the Internet." Of course there is much more.

They conclude: “Enterprises would do well to consider the flexibility and risk-management implications of adding SaaS to their portfolios of IT services. Integration and composition are critical components in your architecture strategies to incorporate SaaS successfully as a fully participating member of your service-centric IT infrastructure. Finally, we believe that the future of enterprise computing is not going to be purely on-premise or in-the-cloud. Instead, like the yin and yang, they will exist in symbiotic harmony.”

If you cannot beat them join them.

Meanwhile, check out Enterprise Irregulars. This was just one post. Thanks to James McGovern for pointing out this blog. enterprise 2.0 enterprise social media

Why Web 2.0 Matters and How You Can Make the Most of It

Here is a Christmas present if you have $375 or more and know someone how wants to learn about web 2.0. Tim O’Reilly, one of those who coined the term, wants to cash in on this naming fame. He recently released, Why Web 2.0 Matters and How You Can Make the Most of It. It starts at $375 and goes up.

The report “identifies eight core patterns that are keys understanding and navigating the Web 2.0 era and details the problems each pattern solves or opportunities it creates.” I am sure it might be good but I am going to pass in favor of all the free information on the web including the useful free excerpt at the O’Reilly site.

There some useful stats such as one billion people now have access to the internet. It probably doe sot mean they own access but are near a cyber café and others means. I wonder if it also means they can afford to spend time at these places. At any rate, it is a big number and I am confident the number is increasing.

In the first quarter of 2006 MySpace had 280,000 new users and had the second most internet traffic. I wonder who was first. In 2005 eBay conducted 8 billion API-based transactions. The recent Technorati report had it tracking 57 million blogs. The web has certainly changed to support user-generated content and the people have voted with their actions.

The report had some of the usual stuff about software as services. All valid but not new. I was interested to read about shadow applications that monitor public facing web apps. For example, Flickr targeted their users who do not invite friends. In response to this data they added Flckr as a contact and taught them how to make better use of the service. Good idea.

Taste for Makers – Paul Graham

Several weeks ago Paul Graham spoke at the Berkman Center. As the notice said, “In a recent essay, "Taste for Makers," Paul argues that successful design, from math to software to painting, relies on the same aesthetic principles. Taste is therefore not a matter of subjectively appreciating fine works but is a required capability for creating great software.

The essay shares some very interesting design principles that apply to software design as well as art. Paul has experience in both fields. A few concepts.

Good design is simple.
Good design solves the right problem.
Good design is suggestive.

There are many more principles carefully defined with examples. Wikis are a good candidate for this.

Brian Lamb quoted Charlie Mingus in his essay on wikis.

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. “

Take a look at what Paul wrote. It is full of good reminders.

Web 2.0 for Business Advantage: A Personal Guide to Profiting from the New Web – Otter Group

Here is a great introduction to Web 2.0. Kathleen Gilroy of the Otter group has produced, Web 2.0 for Business Advantage: A Personal Guide to Profiting from the New Web, a forty-page guide that “explores what is driving the dramatic adoption of Web 2.0 and how you can profit from it. The guide covers key advantages that can be had from smartly deploying Web 2.0: building an online presence; personal information management and the new desktop; and the new collaboration.”

The book includes three cases where business problems were solved with Web 2.0: podcasting for learning, innovation in financial services;, and learning networks at the American Library Association. Kathleen writes this in the first person and coveys a personal journey as the central case. This makes it much more readable and useful for other small businesses like her, including myself.

In true web 2.0 manner, she has set up del.icio.us tags for further reading, opened a discussion forum, published a set of video podcasts as tutorials. You can find all this in the report and the document is also full of useful links. A good small business blog example is Nitewinds Kennels who stared a blog and has spent $300 on Google Ads directing people to the blog. It has resulted is $10,000 is sales, some new ongoing customers, and daily enquiries about her services, a nice ROI.

There is a good review of the main blogging tools, including MySpace. I knew that business had started to infiltrate MySpace but it was useful to learn more. I followed a number of Kathleen’s suggestions throughout the report, including checking out myspace restaurants on Google and found the Nu-way Restaurant in Spartanburg, SC with some good rock coming out of their web site. I may go their the next time I visit my cousins in nearby Greer. It was number one in Google for the search, one more example of the power of blogs for search results.

I could go on with examples but you should get the report yourself. At $9.95 it is a much less expense way than the O’Reilly report to learn more about the opportunities within the new web. I learned a lot myself. I frequently get asked about the difference between blogs for such tasks as project mamagement and groupware. I have a few ideas on this, primarily the transparency vs. silos issue. Kathleen offers a nice articulation of these differences but then provides the best answer - simply Google the name of a groupware tool and add the word "sucks" to see what the wisdom of crowds is currently saying.

Blog des managers intranet - French-English Bilingual Blog

I recently learned about Blog des managers intranet run by Didier Masse. It largely in French but there is an English section, B-r-entish Trends (UK), that is looking at trends in this market. It recently started but looks like a good resource. They describe this section as “Headlines for people involved in Intranet Management.” I found out that Wired Magazine has blogs to supplement their traditional distribution channel.

Judging the English content, it should be an excellent source for the French speaking intranet world. I have learned from my friends at Knowledge Energies that many innovative developments are occurring in this space. Look at Affinitz.com for example. I wish I could read French to track it more directly.

Boston Christmas with the Back Bay Chorale

Here is a great event for those who like Christmas and are in Boston. Come and hear the Back Bay Chorale sing Christmas music, sing with them, and celebrate the holiday. They are offering two concerts, one evening event on Friday December 15 at the Old South Church Copley Square, Boston and one afternoon one on Sunday December 17th, 2005 3:00PM
Marsh Chapel, 733 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. I have a friend who sings with them and will be attending the Friday night version.

As their web site says, “In its 34th season, the Back Bay Chorale is dedicated to the performance of a wide repertoire of choral music, often with imaginative settings and staging. The coming season is marked by innovative presentations of Monteverdi's ground-breaking Vespers of 1610, J.S. Bach's astounding St. Matthew Passion and a concert of psalms that encompass music of the German 17th century and the American 20th.”

uPlayMe – Music and Social Networking

Here is an interesting web 2.0 idea, uPlayMe. As their site says, “you play music, uPlayMe finds people who are playing the same music and shows you what they're listening to. You can chat with them, visit their pages on other sites like MySpace, or just find new music to listen to.”

I received an invitation a while back. It Is not something that I have time for but I would imagine it would appeal to music fans who want to meet similar people. I often play music on my iTunes now that I have a Mac and it might be tempting if I was looking to meet a lot of people with similar tastes.

I wonder what other combinations will emerge.

practitioner perspectives on value networks and knowledge innovation

This blog by Oliver Schwabe, practitioner perspectives on value networks and knowledge innovation, provides “reflections on Value Networks and Knowledge Innovation from the practitioner perspective.” I heard him present at the recent New England Value networks event and he was inspired by this event and the presentation by Kathleen Gilroy to start a blog so here it is. This should be an interesting one to watch.