Portals and KM

Shrimp Festival Litte River South Carolina

I was fortunate to be at the Shrimp Festival in Little River South Carolina. There was great food and music in the coastal setting. Here are some images.

                                       

Painting of Night Riders - Mardi Gras 2013

Here is a 20" x 20" acrylic painting of two flost riders from a night parade in Mardi Gras 2013. I now an artist with the Arts Council of New Orleans and particpate in their monthy art market. These markets occur generally on the last Saturday at Palmer Park in New Orleans, at the corner of S. Carrolton and S. Claiborne. Today, Saturday March 30 is the next market and I will have a booth and offer paintings for sale. Since I arrived back in my hometown, I have been painting a variety of themes related to the city. The April market is held on April 20 because of jazz fest the follwing week. 

Wrike Provides Mobile Visualization of Project Schedules on an Interactive Timeline

Wrike offers on-demand, online project management and collaboration solution that helps both co-located and distributed teams work together in real time.  I have written about it several times before (see Wrike Provides Mobile Project Management). Here is Wrike’s Andrew Filev presenting a demo at IBM Connect 2013. Wrike integrates with IBM Connections to become more social.

Wrike's product vision is based on the innovative "work graph" model, connecting all work in one central hub that is comfortable to manage and navigate. Adopting the features of the "social graph" to the project collaboration space, Wrike allows users to bring together as many projects as they need and work on them in a scalable environment.

Wrike is now offering a dynamic Gantt chart as part of the latest version of its mobile apps for iPhone and Android smartphones.The mobile interactive timeline, one of the core planning tools that project managers rely on, inherits the key functions from Wrike's web app. Even when they are in the field, users can easily browse project plans from a bird's-eye view or in more detail, and quickly adjust them with a few taps. Just like on the Gantt chart in Wrike's web app, mobile users can reschedule tasks by dragging and dropping them, convert them to milestones, and change other details, for example, assignees.

Ready for installation from the App Store and Google Play, users can also, in three easy steps, configure Wrike's free mobile app to receive push notifications of project updates. As with the software's web-based version, schedule changes are readily visible in real-time to all team members.

 

Do You Know Outstanding Social Business Leaders for 2013?

The Brainyard is seeking Outstanding Social Business Leaders For 2013. They are looking for introductions to the best of the best, a new set of Social Business Leaders to be announced at June's E2 Conference in Boston. In 2012, they honored Bonobos, Cemex, Ford Motor Co., McKesson, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, TD Bank and Unisys. Chris Laping, the Red Robin CIO we named our 2012 Social Business Leader of the Year, joined me for an onstage interview at E2, and it wound up being one of the top-rated events at the conference.

I think this is a very useful effort as the conference could use more business cases and fewer consultant sessions. This is not a criticism of past conferences. When enterprise 2.0 was new there was a real need for thought leaders to provide a vision. Now that it has been around a while, we need to hear more from organizations on their successes, challenges, and lessons learned.

As Jane McConnell reported in Digital Workplace Trends 2013, adoption and deployment remains a challenge. She found in early adopters resistance tends to come from middle managers while in the majority it comes from senior management. I think this is because in the early adopters the senior managers have bought in so things are starting to change and hitting the middle management resistance. In the majority things have not progressed far enough for middle managers to really worry. Jane also found that, “adoption lags far behind deployment for the social capabilities that empower individuals and self-organizing communities and challenge traditional hierarchies and roles within organizations.”

Let’s get more organizations on the stage to share what they have learned to help the rest of us. 

 

JackBe Enables Business Intelligence to be More Accessible and Robust with Recent Moves

I have covered JackBe for a number of years and like their evolution from a mashup engine to making use of this capability for bringing business intelligence to the average business user (see for example, JackBe Expands Real-Time Operational Intelligence with its New Offering and JackBe Presto Provides Self-Service Business Intelligence on a Mobile Basis). I spoke with John Crupi, their CTO, and Sandra Hamorsky, Director, Product Marketing about their latest moves.

Presto 3.5, their latest release, provides business users with direct access to real-time KPIs and analytics through ease of use features, allowing them to move quickly without the need for IT support. This enables users to assess the business impact of changing conditions as they happen. Sandra gave a great example, a dashboard for hardware stores to best serve their customers during a storm situation. In this case it was Hurricane Sandy. Sandra had recently joined JackBe and saw the need to help hardware stores as she was having trouble getting the right tools in preparation for the storm.

This is a good example of a highly important support tool that is urgently needed quickly but will only be used for a short period. It is not a good candidate for a long wait for IT to produce something. So Sandra developed a dashboard in 45 minutes to help stores track the storm using the new DIY features of Presto 3.5. You can see the results below.

There are inventory checklists, along with the probable impact on supplies for each store, weather forecasts, a Twitter feed on the storm and other relevant data sources. This was all very useful as Sandy brought rain to the East and snow to the Midwest. I know these transitions from personal experience as I drove through the entire length of Sandy moving my belongings from Cambridge MA to New Orleans (see Driving Through Hurricane Sandy To New Orleans).

With Presto 3.5, business users can easily create real-time operational and key performance indicator (KPI)-driven apps and dashboards such as the one above that combine data from many live enterprise and social media information sources. John said that they had learned from customers that their IT departments were often not able to keep up with the demands of business users. Once the IT security, governance and protocols are in place - users can take advantage of Presto's self-service capabilities without having to go back to IT every time  they want to create new real-time apps and dashboards.

Presto 3.5 extends its user-friendly interface to include new options to create dashboards through drag-and-drop, to add custom visualizations as easily as plugging in the view, and to customize Presto with a customer’s own logo and colors. There are also pre-built KPIs.

Once created, all Presto dashboards are portable with HTML5 apps that run anywhere, including SharePoint, portals, websites, tablets and mobile phones with the same look-and-feel of the native device. Presto 3.5 also has enhanced security for mobile devices and a more secure single-sign-on experience for social media sites. This includes support for OAuth, used by many social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook. It allows you to combine social media with your enterprise data securely. The interface adapts to multiple devices. You can see the tablet and smart phone interfaces below.

John also covered their latest news, the collaboration with Terracotta to provide better support for the use of Big Data using the Terracotta BigMemory, capability. Big Data is an in-memory solution that delivers performance at any scale. The JackBe-Terracotta collaboration provides compatible tools and a platform for real-time Big Data analytics with:

• Real-time Big Data visual exploration, using in-memory analytics
• Analytic snapshots for instant visual trending and KPI insights
• Apps that visualize live and historical enterprise data mashed with Big Data
• Dashboards that business users can easily assemble quickly and share, with no programming

John said that Presto 3.5 with Terracotta BigMemory can make use of input from Hadoop, as well as other data sources including, Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, and Windows Azure. Users are able to construct and make use of data directly from multiple sources without having to set up and feed a data warehouse. This is a huge time and cost saver.

John feels that analytics are the killer app for both social media and Big Data and I would agree. Putting the creation and use of business intelligence apps under the control of those who understand and need them is the key for adoption. JackBe is making great moves in this direction. 

Painting of Mardi Gras Float Rider 2013

Here is a 20" x 20" acrylic painting of a flost rider from the Pontchartasin krewe. I also did a 12" x 12" version with a different color combination. 

I now an artist with the Arts Council of New Orleans and particpate in their monthy art market. These markets occur generally on the last Saturday at Palmer Park in New Orleans, at the corner of S. Carrolton and S. Claiborne. Saturday March 30 is the next market and I will have a booth and offer paintings for sale. Since I arrived back in my hometown, I have been painting a variety of themes related to the city. The April market is held on April 20 because of jazz fest the follwing week. 

Arts Council of New Orleans March 30 Art Market

I now an artist with the Arts Council of New Orleans and participate in their monthy art market. These markets occur generally on the last Saturday at Palmer Park in New Orleans, at the corner of S. Carrolton and S. Claiborne. Saturday March 30 is the next market and I will have a booth and offer paintings for sale. Since I arrived back in my hometown, I have been painting a variety of themes related to the city. The April market is held on April 20 because of jazz fest the following week.  Below is my booth for the February market. Under it are some of the new paintings I have finisehd since the last market. Many of the ones in the booth picture are aloso available. 

              

eXo Announces Plans for eXo Release 4.0 and Codenvy

I have written about eXo, the user experience platform-as-a-service (UXPaaS) company that supports developers, several times before (for example see: Benjamin Mestrallet, eXo CEO, Looks at the Social Enterprise and eXo Expands its Cloud IDE Cloud-based Development Platform).  Recently I spoke with Patrice, Lamarque, VP of Products, to catch up on their latest moves. We discussed two main things: the release of Codenvy and eXo 4.0.

We started with eXo 4.0. It is an open source, enterprise-class, social collaboration platform. There are several goals with this release. First, eXo want sot make social collaboration a utility so IT can easily embrace all collaboration within a single platform. They want it to be simple and affordable, as well as business centric. These means there are application connectors in place through APIs to make it enterprise ready so the total cost of ownership remains low. Standard APIs such as JCR or CMIS are complemented by a set of APIs to program against your organization model, spaces, activity streams, polls, posts, wikis and more. For example, you can access Sugar CRM content within eXo. In addition, Sugar CRM activity can show up in the eXo activity stream and acted upon without leaving eXo.. Finally, they want it to be user oriented with an intuitive interface to foster engagement and adoption. The home page is seen below.

Features include: document management, portal, calendar, mobile capability, forums, answers, dashboards, wiki, spaces, tasks, and social networks in a cloud-based offering. The social features include: user profiles, connections, and activity streams. The Spaces feature allows you to create collaboration workspaces for teams or projects where you can share documents, tasks, events, wikis and more. Spaces can be open or closed, private or public and space administrators can manage members and the applications that are available. You can see a sample Spaces screen below.

The Dashboard feature allows each user to create their own customizable dashboard. Gadgets help to track metrics, feeds, status and analytics. The product has a large set of gadgets but you can also install any open social gadget. A large set of gadgets are also available online. The dashboard is available through the mobile applications. The Tasks feature allows you to capture work items super easily as tasks. Tasks can be created from anywhere, anytime. They can be scheduled in your calendar and reminders will be sent to you. You can also track other people’s tasks via activity streams. You can develop gadgets and REST services and deploy them in the platform.

With the Documents feature you can upload files easily, preview them, share them and edit them remotely via WEBDAV. Advanced document management capabilities are available such as versioning, metadata, advanced search and digital asset management. You can also build accessible websites with different content types and site structure. A powerful back office lets you classify, search and publish content very easily. A sample document management screen is seen below.

 

Based on the open source GateIn portal framework, eXo Platform has all the flexibility of an enterprise portal framework: portlets (JSR 286, WSRP), gadgets (OpenSocial) and content can be aggregated in a secured and customizable way.  A powerful graphical user interface composer that requires no technical skills allows you to compose portal pages by picking up a layout and pulling in apps and content.

There is also Unified Search coming soon. It will allow you to search any type of content using a single interface, including documents, events, tasks, posts and articles. Any content can be found with the clear and powerful search application. A quick search-ahead helper field shows the most relevant results and a more advanced search with advanced filtering lets you go further.

If you already manage user accounts in an enterprise directory such as Active Directory or Open LDAP, eXo Platform can integrate with it for authentication or user profile attributes. Advanced capabilities even let you use groups in eXo or leverage several directories at the same time. The eXo Platform works with your single sign-on system thank to its support of solutions like CAS, JOSSO and OpenSSO, and its support of standards like SAML. The eXo Platform is built using enterprise-standard tools such as Java EE, WEBDAV, CalDAV, JCR and CMIS to maximize its interoperability within the applications already available within the information system.

There is strong mobility support with native iPhone, iPad, and Android apps integrate easily and securely with your eXo instance. Below are some sample mobile interfaces.

 

There are a variety of pricing options including a freemium option. I think that eXo has put together a compelling offering for enterprises of all sizes to engagement in social business. The eXo 4.0 platform will be released at the end of April.

We also discussed Codenvy, a spin off from eXo that has received $9M in funding. Codenvy was announced on February 26 and it is the business now handling their eXo Cloud IDE offering. It was started with the objective to make developers more productive in building and deploying cloud-based apps. It targeted the Java environment and has support for a wide range of PaaS environments, including Red Hat OpenShift, Salesforce Heroku, CloudBees, and VMware Cloud Foundry. eXo Cloud IDE has exceeded their expectations so they created this new business unit to handle its growth.

The Need for Smarts as Well as Data

Rich Beatty published a nice article, Data Guides, But the Gut Decides, on how CMOs need to balance art and science in their decision making. The rise of social media is making conversations in the marketplace much more transparent. The corresponding rise of big data has got a lot of senior executives excited about getting access to what their customers are saying. But this data alone is not enough.

Rich found after in-depth interviews with more than 50 CMOs, “that CMOs who have successfully evolved their role in the organization have done so not through data and analytics alone, but by blending the art and science of marketing.” Rich concludes that “data is a commodity that can be had for a price, but art cannot be replicated. Science and art are important alone, but combined, they are the foundation and the accelerant for growth.” I certainly agree.

As a research scientist I was always taught to keep the results section of a research report separate from the conclusions section. This way readers could come to their own conclusions about the data. Also, it required the scientists to think about the implications of the findings. The same holds for the use of data in business. Thought is still required.

In North America in particular, there is an obsession with numbers. Numbers are good but they have their place. In an analogous way some people blindly rely on Robert Parker’s numbering system to tell them if a wine is good. However, as Adam Gopnik in the September 6, 2004 issue of the New Yorker, “(Parker) was uncannily successful because (he was an) apostle of a radical American empiricism – an insistence that facts and numbers could show you what was really going on, against everything tradition told you…The debate is not about whether the numbers are right but whether it is right to have numbers.”

In a similar perspective, Nick Carr quotes Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, in his Atlantic article,Is Google Making Us Stupid?, that it is “a company that’s founded around the science of measurement,” and it is striving to “systematize everything” it does. Carr adds that what Fred Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind. I would add: and what Robert Parker did for wine.  Nick goes on to write, “in Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed.”

Personally, I think a little ambiguity and complexity is good. This is where creativity creeps in. Science does have its place and I was a scientist myself in a past life. Now I am a painter, as well as a writer. Both give you a perspective. I am glad to see Rich Beatty’s research supporting the need for a balance in facts and thought.

 

FileMaker Offers Database Development for iPad, iPhone, and More

FileMaker is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple, Inc. It provides a comprehensive Platform used to design, build, deploy and manage data-driven business solutions for Mac, Windows, iPad and iPhone and the web. I spoke with Ryan Rosenberg, VP of Marketing, to get a better understanding of the FileMaker Platform. We also discussed how companies are using the Platform to create custom business solutions for iPad and iPhone and Ryan demonstrated some of the ease of use features of the environment.

Ryan said that FileMaker Pro is the number one database on the Mac OS and number two on Windows behind Access. They have shipped over 18 million copies of FileMaker Pro. In fact, the Windows market is their largest. FileMaker apps can be expanded to thousands of users. It is designed for business apps. FileMaker Go for iPad and FileMaker Go for iPhone, the leading iOS databases, are both free on the iTunes App store

They also develop Bento, an entry-level personal database software for solo businesses owners, which is available on the Apple App store and Bento 4 for iPad and Bento 4 for iPhone available in the productivity section of the iTunes App store.

Ryan said that over 500,000 copies of FileMaker Go have been downloaded so far and that most of these deployments are found within small, medium and large organizations. He gave the example of the Austin Texas Convention Center that I know well from last year’s SXSW. The crews that set up booths can make adjustments on their iPads by drawing the modifications and these changes are communicated automatically to the central admin people. I can see the benefit of this. Now they need to help with the registration process as it took several hours and long lines at the 2012 SXSW. Ryan also mentioned another great use case, the Benetton stores. Here clerks carry iPads running FileMaker Go for iPad and can check inventory without having to go to a backroom. I imagine this is a common use case inn many stores, or will become one.

Ryan showed me a coffee shop solution that allows you to create custom coffee grinds through a visual interface. He also showed me a driving test sample solution that allows the tester to check off an applicants progress and diagram incidents on a traffic grid. This latter one eliminates a lot of paper and makes record keeping much more efficient.

You can also integrate mobile solutions into existing enterprise and departmental systems and then make updates. Ryan showed me how you can make changes in the desktop version and have it immediately appear in the iPad version. Data updates can go in both directions back and forth from field sales people and the home office, for example. You can also manage and secure solutions using
 industry-standard authentication. There is no coding required for solution development so the business users can do self-service and not rely on programmers.

FileMaker is a complete Platform for creating, deploying, and managing data-driven business apps. Design is key for iPad and iPhone solutions, as the expectations are high. FileMaker includes flexible design tools that let developers take total control of the screen. You can create an attractive product configuration display, an inviting registration screen for an event, a useful executive dashboard, or a comprehensive facilities management App. FileMaker also features native iPad and iPhone clients so you can deliver the full native iOS experience.

On the business side, FileMaker has a powerful framework based on a full-featured relational database model, with integrated workflow, business logic, searching, sorting and data validation. The framework includes many features to take advantage of the iPad and iPhone such as on-device charting, report generation, PDF generation, email integration, printing support, signature capture, location support, camera support and more. Ryan showed me how to make an update where sales over a certain profit level appear in red. It was done in seconds and communicated to all connected devices immediately. You can see the process in the two screens below.

 

Ryan also showed me how to set up a signature capture field within an app. You can see the process in the two screens below.

If you need help, an extensive third party ecosystem has evolved with more than 1,100 consulting firms worldwide in FileMaker’s Business Alliance of independent FileMaker database developers offering customized database development and  training.  The company offers developers certified training. There are also hundreds of 3rd party tools and frameworks for the FileMaker Platform providing integration such as with popular accounting packages, enabling point-of-sale credit card transactions, delivering vertical application frameworks and more.

There is also the FileMaker Technical Network, with over 30,000 active members.

FileMaker products are available in 17 languages

I was very impressed with the capabilities, ease of use and support. I can see why FileMaker is so popular.

 

 

Some Sunsets from Sunset Beach North Carolina

Sunset Beach North Carolina is just north of the border with South Carolina. It is long island that faces South so it gets sunrises on one side and sunsets on the other. Here are some sunsets. I watched a few more over the last few days. I did sunries in the last post. 

                                        

Sunrise at Sunset Beach North Carolina

Sunset Beach North Carolina is just north of the border with South Carolina. It is long island that faces South so it gest sunrises on one side and sunsets on the other. I am staying there right now. Here are some sunrises. The next post will cover some sunsets. 

                                       

Review of Digital Workplace Trends 2013: Part Three – Selected Details

As I wrote in the first part of this series, I recently received a review copy of Digital Workplace Trends 2013 by Jane McConnell. Jane has conducted the annual surveys since 2006 and published reports every year since 2007. My last post begin to look at some of the details in the report. The report is over 150 pages long so I will only scratch the surface. You can purchase the report through its web site, www.digital-workplace-trends.com. As I wrote, if you are serious about making the digital workplace happen in your organization, it is a good move to obtain a copy.

I was pleased to see a section on Process in the report. I think this is key to getting real value out of the digital workplace. As I wrote, it is integrating the interactions with the transactions and tying the social to business process where real change will occur. A post by Andy McAfee that made a similar point. He, in turn, quotes a post by Laurie Buczek, The Big Failure of Enterprise 2.0 Social Business. “Culture will change as a result of the pervasive use of social tools.  Lack of cultural change is not social business’s biggest failure.  The biggest failure is the lack of workflow integration to drive culture change.”

Jane found that there is much to do to solve this challenge. She reported that, “very few organizations have embedded social capabilities into enterprise processes. However anecdotal evidence suggests that social integrated into processes can successfully change the way people work.” She offers a lot of detail on to make this happen.

In the investment section, Jane reported that, “mobile is the priority area for investment for 2013-2014, with enterprise social networking and information architecture also at the top of the list.” I think that information architecture is a top priority. In addition to addressing the important people issues (so they are open to connecting and willing to step out of organizational silos), there are some essential technology ones, it is also necessary to get the applications connected so conversation do not occur in technical silos. As I wrote in Putting Social Media to Work, to be effective these systems that support interactions have to be integrated with the systems of record that support transactions. The social tools also need to be integrated with each other or companies are simply creating more silos of disconnection and benefits are not realized. Application connectors are a major key realizing the business benefits of the digital workplace.

Having said that technology is critical, so are people issues and Jane has a section on Change. She writes that, “resistance to social collaboration comes from perceptions about lack of business value and waste of time.” She also found in early adopters resistance tends to come from middle managers while in the majority it comes from senior management. I think this is because in the early adopters the senior managers have bought in so things are starting to change and hitting the middle management resistance. In the majority things have not progressed far enough for middle managers to really worry. Jane offers a lot of useful content and case examples on making change happen.

Jane appropriately concludes with a section on finding your direction.  She states that no journey is the same. However, there are some common directions to take. She encourages organizations to build a digital mindset and start with a big picture and use it to bring the diverse initiatives together. You need to focus on capabilities and not tools and define governance based on “freedom within a framework.” Always think integrated. There is much more. This is a very useful report.

 

 

Review of Digital Workplace Trends 2013: Part Two – Selected Details

As I wrote in the first part of this series, I recently received a review copy of Digital Workplace Trends 2013 by Jane McConnell. Jane has conducted the annual surveys since 2006 and published reports every year since 2007. My last post provided an overview and this one dives into some of the detailed findings. The report is over 150 pages long so I will only scratch the surface. You can purchase the report through its web site, www.digital-workplace-trends.com. If you are serious about making the digital workplace happen in your organization, it is a good move to obtain a copy.

The report is organized into eight sections: transformation, mobile, social collaboration, process, experience, investment, change, and finding your direction. Transformation is going to happen and Jane found that most organizations are moving to the digital workplace concept but at different speeds – only 3% believe it does not concern them. I think this transformation will equal the significance of the industrial revolution and the related thinking of Fred Taylor but reverse many of its impacts. Collaboration tools can turn Taylorism on its head so learning goes up and down the enterprise and the whole structure is connected. The large can become nimble, as IBM has found out. Jane found that “early adopters differ from the majority of organizations in that their senior managers play an active role and are often the driving force behind the digital workplace.” Jane offers a number of excellent case examples in this and other sections.

Jane found that 2012 was the year mobile became a strategic priority for the digital workplace with 41% of organizations planning investment next year. The mobile initiatives tend to be focused on the needs of senior executives, those on the road and the field workers.  While this makes some sense, I think that everyone is a mobile worker now, even those with a desk. They often use their mobile device rather than their desktop one, even in the office. I imagine that there are few mobile workers without a mobile device. Jane did find that BYOD is widespread in the early adopters, with over 70% permitting or tolerating it. The others are catching up. However, as I mentioned in the last post, the mobile services offered today are limited in scope, with only 20% of organizations providing task-based or collaborative capabilities. The opportunity for value and competitive edge is very high here with these low numbers.

Jane found a wide range of social collaborative capabilities in place, with a high increase in interest in the past 12 months.  This corresponds to the work of Nora Barnes at the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts who has also been looking at the business use of social media over the past few years. For example, Nora found that now 92% of the Inc. 500 are using at least one of the social business tools she studied such as blogs, and networks.

Jane found that the transformative capabilities are those with the highest gap between deployment and adoption. These include commenting, user- generated content, crowd-sourcing and social networking. They are disruptive because they challenge traditional roles and hierarchies in organizations. Yet I would add they are exactly the initiatives that will provide the most value.  Like all of the sections, the one on social collaboration is full of useful details that I will let you find in the report. This disruption impacts all of the efforts as Jane found that while early adopters have significantly more deployment, they still struggle with adoption. In many cases, even where social networks are deployed, they are not yet actively and broadly used. I do not see this as a shortcoming of the digital workplace, and a call to return to the old ways, but rather a challenge that the winners will overcome.

Let me digress with a story. When my grandfather was a country doctor in Oklahoma before it was a state, he would drive his horse and buggy for hours doing rounds. When he was finished and exhausted, he would throw the reins over and the horses knew the way home. Then he bought the first car in the county. Part of the deal was that the salesman lived on the farm for two weeks teaching him how to run and maintain the new machine. However, he kept falling asleep at the wheel and the car did not know the way home. Fortunately the roads where still related to the old means of transportation and the car would just stall in the wagon runts. He was ready to go back to the horse when he got the idea to teach one of his daughters to drive the car. She cam along and took over when he got tired. We need to figure out how to get along with our new technology, because, like the horse and buggy, the old technologies days are numbered.

This is enough for one post. I will finish my coverage of the selected details in my next post.

 

Review of Digital Workplace Trends 2013: Part One – Overview

I recently received a review copy of Digital Workplace Trends 2013 by Jane McConnell. I have seen prior reports and was very impressed so I was pleased to get this latest version. I am going to review it in several posts since the 150+ page report deserves this type of coverage. I met Jane at KM World. She has 14 years of extensive hands-on consulting experience with intranet and digital workplace strategy in large, global organizations.  Jane has conducted the annual surveys since 2006 and published reports every year since 2007. Data for this report was collected in the fourth quarter of 2012. The findings are based on an online survey of over 100 questions with participants from 362 organizations around the world, from a wide range of industries.

The report indicates that, “the top two goals of the digital workplace - rated equally important - are “organizational intelligence” and “efficiency and cost savings.”  This corresponds to McKinsey’s 2012 Projected Business Value of Social Business at a Trillion Annually. In 2010 they reported, Enterprise 2.0 finds Its Payday where they found significant quantified benefits from the business use of social media. Similar results were found in 2011.

Jane writes that the digital workplace is a work in progress with different dimensions, not all equally mature. They include managed information and processes, structured collaboration, social collaboration and a mobile dimension. She adds that it is transformative and I would certainly agree.

Jane makes several predictions. First, 2013 is the year where mobile takes off. She found that 60% of organizations consider mobile to be important and have already made “significant” or “some” investment. Last year the figure was just under 40%. There is still much to be done here as Jane found that 45% of organizations offer either no mobile or simply access to email. Only a third offer “basic services,” such as calendar, directory and news. An even smaller number, 20%, have provided mobile access to work tools for collaborative, HR and other task-related needs. This is where the real value that McKinsey talks about will occur.

Jane also found that, “adoption lags far behind deployment for the social capabilities that empower individuals and self-organizing communities and challenge traditional hierarchies and roles within organizations.”  She adds that enterprise social networking is deployed in 70% of the early adopters and 35% of the majority. However, it has not reached a critical mass of usage even for many of the early adopters.  I think realize that the change to social business is going to happen. As I saw recently at IBM Connect 2013, IBM is betting the company on it and I think that is a wise move.  But most organizations still do not really know how to do it.

Leading the resistance to change are the middle managers, not the senior officials but that has probably been the case since the Roman army. Jane found that the most effective change driver is “colleague and peer” behavior. At the same time many senior managers have embraced the reality of the digital workplace. I think one of the threatening aspects of the digital workplace to middle managers is that it shortens the distance between employees and senior management, taking out the gate keeper and filtering role that many middle managers play. However, companies are going to have to deal with this as middle managers are the backbone of the organization and change will generally not happen without their engagement.

The report is organized into eight sections: transformation, mobile, social collaboration, process, experience, investment, change, and finding your direction. I will cover some of the details in my next post, Review of Digital Workplace Trends 2013 – Selected Details. You can purchase the report through its web site, www.digital-workplace-trends.com. If you are serious about making the digital workplace happen in your organization, it is a good move to obtain a copy. 

The Dunes at Sunset Beach North Carolina

Sunset Beach North Carolina has a very wide beach that goes the entire lenght of the island. It is located just north of the border with South Carolina. There wide dunes behind the beach protecting the island as developers were smart to allow for this protection. Here are some views of the dunes.

                                                   

Beach Views at Sunset Beach North Carolina

Sunset Beach North Carolina has a very wide beach that goes the entire lenght of the island. It is located just north of the border with South Carolina. Here are some views of the beach. There wide dunes behind the beach protecting the island as developers were smart to allow for this protection. I cover the dunes in my hext post. 

                                                   

My App Gap Posts for February 2013

The AppGap posts began toward the end of January 2008.  Here, I am primarily doing product commentaries with a few other things thrown in. Below are the ones for February. There will be more in March.

Fortune 100′s Top 20 Social CMOs

The Connected Enterprise Addresses Rising Business Complexity

My IBM Connect 2013 Session Notes

JackBe Makes Business Intelligence More Accessible and Robust with Latest Moves

Preparing for Our New Era of Knowledge Work – McKinsey

IDC’s Worldwide Enterprise Social Software 2012 Analysis

 

 

Social Media Settles into the Inc 500 in 2012

Nora Ganim Barnes at the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has released another very useful report, 2012 Inc 500 Social Media Settles In. This time it was co-authored by Ava M. Lescault who is also at the center as Senior Research Associate and Associate Director.  Here are some recent other reports (Social Media Continues to Increase in the 2012 Fortune 500 and The Enduring Nature of Blogs and Blogging.

The latest study looks at the Center’s work on the Inc. 500 social media usage for the sixth consecutive year. This longitudinal data makes it a valuable study of corporate use of these new technologies. The new study compares social media adoption among the 2012 Inc. 500 with previous years.  For example, the Center’s first study of this group in 2007 showed that the Inc. 500 was outpacing the based Fortune 500 in their use of social media. In those early years of social media, 8% of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging compared to 19% of the Inc. 500. This difference continued in all subsequent years and the 2012 data suggests that pattern holds with 44% of the 2012 Inc. 500 blogging and just 23% of the Fortune 500. 

In addition, the study found the incorporation of new platforms and tools including FourSquare and Pinterest, an increased use of LinkedIn and blogging, along with a drop in the use of YouTube and Facebook. Now 92% of the Inc. 500 are using at least one of the tools studied.  The research questions continue to evolve with the market. For example, they dropped wikis as they are used more as a collaboration tool than a communications/ engagement tool and divided the social networking category into specific tools and platforms. 

Some of the key 2012 findings include the rise of the Marketing department as the group responsible for social media and a continued increase in blogging by the Inc. 500. The rate moved from 37% to 44%. I like to see this trend as blogging remains very relevant for anyone wanting to get a substantive message out and start conversations. My own work with AppFusions and the AppGap brings this home to me.

There are other tools with an even stronger usage base. The platform most utilized by the Inc. 500  in 2012 is LinkedIn. With 81% usage it replaced Facebook as the tool of choice for these fast growing companies. The use of Facebook has dropped 7% in the past year while both LinkedIn and Twitter have gained users. In 2011, Facebook was being used by 74% of the Inc. 500 and Twitter by 64%. In 2012, 67% of the Inc. 500 used each of them. Looking at some new tools, 28% are now using Foursquare and 18% use Pinterest. 

Spending on social media seems to be leveling off. 2012 found 44% now looking to spend more on social media vs. 71% in 2011. At the same time 41% (vs. 25% in 20122) say their level of investment will remain the same as last year. It was interesting to see that the Inc. 500 appears to be growing less attentive to their social monitoring activity with 63% engaged in it compared to 68% in 2011 and 70% in 2010. I find this puzzling as part of the real value of social media is making conversations in the market more accessible to companies.

Looking at ROI remains less of a priority with only 33% reporting the ability to financially determine the return on their social media investment. Of those, 19% believe they have cut recruiting costs due to their social media investments. This may be tied to the increased use of LinkedIn.  There is much more in the free report and I highly recommend looking at it. 

Enterprise Social Networking Mindshifts by Catherine Shinners

My Merced Group business partner, Catherine Shinners, has published a useful series on Enterprise Social Networking Mindshifts. As McKinsey has shown there is a lot of value to working with social tools and processes. Yet, as Catherine notes, according to a report released by Ovum last week, there's only about a ten percent (10%) adoption rate in organizations.  In the series she provides useful ways to make creative uses of social networking and increase adoption. I will let you read what she wrote and not repeat it here. Take a look.

Here is the list of posts in her series

Enterprise Social Networking Mindshifts #1 - Think Community

Enterprise Social Networking Mindshfts  #2 - Why Community Matters

Enterprise Social Networking Mindshifts #3 - Managing Social

Enterprise Social Networking Mindshifts #4 - Working Social

 

Experiencing Some Great Meals in South Louisiana 2012

As my last post indicated I recently went to west to take in some Zydeco and Cajun music and dancing. A delicious part of this trip was the wonderful food of the region. Every meal was worthy of a repeat. We are actually back there right now and another post will follow.

It began with lunch at Victor’s Cafeteria in New Iberia that included gumbo, fried shrimp, crawfish ettouffe, frogs leg, and fried fish. There were some inviting deserts. While I was full from the meal I could not resist taking pictures of some of the treats. That night we ate at Miller’s Zydeco Hall of Fame in Lawtel LA as we saw the Zydeco bands. The food included one of the best gumbos I have had, well as some great fried chicken.

          

The next morning we stopped at Ray’s Bakery in Eunice for two dozen fresh doughnuts to take to the Cajun jam session at the Savoy Music center where we had some wonderful boudin. We each had a doughnut on the way and the rest were consumed quickly once we got there. Lunch was at Don’s Seafood in Lafayette and consisted of BBQ oysters, gumbo, along with crawfish five ways: bisque, cocktail, ettouffe, au gratin, and fried. Dinner was at the Mayor’s Gala in Opelousas and included some wonderful gumbo in the same homemade style we found at Miller’s. There is a painting of the gumbo post at the bottom of this post. 

                

On Sunday morning we stopped at the Donut Queen in Mamou for two small sausage kolatch and a boudin kolatch. Both were sausage wrapped in bread. Later we ate at McGee’s Landing in Henderson. Our meal included: grilled catfish, crawfish, alligator, stuffed shrimp, hush puppies, stuffed potato, and syrup cake for desert. Most of the seafood came from the nearby Atchafalya Basin. 

                

Painting of Ed Wills Playing Blues at BMC, New Orleans

Here ia is a portrait of Ed Wills, of Blues4Sale, playing blues at the BMC (aka Balcony Music Club) on Decatur Street. I have seen him a number of times at his regular Wednesday night BMC gig and have his CD. Here is YouTube video of Ed Wills at BMC. The painting is in a square format. This is the 20” x 20” version. I also did an 8” x 8” version. Both are arcylic. 

I now an artist with the Arts Council of New Orleans and particpate in their monthy art market. These markets occur generally on the last Saturday at Palmer Park in New Orleans, at the corner of S. Carrolton and S. Claiborne. Saturday March 30 is the next market and I will have a booth and offer paintings for sale. Since I arrived back in my hometown, I have been painting a variety of themes related to the city. The April market is held on April 20 because of jazz fest the follwing week. 

Blog Cases from 2005: Complete Listing

Over the past few weeks I have posted a series of case studies from people I interviewed in 2005 about their blogging efforts. Now as we move to 2013, I found it interesting to look back at the early days of business blogging. I only included cases from people who are still blogging now. These cases have not appeared on this blog before. Here is the list in order of publishing.

Gautam Ghosh on Management

Karen Ay on Art

James Robertson on Content Management

Jessica Baumgart on Journalism, Librarianship and Blogging

Renee Blodgett on Communications and Marketing

Jack Vinson on Knowledge Management

Jim McGee on Knowledge Work

Thomas Jones on Oklahoma Wine

Carrie Guevara on New Orleans

Ed Brill on IBM, Collaboration, and More

Jill Fallon on Legacy Matters and the Business of Life

Rosa Smith on Thinking Thin

Christina Pikas on Library Science

Roland Tanglao on Bryght, Drupal and More

Pito Salas on Technology and More

David Weinberger on Everything