Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog

Burton Group's "ACES" Framework For Social Media

Blogger: Mike Gotta

At our Catalyst conference this morning I delivered a 4 hour tutorial on social media covering a variety of issues related to external and internal adoption. Below are several screen shots that provide some insight to what was discussed and how such concepts can help organizations to frame the conversation when considering business and organizational strategies in this area.

The tutorial organized the social media discussion around four drivers: innovation, user-led innovation, corporate social responsibility and strategic talent initiatives. The common thread: participation, community and outreach. We also reviewed several social media examples: Kodak, GE Research, Patagonia, Deloitte, Down Chemical, Cisco, Abbott, McDonald's, Wal*Mart and Zappos.

"ACES" reflects two sides of the social media coin. There is one perspective on social media that relates to participation, community and outreach. In this context, the focus is on "awareness", "connection", "engagement" and "sharing" as fundamental tenets. But there is also a flip-side to social media that examines the strategic planning and governance program necessary to execute on the effort. In this context, the focus is on "audiences", "capabilities", "enablement" and "sustainability".

The New E-Mail Dynamics

Blogger: Guy Creese

From my point-of-view, a story type that we will see more of: NSW schools dump Outlook for Gmail. The New South Wales Department of Education and training is replacing a massive Microsoft Exchange installation (1.3 million students, 35 MB of storage per user, at a cost of Aus $33 million) with a Gmail solution for about one-third the price and 170 times the storage (Aus $9.5 million, 6 GB of storage per user). It appears that students will use Gmail, but that faculty and staff will continue to use a non-Gmail solution (unclear to me whether it's Exchange or something else).

What makes this story an archetype are two things: one, the much lower cost of the SaaS solution, and two, the generation split (students=Gmail, faculty and staff=no Gmail), which now seems to be a recurring pattern.

Burton Group's Catalyst Conference Kicks Off

Blogger: Mike Gotta

This week will be very exciting as Burton Group's Catalyst conference has kicked off today with tutorial sessions with the opening reception tomorrow evening. The event sessions will run Wednesday through Friday (details here). The tag for the event is: BurtonGroupCatalyst08

Below are the sessions I will be involved in - a very busy week:

Tuesday, June 24

Social Media: Transforming Work Models and Catalyzing Community Relationships (Half-day Tutorial)

Social media has become a strategic issue for all organizations. As with any transformation endeavor, there are business challenges (e.g., brand alignment, customer value, and employee adoption) and technology risks (e.g., security, and compliance). Still, social media presents enterprises with tremendous opportunities to deliver products and services that enhance customer, partner and employee relationships. Executive teams are also exploring how social media catalyzes innovation efforts, improves business performance and addresses human capital management efforts (e.g., workforce adaptability, talent initiatives). This workshop will cover the following:

• What can we learn from consumer use of social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter)
• Building a business strategy for social media
• Understanding the organizational implications of emergence, communities and social networks
• Deciphering social media technology (e.g., blogs, wikis, tags and bookmarks, social networking, XML feeds)
• Applying social media for external solutions
• Applying social media for internal solutions

Thursday, June 26

The Times They Are A-Changin': New User Experiences through Social Interfaces

The next-generation user experience is focused on empowering users through rich interfaces and simpler infrastructures that provide personalized and contextual interaction with co-workers and resources. Consumer-oriented services such as Facebook and Google, increased mobility, and SaaS software delivery models are influencing the marketplace offering more options for enterprises to support different working models and styles. Enterprises will find 2008 to be an excellent year for studying and strategizing, in preparation for moving forward. Principal Analyst Mike Gotta explores some of the trends in next-generation user experiences and how the market is evolving.

This session will explore:

• How new delivery models offer more interfaces and options
• New working models and how they bring information workers together
• The impact of mobility on system requirements
• How working in-context across many tools and resources improves usability

The Value of Participation, Community & Outreach

Organizations face a variety of strategic business and human capital challenges related to growth, customer relationships, and workforce agility. Increasingly, decision-makers are betting that a new wave of social applications will foster the type of gains in productivity, customer loyalty, innovation and ultimately, business transformation, needed to address those challenges. Social software, including blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, RSS feeds, and social networking, helps establish the technology foundation for "new ways of work". In this keynote session, Principal Analyst Mike Gotta discusses how organizations are deploying social software and how such social applications might deliver business value.

The Practioner’s Handbook: Social Software In Action (Panel)

Real-world examples: actions speak louder than words. In this panel, representatives from leading global 2000 enterprises will share their organization's experience with social software. Moderated by Principal Analyst Mike Gotta, topics will include:

• Business case
• Selection process
• Deployment options (including SaaS)
• Adoption tactics
• Cultural issues

Speakers from Avery Dennison, Colgate-Palmolive, Deloitte and Harvard University will participate.

Enterprise 2.0 for Nervous Executives

Blogs! Wikis! Emergent communities! Innovation from the edge fuels the empowered worker! And it all scares the pants off most corporate executives.

People familiar with the power of social computing want to see more of it at the workplace. They believe it will make them feel more connected, just like it does in their non-work lives. Those responsible for managing the corporation see potential productivity losses and security risks. More ominously, the fluid nature of social networking runs counter to corporate hierarchies. Can that be allowed? Can it be controlled?

In this session, Executive Strategist Jack Santos and Principal Analyst Mike Gotta explore the tension between E 2.0 concepts and corporate structures, suggesting ways that E 2.0 can be advocated to the queasy.

Friday, June 27

Unified Communications: From Hype to Pragmatic Reality
Although the market hype related to unified communications has risen to a fever pitch, vendor offerings are now starting to deliver on the promise of communications and collaboration convergence. The continued maturation of real-time collaborative applications and fixed mobile convergence, the disruptive impacts to enterprise telephony from new market entrants such as Microsoft and IBM, and the continuing source of innovative social applications in the consumer market such as Twitter, promise to have immediate and long-term effects on enterprise unified communications strategies. The session will review developments to key unified communications applications including:

• Presence
• IP Telephony
• Unified Messaging
• Web Conferencing
• Video Conferencing
• Fixed Mobile Convergence
• Social Networking Applications

In this keynote session, Principal Analyst Mike Gotta and Senior Analyst Mark Cortner will discuss the key trends in unified communications and strategies to extend real-time communication and collaboration within and beyond the enterprise network.

Microsoft's Maturing Social Computing "EGO"

Blogger: Mike Gotta

When Microsoft first released Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), it touted  the platform advantages of its embedded social computing capabilities (i.e., blogs, wikis, RSS, social networking). In fact, the company at the time was brimming with confidence that SharePoint's social computing features were as good as anything offered by best-of-breed vendors. Reality slowly set in over several months however as the market were somewhat less-than-impressed with the features that SharePoint offered out-of-the-box. While SharePoint has garnered tremendous success in terms of user adoption (people invest in the platform for  reasons much broader than blogs, wikis and social networks), many IT organizations were left to wonder if they would have to wait three years before seeing significant improvements that would support business requirements related to social computing.

Microsoft countered by delivering the Community Kit Edition via CodePlex which improved the default capabilities within MOSS. However, three concerns arose: (1) the source code on CodePlex is not supported by Microsoft, (2) the code does not go through the same quality assurance checks as supported products, and (3) there is no guarantee that whatever is found on CodePlex will be supported in future releases. At best, the Community Kit Extensions were best viewed as acquiring an advanced customized application that would be primarily supported by internal staff.   

So, after Strike 1 and Strike 2, Microsoft has finally done what it should had done in the first place. The slew of partner announcements this month at the Enterprise 2.0 conference have significantly improved the partner ecosystem around SharePoint for social computing. While I believe Microsoft was basically "backed into" this position by market and competitive pressures (made worse by sub-optimal social software), the strategy should indeed provide customers with a broad set of social computing options that leverage and extend a core SharePoint platform investment.

It is unfortunate that this message was so badly overpowered by the social computing tutorial I moderated at the event where IBM came across very impressively with its Lotus Connections solution. Overall, Microsoft's maturing perspective of its role regarding technology stewardship over the SharePoint ecosystem will benefit end users and IT organizations alike. While introducing new vendors, even those that are well-integrated with SharePoint, will raise infrastructure and operational complexity to varying degrees - ultimately, the ability to deliver more complete and robust social applications should create a credible business case that justifies the effort (for those holistically committed to a SharePoint platform).

One of the more serious considerations organizations need to now consider will be the balancing act between SharePoint (increasingly part of a corporate-wide strategic direction) and the partner solutions (which might be narrowly viewed as tactical). However, if Microsoft fails to improve its native capabilities by the next release (perhaps 4Q09/1Q10), prior tactical decisions might very well have more strategic implications. Organizations cannot assume that partners will necessarily disappear "just because" the next release of SharePoint has some level of improvement since the market overall will continue to advance. In some ways, Microsoft will always be behind the curve given its three year release cycle between major releases. This is due, in part, to the early stage where Microsoft locks-down what ultimately will be shipped).

It is important therefore for IT organizations to understand how partner solutions are integrating within SharePoint and how they function without SharePoint. Below I outline three types of integration models that appear to be taking shape. Note the acronym "EGO" helps summarize the different approaches vendors seem to be adopting thus far. It also plays well to Microsoft's maturing outlook on this space (that its own success vs. its "alter ego's" is dependent on how well partners thrive in the short run).

Enhancement

The Enhancement integration model augments SharePoint's basic social computing capabilities but the solution's benefits and capabilities are centric to SharePoint and are not likely to be easily duplicated to work with other vendors. That is, a vendor's Enhancement integration model makes many fundamental assumptions that bind it to SharePoint. There is little chance of the solution acting as a means to mediate interoperability needs between SharePoint and other social computing platforms (e.g., IBM, Jive, Oracle) that might also be deployed within the enterprise.

Example

NewsGator Social Sites 2.0 connects Microsoft SharePoint and Newsgator's Enterprise Server to add a collection of capabilities (e.g., tags, bookmarks, communities, social networking). Social Sites relies on Microsoft SharePoint AJAX Toolkit (found on CodePlex). Reliance on the AJAX toolkit commits this solution more deeply to SharePoint. It relies on, and extends, the user profile information in SharePoint (another product-specific dependency). NewsGator introduces a new feed reader (My Feeds) with Social Sites and it is unclear how unique this reader is to SharePoint (so for now, I assume that it is only for SharePoint). The community capability extends the Team Site capability within SharePoint (another dependency if Social Sites were to be duplicated for other vendors). So while Social Sites 2.0 represents a very solid and much-needed social computing extension for SharePoint, I would categorize it as an Enhancement model given the deep level of integration specific to SharePoint.

Gateway

A Gateway integration model also extends SharePoint's social computing capabilities. The primary difference between a Gateway and Enhancement approach is that the Gateway's focus is primarily on attaining some level of interoperability with SharePoint. That is, the vendor's Gateway solution offers value in both a stand-alone situation as well as with SharePoint if Microsoft's social computing platform is deployed.

Example

Connectbeam's Spotlight Connect For SharePoint connects Microsoft SharePoint with Connectbeam's tag and social bookmark system. Spotlight For SharePoint relies on Web Parts that leverage Connectbeam's REST-based APIs. While Connectbeam integrates with SharePoint to deliver tag and bookmark capabilities, the integration is careful to maintain a level of technical separation while still providing a cohesive user experience. For instance, a My Profile Web Part shows user profile data from SharePoint along with tag, bookmark and other data from Connectbeam but tabs are used to segment the standard user profile display. Rather than dump the information all into the "About Me" area, the Spotlight data is contained with a tab labeled "Social Content". I can envision how Connectbeam can deliver specific integration with other social computing platforms (e.g., Spotlight For Oracle, Spotlight for SAP, Spotlight for Jive). This approach leads me to categorize this integration model as more of a Gateway solution. The Connectbeam application can stand alone, integrate with SharePoint, and possibly integrate with other platforms in the future.

Atlassian, Awareness, Telligent and blueKiwi are also examples of vendors adopting a Gateway integration model.

Overlay

The Overlay integration model represents the deepest level of integration to extend SharePoint's social computing capabilities. In essence, a vendor pursuing this approach begins to use SharePoint itself as its base infrastructure platform. That is, the solution essentially "lives within" SharePoint. This integration model differs significantly from the Enhancement and Gateway model since the vendor becomes almost entirely dependent on SharePoint. There may be some distinct functions kept outside SharePoint (e.g., database) to enable the vendor to deliver functions not possible within SharePoint's current set of services.

Example

There is no vendor that currently has the depth of social computing integration that would quality it as delivering an Overlay model. Tomoye however is heading in that direction:

• "Since Ecco is a pure 100% ASP.NET 2.0 application with lots of business logic, we are experimenting with porting our application straight into SharePoint as a "_layouts application." This will allow us to keep leveraging our existing code as we transition to using more and more of the capabilities in the SharePoint platform such as Lists, Document and Picture Libraries, User Profiles, and the Business Data Catalog. So far, this approach has been easier than expected. Within only 3 days, we were able to deploy our application as a _layouts application and to run as-is with very little code changes!

Alter-Ego's

For every EGO there is an equal and opposite "Alter Ego". These are a few key vendors that are battling Microsoft in terms of delivering an enterprise-grade social computing platform that spans multiple capabilities (e.g., blog, wikis, tags/bookmarks, feeds and social networking).

• IBM: Lotus Connections represents the most well-known alternative to Microsoft. IBM and Microsoft have been battling head-to-head in the collaboration and content markets for many years - it should be no surprise that the competition will be equally intense in the area of social computing.
• Jive Software: Clearspace represents the first independent vendor to deliver a cohesive mini-suite of social computing capabilities that has enabled it to break away from the pack of smaller vendors who have focused on just a few select social software components.
• Oracle: Oracle should be considered a credible social computing dark horse. Although the software company has failed in previous attempts to succeed in the collaboration market, it has gained credibility in the enterprise content management space. Given the trend towards contextually integrating social data and features within existing applications, it should be expected that Oracle will make a run at this market.

Interruption Models

Blogger: Craig Roth

As part of my attention management (relates to "information overload") coverage I've been developing a set of interruption models.  Here is a working list of interruption models I've come up with so far.  Each has an example of how it would apply, followed with a sample numerical calculation based on the dollars gained or lost by the organization based on the interruption (assume this is $ based on time x fully loaded pay rate).

• Help-me model: Bill needs a moment of Stu's time to proceed with his work
  • Value to interrupter (80) + value to interruptee (-20) = Net closed-loop benefit (60)
• Help-you model: Bill takes the time to let Stu know he needs to change his task approach
  • Value to interrupter (-10) + value to interruptee (50) = Net closed-loop benefit (40)
• Jerk model: Mick is an jerk that likes bugging other people about fantasy football, hurting both their productivity
  • Value to interrupter (-20) + value to interruptee (-30) = Net closed-loop benefit (-50)
• Machine interrupt model: Stu's PC crashes. This distrubs Stu and has no benefit to the PC
  • Value to interrupter (0) + value to interruptee (-50) = Net closed-loop benefit (-50)
• Break model: Bill's thinking has been getting less effective and he finds himself spinning on a simple task, so he interrupts himself and decides he needs a mental break.  He returns to work more refreshed and effective
  • Value to interrupter & interruptee (5) = Net closed-loop benefit (5)
• Interaction model: Stu and Bill are working on a task together, expecting each other's input, and neither would really consider this an "interruption"
  • Value to interrupter (5) + value to interruptee (5) = Net closed-loop benefit (10)
• Alert model: A fire alarm goes off while Stu is working, interrupting him and saving his life
  • Value to interrupter (0) + value to interruptee (100) = Net closed-loop benefit (100)
• Scheduled interruption model: Stu is working hard on a task that requires concentration, but has to stop at 10:00 for a scheduled meeting, which interrupts his train of thought and will require recovery time upon resuming.  For this example, it is assumed the meeting is a project update for another project that Stu doesn't get much out of but is obligated to attend
  • Value to interrupter (0) + value to interruptee (-10) = Net closed-loop benefit (-10)
• Lazy model: Mick could figure out his task alone if he applied some time and effort, but it just seems easier to ask his smarter colleague Stu. Too bad Mick will never learn to help himself and will keep bothering Stu
  • Value to interrupter (5) + value to interruptee (-7) = Net closed-loop benefit (-2)
• Training model: Bill is stuck in his task and needs to ask his smarter colleague Stu for information.  Bill learns a valuable lesson that can be immediately applied and Bill is now that much better at his job
  • Value to interrupter (10) + value to interruptee (-7) = Net closed-loop benefit (3)
• Blast model: Mick shouts out to the room to see if anyone wants to go to lunch.  No one wants to because Mick is a jerk, so they are annoyed
  • Value to interrupter (1) + value to interruptees (-50) = Net closed-loop benefit (-49)

• Social interruption model: Stu stops by his co-worker Bill's desk and interrupts him to find out how his daughter is feeling after she got out of the hospital
  • Value to interrupter (?) + value to interruptees (?) = Net closed-loop benefit (positive?)

I talked this over with Mike Gotta, who brought up the point of reciprocity.  One enters into an implicit social contract that they will be gracious about interruptions in exchange for getting to interrupt others when needed.  The Help-me model should be encouraged as it has a net benefit for the organization, but it can also have a net benefit for Stu if he gets some of Bill's time the next time he needs it.  He also pointed out that interruptions tied to communities can be worthwhile as people search for expert opinions and information.

For individuals feeling stressed and overloaded this list of models could help guide some introspection about the degree to which interruptions are causing the stress and which models need to be reduced. 

For the owner of an attention management project, surveying information workers for the types of interruptions they are experiencing can help optimize the communication flows and interruptions. 

For anyone presented with an interruption study (particularly those showing extremely high negative impact by interruptions) it provides a firetest of the study's assumptions.  These models can be run through the methodology of the study to see how accurately it would count the net closed-loop benefit.

 

European Data Points on Collaboration

Blogger: Craig Roth

It's been a while since my last blog post as I've been kept running all over Europe lately doing speaking (Domino Notes User's Group in Bremen) and visiting current and prospective clients in Munich, Copenhagen, Vienna, and London. 

Now that I'm home I'm decompressing and reflecting on what I was hearing from the corporate and government organizations I talked to about collaboration and portals. 

• I found a great deal of interest in social software, but the dozen or so organizations I spoke with seemed a bit further behind the U.S. in terms of awareness and piloting.
• There was quite a bit of SharePoint work going on, but generally in a more controlled fashion than I've seen in the U.S.  SharePoint was frequently being stripped down to fit into the rest of the environment.  To take a few examples, in one case it was being used as just a web file store.  In another case it was just a low-end content management system.  I prefer this approach to the whole-hog implementation that I see too often where Sharepoint steps on the toes of other installed infrastructure.  Just because Sharepoint can do a lot of things doesn't mean it has to in your organization.
• Portals were a hot topic, with most organizations I visited using them, sometimes many of them.  In fact, portal consolidation and governance is as big an issue as it was in my last few visits to Europe.
• Enterprise virtual worlds came up twice, without much prompting from me.  One governmental agency was very interested in its use for rehearsal and disaster preparedness.

Free Webinar on Content Reuse

Blogger: Guy Creese

For those of you wondering why I've been absent from this blog for awhile, it's because I've been working heads down generating PowerPoint presentations. Most of them are for Burton's Catalyst Conference at the end of June, but one is for a KMWorld webinar I'm giving today, sponsored by Just Systems and XyEnterprise.

The title is, "DITA Comes of Age: Getting Everyone to Generate More Accurate and Relevant Documentation." It talks about some findings from my December report: Content Reuse: DITA, XML, and Other Ways to Keep from Reinventing the Content. If you're interested in the subject, give it a look see. It's free.