web design website development

Important technologies for 2008 - Collaboration Tools - Social Networks

jim wilde — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:17:07 +0000

Web applications and tools to help people connect and share ideas and information.

CIO Insight, "Collaboration tools which allow employees to brainstorm, plan, analyze, share work and make decisions together are among the most important technologies of 2008.

"Collaboration: Unlocking the Power of Teams" from CIO Insight, By Allan Alter

Mr. Alter, "...collaboration and work-flow moved up to second place in our Top Trends Survey list of the most strategic technologies late last year, it confirmed what CIOs and other IT executives had been telling us about the field's growing importance to their businesses.

...the line between collaboration and communication is ultra-thin, and we included nearly 30 items under the collaboration umbrella from telephony and e-mail to prediction markets and social networks.

We discovered that about 80 percent of IT executives believe collaboration and workflow technologies deliver on their promise to boost productivity and decision-making, and half say they enable and even inspire strategies that were previously unattainable or unimaginable."

At the end of the day, you need to solve a problem. So, stop reading about social software applications. Unleash your imagination and start experimenting with them. The real value and power of social network software can only be appreciated with hands-on experience. Consider this, a short-term, pilot project to discover and evaluate solutions based on results. We're easy to work with and provide application audit trails as well as productivity metrics.

Productivity gains that impact business - Forward thinkers and project teams will quickly gain experience with online communities, social networking applications, and new information flows as they apply to how people learn, collaborate and innovate. The results are a rich learning environment that supports better decision making and work-flow management.

Leveraging resources to create custom solutions. We take a hybrid approach between open source, closed source, functionality, risk and support to deliver simple or advanced, custom solutions. Ones that are stable with superior performance and maximum uptime.

A small investment for big returns. We listen to your problems and offer solutions. From practical ones to crazy ones, we'll help you unlock the benefits of social software and Web 2.0 ideas. Call us now at 973.433.4007.

Tags:

internal social software

orchestrating resources

work-flow

teams

Social Media:

social informatin management

How Social Media and Web 2.0 Work In Business

jim wilde — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:35:38 +0000

Web 2.0, social software has to be used to be fully appreciated.

The following three posts have a wealth of information, ideas and tips for business managers and CIO's about social media, web 2.0, social networking, and online communities. The fact is, this stuff, social software has to be used to be fully appreciated. It takes time to grasp its power and usefulness. Workplace social software and communities need to be understood from both, a regular user view point and from an administrator (control) view point. You bet, this is work. There are no hurry-up or easy solutions in a workplace or community environment but the benefits are gigantic.

From BusinessWeek, "Social Media Will Change Your Business. Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch upâ€¦or catch you later."

From Wired, "The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits to You. You have a blog. You compose a new post. You click Publish and lean back to admire your work. Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web.

From CIO Insight, by Edward Cone, "Try It, You`ll Like It.

Web 2.0 applications must be experienced hands-on to be appreciated, but most CIOs don't take the opportunity.

If you are not on Facebook, if you have never created and maintained a blog, then maybe you aren't putting enough thought into your job.

...understanding Web 2.0 applications is important to your business, and you need to spend some quality time using them to really get what they're all about. The power of user-driven tools lies in the using. Just reading about them, or spending an hour or two playing with them, doesn't do them justice; you've got to go hands-on to appreciate their power."

Assigning order to a chaotic process. People in businesses are using social software and virtual communities to relate ideas, stories and information to each other in, say, a gigantic learning and development environment. It helps them spot new business opportunities before the competition does, create a meeting place, be open to radical opportunities, break down silos, support experimentation, enable managers to represent the customer vis-Ã -vis their own organizations, and help everyone move forward.

Tags:

Social Media:

social informatin management

Enterprise COBOL Applications Meet Web 2.0 - Social Software

jim wilde — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:37:35 +0000

Some 75% of the world's businesses data is still processed in Cobol.

JP Rangaswami, on his blog, confused of calcutta, has an insightful discussion, "Musing about enterprise information and flow. ...doesn't everyone in the blogosphere know about ping servers, search engines, aggregators, ad servers, data miners, ad servers and text scrapers? What's so instructive about spam blogs? And surely everybody knows about social bookmarking, about linking, and about making comments?

The instructiveness for me comes in the word I left out. Corporations. Enterprises.

In the 21st Century, the web is two-way; as Doc Searls often says, it's writeable. So, if we take these ideas into the enterprise, build enterprise applications around the web, what are the analogies? Should there be any analogies? Should enterprises be using exactly the same tools as their customers? Why not?"

Here's one idea.

COBOL Meets Web 2.0?

From CW (Computer World), "Confessions of a Cobol programmer".

Some 75% of the world's businesses data is still processed in Cobol, and about 90% of all financial transactions are in Cobol, according to Arunn Ramadoss, head of the academic connections program at Micro Focus International PLC, which provides software to help modernize Cobol applications.

Because of the massive installed base, it would be too expensive to try to replace all that code, he says. Instead, many companies are looking for ways to integrate Cobol with newer applications."

Don't laugh. I cut my teeth on COBOL at a time when IT was DP. I designed and wrote cics/cobol/IMS/DB2 code for dozens of mainframe applications. I even used Micro Focus with both, Telon and APS/PC - code generators. I'd love to have an opportunity to mashup a web 2.0 - social application with a COBOL one.

Any takers? What would the app do? Any ideas on consumer IT mixing it up with corporate IT? I have a couple of ideas around to-do lists with task, calendar, and event management.

Tags:

COBOL

Social Media:

Social Bookmarking

Expertly filtering the wisdom of crowds

jim wilde — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:12:22 +0000

Organizations trying to capture the wisdom of crowds (employees, customers, partners) are using social networking software - web 2.0 technologies.

Most of these social software technologies, at least the ones we set up, use tags (think tag clouds), folksonomies, taxonomies, , voting, reviews, recommendations, and search. This makes it quick and easy for experts as well as cross-collaboration teams to quickly and easily filter through ideas.

"can the crowd replace the expert?" from InfluxInsights by Ed Cotton.

"Companies are already tapping into the wisdom of their crowds of employees and consumers hoping for gems that challenge the experts.

However, it's one thing to facilitate and collect all the input and its quite another to make that input great.

Collection alone is not enough, there needs to be another level added to the process.

This could happen if small teams cross-collaborate to make the initial ideas better, or if real experts are brought in and thrown into the crowd to extract and facilitate.

This challenge is the same for ad agencies, as they demand creative thinking from every employee, rather than just those with the word creative in their job title.

The old-fashioned brainstorming session might not be long for this world, real collaboration requires new processes, new skills and new tools and
technology."

Tags:

Social Media:

social information management

Business Technology Trends to Watch

jim wilde — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:44:21 +0000

Many of these business trends and processes can be implemented using web 2.0 technologies and social software applications.

"Eight business technology trends to watch", from Mckinsey Quarterly

Eight emerging trends are transforming many markets and businesses. Executives should learn to shape the outcome rather than just react to it.

Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation

The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries.

2. Using consumers as innovators

Consumers also cocreate with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance, could be viewed as a service or product created by its distributed customers.

3. Tapping into a world of talent

As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence.

4. Extracting more value from interactions

Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities.

Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding the frontiers of automation

Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and HR; product and customer databases; and Web sites. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What's more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.

6. Unbundling production from delivery

Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently by disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components, measuring and metering the use of each, and billing for that use in ever-smaller increments cost effectively.

Leveraging information in new ways

7. Putting more science into management

Just as the Internet and productivity tools extend the reach of and provide leverage to desk-based workers, technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From ideagoras (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches, ubiquitous standards-based technologies promote aggregation, processing, and decision making based on the use of growing pools of rich data.

8. Making businesses from information

Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities.

Frequent contributors to what economists call market imperfections include information asymmetries and the frequent inability of decision makers to get all the relevant data about new market opportunities, potential acquisitions, pricing differences among suppliers, and other business situations.

Tags:

trends 2008

api's

Social Media:

social informatin management

Learning Social Information Management

jim wilde — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:39:45 +0000

How-to video on del.icio.us and social bookmarking.

I've been using del.icio.us (social bookmarking site) for the last three years to bookmark and share what I find interesting on the net. Also, I use it as my primary search tool. Google/Yahoo are great for the generic stuff but for the meaningful stuff I use del.icio.us. Why? Easy, most of the bookmarks to web pages are intelligently filtered, noted, and tagged. Plus, I can find and make connections with others.

Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest tools for users to adopt. It only takes a few people to build up an incredibly rich library of links, tags, notes and intersections.

Although, the mainstream doesn't think so.

"Discovering versus teaching principles of social information management" by Jon Udell, is part of a discussion on why del.icio.us has not yet made it to the mainstream.

Jon, "In response to Josh Catone's observation that del.icio.us has failed to go mainstream, Richard Ziade offers three hypotheses:

Nobody really needs a way to centrally store their bookmarks
Most people don't understand what del.icio.us does
People don't feel compelled to share del.icio.us with others

The winning explanation, I am sure, is #2. Nobody understands what del.icio.us does. I am constantly explaining the nature and value of its social information management capabilities."

Here's a how-to video on del.icio.us and social bookmarking.

Tags:

SIM

Social Media:

Social Bookmarking

social information management

What do we call personal information management when it moves into shared online spaces?

jim wilde — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:43:03 +0000

The net is getting smarter... Things change fast these days... Knowledge, deep smarts, information, data are everywhere... So, people who have the ability, all of us, to imagine and connect dots will thrive.

Not so fast. I often times get caught up in what I know about social networking and information management - the curse of knowledge. I assume that most people are familiar with the ideas of social information management. They aren't.

Anyway, I came across a blog post (from the blogroll - an rss agregator), by Jon Udell, "Social Information Management".

Jon, "For much of my career I've been exploring ways to bring people and information together in shared online spaces. Groupware, social software, the semantic web, the giant global graph, it's all the same to me in one fundamental way. When we push information into shared spaces, data finds data, and people find people, and all sorts of magic happens.

What do all these acts have in common?

- I publish a blog entry about a technique I just learned.

- I geocode a photo on Flickr.

- I curate a list on del.icio.us.

- I add to a Wikipedia page.

- I arrange a dinner using Windows Live Events.

Here's a related post, "Discovering versus teaching principles of social information management", from Jon.

These ideas should be taught in high school or at the same time kids are learning to get around the library catalog system.

With organizations and business, these ideas should be explored by business development managers and by those employees or managers responsible for interal training, learning, and education.

Tags:

sharing

collaboration

connecting

personal information management

udell

shared spaces

Social Media:

Harnessing Innovation Using "The Global Brain".

jim wilde — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 15:38:59 +0000

Companies are reaching beyond their R&D labs to tap individuals and organizations outside their corporate boundaries.

Here's a how-to book on using the wisdom of crowds or "the global brain" to harness creativity and innovation. I haven't read it but the amount of academic research has florished the last two yeas so this new book probably has some new ideas for business development managers.

"Want to Create Innovative Products? Tap into the 'Global Brain'" [reg req]

Published: November 29, 2007 in India Knowledge@Wharton

In their quest to harness new sources of creativity, companies are reaching beyond their R&D labs to tap individuals and organizations outside their corporate boundaries. In their book titled, The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World (Wharton School Publishing, 2007), Satish Nambisan, a professor of technology management and strategy at the Lally School of Management at the Rensselaer Institute of Technology, and Mohanbir Sawhney, a professor of technology at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, explore the rise and implications of this network-centric approach to managing innovation. Nambisan spoke with India Knowledge@Wharton recently about how companies can work with outsiders to enhance their own efforts to create new products and services."

India Knowledge@Wharton: What do you mean by the "global brain?"

Nambisan: The "global brain" refers to the creative potential that lies outside corporate boundaries, including networks of independent inventors, scientists, academic researchers and different types of intermediaries who facilitate those transactions between inventors and companies and scientists and companies. This pool of talent is what we broadly refer to as the global brain. This is in contrast to, for example, your internal R&D and other in-house innovation capabilities. You could call that "the local brain."

We believe the ability to communicate and collaborate with people both inside and outside the company is a key business differentiator.

Give us a call, 973.433.4007, to learn how the wisdom of crowds can help your business become more profitable.

Tags:

wisdom of crowds

imagination

talent

orchestrating resources

Social Media:

Younger Generations Use Technology Differently

jim wilde — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:38:28 +0000

Not only do younger generations perceive technology differently from their elders, but they use it differently, too.

Younger generations [future customers and employees] rarely notice the technology in the devices they use. Baby boomers raised in the 1960s only saw the programming and didn't think much, if at all, about the technology and infrastructure that brought them Bonanza, The Ed Sullivan Show and Laugh-In.
Not only do younger generations perceive technology differently from their elders, including the CIOs and other executives who manage IT organizations and corporations, but they use it differently, too.

Wikinomics author Don Tapscott tells a story of a young woman who doesn't use e-mail, instead relying on instant messaging, texting and posting on Facebook [social networking application and community] to communicate. "E-mail is for old people," she told Tapscott. "Maybe I'd send an e-mail as a thank you note to the parents of a friend.""

"Age Determines Technology's Value" from CIOInsight.

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Social Media:

corporate social network solutions

Social Networking for Business

jim wilde — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:32:58 +0000

There are clear signs that momentum is building for an enterprise implementation of social networks as tools to improve internal communication and to deepen customer relationships. Managers might consider Drupal for the job.

"The growing number of companies offering private-label social network solutions, as well as IBM's recent entry into the field with its Lotus Connections social software platform for business, is a sure sign of increased demand. Other companies, like LinkedIn and Ryze, have social networking at the core of product offerings that generate revenue by bringing offline business networking practices into the online world. And corporations are continuing to incorporate advertising on affinity networks in their campaigns to reach highly targeted audiences with measurable response rates. Social commerce is also catching on - think about Amazon. We can all learns from them on improving sales.

Head up - we use Drupal, an open source web application framework to make all kids of social apps.

Erica Driver, principal analyst at Forrester Research, agrees that enterprises are taking collaborative networking tools more seriously, particularly for purposes of internal communication. "Right now, social networking is being used primarily for knowledge management and expertise location within companies," she notes. "It can be an extension of the enterprise directory." A basic directory may have an employee's name, location, and job title, but an extended profile format that is the kernel of a social networking platform can allow employees to add details about competencies, project experience and past positions, and to blog and share bookmarks. This added detail can make harnessing the enterprise's internal knowledgebase easier and, with proper access controls, can be useful information for customers as well. Driver cautions, "You have to show the information in context, and selectively," depending on who is viewing the profile, but she adds that most of these tools have such access control embedded."

Networking Opportunities: Social Networking for Business - by Nancy Davis Kho, ITtoolbox

We work with business development managers setting upcorpoarte social networking systems and community software (demo) that incorporates many of the above ideas. Go try it out.

Tags:

collaboration

knowledge management

internal communications

productivity

expertise locator

staff finder

social commerce

Social Media:

Social Media Tools

social networking solutions

Corporate Blogging

jim wilde — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:50:39 +0000

Blogs - Drupal social networking applications and community software solutions - are moving from the social realm to the corporate world.

But companies aren't replicating the free-flowing exchange that has been a hallmark of the broader blogosphere. Rather, companies are trying to harness that freedom and conform it to business needs, with forward-thinking companies using strategic planning and formal policies to shape the use of blogs and other Web 2.0 tools to drive more communication and collaboration among workers.

Bringing on the blogs

Companies are using internal blogs for several purposes, according to a June 2007 survey of IT decision-makers at U.S. companies with 500 or more employees that are piloting or have implemented blogs. According to the survey by Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., 63% are using blogs for internal communications, 50% for internal knowledge and communication, and 47% to position the company and its team as thought-leaders in their field.

Corporate blogging: Does it really work? from Computer World.

Tags:

blogging

Social Media:

Social Media Tools

21st century organization

Innovative Management is Enterprise 2.0

jim wilde — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:30:10 +0000

What does it take for business development managers to wake up to enterprise 2.0? On the tecnology side, managers might consider looking at Drupal, an open-soucre web application framework, to build web 2.0 apps.

Over the last few years, management gurus Malone, Hagel, and now Hamel have published books on innovative management and new technologies - social network tools and community software applications. Here's a taste of what Gary Hamel has to say...

"Innovative management: A conversation with Gary Hamel, from Mckinsey quarterly (reg req).

Gary Hamel: The Internet is making it possible to amplify and aggregate human capabilities in ways never before possible. But most CEOs don't yet understand how dramatically these developments will change the way companies organize, lead, allocate resources, plan, hire, and motivate in other words, how new technology [social networking software] will change the work of managing."

Tags:

open innovation

employees

collaboration

innovative management

Social Media:

Consumer IT Delivering Corporate Productivity

jim wilde — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:25:49 +0000

Why is it that businesses, especially business development managers, have been slow to adopt many of the new social networking applications (consumer IT). We use Drupal, an open-source web application framework to make web 2.0 apps.

Better Customer Relationships,
Improves Knowledge Management,
Facilitates Recruiting and Retention,
Increases Business Opportunities,
Builds Community.

I finally get it - this stuff is too simple. What do you think?

"IT'S Recovering Complexaholics " from Computerworld

"If you're recovering from this addiction, you bring together a small skunk-works team of business and IT people and tell them to cast off all preconceptions. You give them time frames to deliver usable systems to business people within 30 to 90 days. You tell them everything is on the table, including things that have more in common with consumer IT than corporate IT. Under your guidance, they develop a strategy that relies on a collection of readily available IT components such as Web portals, dashboards and alerts, instant messaging and e-mail, data warehouses, spreadsheets, software-as-a-service offerings, and small programs that can be quickly coded, tested and put into production."

Tags:

orchestrating resources

Social Media: