June 2006

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Social bookmarking in the Enterprise

Back in May i posted about social booking in the enterprise which actually lead to some interesting conversations- including a comment from Steve Eisner from AskMe Corporation. Steve posts on the subject are very insightful and i was actually very ambitious back in May and even printed out a copy of some posts i wanted to digest since they are detailed. you can see what happened to the paper version on the pic-it has traveled with me on three business trips (NJ,MT,ID) coffee spill and all! i finally took some time to digest - so definitely take a look at Steve's Social Life blog.

Today, TechCrunch reviews ConnectBeam, a weeks-old startup -even their pricing model is interesting- The first five users per domain are free and a tiered pricing system will start once an organization's user base has grown beyond five-obviously an application like this would grow organically- get the early adopters to use it and promote it and then others will join and budget money will be found. Using this functionality to for example share and retain the knowledge of research during a project would be very valuable to enterprises that are looking to manage their knowledge. I am sure will see more social bookmarking inside the firewall applications in the next few months.

A couple of other bloggers are also talking about ConnectBeam.

Visited Countries and Global Map interactions

daniela barbosa Wednesday, June 28, 2006 2 comments :

i got an invite from one of my old Factiva colleagues (he is now at Yahoo!) - Ian Kennedy who blogs over at flashpoint to view his flickr pictures. While i was there i saw this image of a visited countries map- which lead me to try my own.
Visited Countries demonstrates the power of manipulating the palette of a gif image on the fly. very cool . Below is my Countries Visited- create your own visited countries map

Global Maps with interaction points are obviously a popular application- with google maps and mash ups and things like this visited countries tool- it points to the fact that as visual people we like to see the world as it relates to what we are doing and thinking (in this case most likely thinking about where to go next on a holiday- i have lot's of options available!)

One of the solutions that i have delivered various times as a simple adoption solution that drives users to use regional news views is a Global Newsstand Map. With these Global Newsstand maps the user clicks on the country of source and the News Page (custom or out of the box Factiva maintained) pops up like this:

Step 1 User clicks on country from map (in this case Japan)

Step 2: User views Japan News Page with local language top publications and can scroll by section and date:

Simple but always drives usage and adoption of the Newsstand feature.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Catch up

daniela barbosa Sunday, June 25, 2006 No comments :

if you miss a week of actively reading your blogs feeds- you fall back what would perhaps seem like years in other centuries. i look at the calendar and i only see a handful of days but just trying to catch up without 'missing' anything is quite a choir.

i have been very busy working on a huge project while trying to juggle at least 3 -4 others . this week i also had thursday and friday scheduled off which turned into thursday afternoon and friday- at least i had some down time and it was a cell phone free resort!

Here are some highlights of things i reviewed this afternoon that might be of interest:

missed the Bloggercon conference friday-saturday they are kind enough to post from their sessions.
The Supernova conference was this week and they created a media center from their sessions and a Blog. Lot's there to read through and Jeremiah also has a great overview over on his blog.
Rob Boothly in Innovation Creations has a new post that is interesting on practical use of Web 2.0 in the enterprise this is a follow-up to his people pages posting. I have been using SharePoint team sites (our enterprise standard) to collaborate during projects and recently seeked out an internal blog (more to follow up that soon)
Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion has a post about UMass Study that identifies the traits of a Successful Blogger.
Sun Microsystems ahead of the game allowing tagging to del.icio.us and digg in BigAdmin on Sun.com
TechCrunch reviewed what seems like hundreds more Web2.0 applications and enhancements. and pointed me to the new gapingvoid.com widget which i have added on the right side and that Microsoft is working with Creative Commons.
The Guardian Print your own paper is an interesting concept that i saw over at the MIT Advestrising Blog they will insert ads, dynamically generated to fit readers profiles. I work with a lot of companies that do daily news summaries focused on their company, industry, compeititors etc. many still send out printable versions (or have a quick print function)- with a 'comfortable' reading look and feel. We better just get the electronic paper part of it going!
My Business Web 2.0 - a post providing an overview of various Web 2.0 applications that could be used to effectively run a business with little $. posted by Saul Weiner of Salesforce.com
and last but certainly not least...If you haven’t noticed, creativity is evolving- SmartMobs points us to the structure of the new creative mind .

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Enterprise 2.0 vs. SOA

daniela barbosa Tuesday, June 13, 2006 1 comment :

I always get grumpy when i am out of the office for onsite team, regional sale meetings or trainings (not that i do not benefit from them..at least in my own special way)--especially when i have to miss the SF Blogger dinner , but it throws me off my schedule for a week. I am working but it is different. i travel for work often and yes i do take vacations and have 6 weeks coming to me this year (the benefits of working at the same company for 7+yrs- but when i am i going to have time?) but at least when you are on vacation you are away.

It is only 7:30 on the west coast but here on the east coast it is 10:30- while the Hotel Utah in SF is just probably starting to buzz , i am starting to see double....so i will just point you to an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review about Enterprise 2.0 vs. SOA on the HBR's "The Impact of Information Technology (IT) on Businesses and their Leaders" site.

Andrew McFee: an Associate Professor whose research investigates how managers can most effectively select, implement, and use Information Technology (IT) to achieve business goal writes:
...difference between SOA and Enterprise 2.0 (which I think is closely connected to the first one) is that a service oriented architecture has to be imposed up front, while an Enterprise 2.0 environment emerges over time. Imposing structure takes time. It also takes a great deal of thoroughness, tenacity, and attention to detail, and a clear vision of where you want to go. Letting structure emerge requires none of these; it requires only a few mechanisms to let patterns and structure become apparent.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Microserfs

daniela barbosa Sunday, June 11, 2006 No comments :

picked up the book microserfs by Douglas Coupland today and ended up spending half the day reading it . I had never heard of this book and luckily stumbled across it at the old local library used book sale this morning as i was checking out all the changes that have occured in the last year and a half since i moved west.

The premise of the book is Microsoft coders in Redmond who leave for Silicon Valley in the mid 90s even though they are leaving behind stability and job security for the relative unknowns associated with start-up companies....i am just at the point when they make their decision, give their notice and start driving south on I5...Interestly enough Robert Scoble yesterday announced that he is leaving Microsoft and he to is moving down to the Valley to join PodTech (by the way the news brought down the PodTech site for 1hr) Scoble started the Microsoft Channel 9 video podcast which i have mentioned before- so no suprise that he is going to PodTech which aims to explode the use of videoblogs with a dedicated team of news- shall we call them journalists?

it is just.....weird that i randomly picked up this book-today- from a huge pile of homeless used books thousands of miles from home and stayed away from the computer from most of the day-missing the news until now.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

OS from Everywhere

daniela barbosa Saturday, June 10, 2006 No comments :

I am always impressed (mostly because I can't) when I am onsite at companies that have remote desktop access from kiosk machines-someone will eventually says- 'let me show you something' and logs in remotely into their desktop that could be physically in building 99 while we are sitting in building 31 (of course most likely they have hybrid cars that drive them from building to building around the campus in case you are wondering how they get around). Being able to remote access your desktop without having to lug around your laptop is becoming pretty standard-but typically you still need to be on your corporate network to have that ability with free range across your desktop applications.

Following on my post from yesterday about Enterprise Web 2.0 applications, I was pushed information by the Micro Persuasion blog about - YouOS - a Web Operating system being developed by MIT, Caltech and Stanford folks. They call it a 'liberation of software from hardware' which is one of the powers of Web 2.0. The concept is to provide your desktop, applications, and data wherever you travel -from computer to computer (potentially mobile as well); session to session.

I am traveling this week-yes I lugged my computer- I have access to both VPN and Web Connect access to enterprise applications. The Web Connect version however gives me access to limited applications, requires plug-in downloads that most kioski types of machines block, and honestly does not look and feel like my applications that I have probably customized to fit my personal workflow. Just last night when I got in, I couldn't connect via VPN on my laptop which lead to frustration because on my wireless device were client requests that needed data that was on my local desktop only. I am going to be at this house for the next week so I wanted it to work. I eventually forwarded it to my gmail account to look at what changes I needed to make- thought 'this will take me about 1hr'- but by then I had already tinkered for over 45min and was going to be late for a dinner event. So I sent a note to the client telling them that I would do it today- and on a lovely east coast june Saturday I sat at the kitchen table first thing this morning updating a requirements PPT. and so life goes..

I do not know if 'YouOS' as a service will have a major impact on the enterprise-but I think that the concept is something that we will soon see out of the traditional enterprise software vendors, Microsoft's Live Office is only the beginning and yesterday i mentioned Google's new spreadsheet services- which is one of many from them targeting the enterprise application market.

So how will this impact the stuff that I typically work with? I have worked on some external news integrations at Enterprises that deliver relevant premium news content in context to what the user is doing in that application- for example a portfolio dashboard for investment bankers or a sales CRM- those application access points however might change (e.g. they go mobile). Most likely our integration points will need to be tweaked because that access point will have ramifications-and sometimes certain functionality needs to be limited which might affect the areas we are integrated into-specifically at the User Interface level. Developing enterprise application on 'OS from everywhere' platforms could certainly avoid rebuilds and increase adoption and long term return on investment.

Friday, June 09, 2006

What executives should know about Web 2.0 in the enterprise

daniela barbosa Friday, June 09, 2006 No comments :

i listened to Tim O'Reilly's podcast on the plane ride east among some others that my RSS feeds had pulled in- and good thing i updated my podcasts-because the movie was about some teenager mermaid-awful.

O'Reilly's podcast is a supplement to BusinessWeek's recent Rob Hof's article on Web 2.0 in their 'CEO Guide to Technology' series which is a good read. During the interview, O'Reilly talks about how Web 2.0 is enabling companies to treat the web/network as a platform. If you haven't been following the conversation- the difference is that with the internet becoming the platform the key of web 2.0 is that you don't sell software to users/enterprises you deliver it and you monitize the service which is a very different business model from what many enterprise software providers have today. The power of the Web 2.0 is what is allowing Google and others to create services like the recent spreadsheet services. Rob Boothby has a good read on the 'spreadsheet wars'. Boothby's blog is a good resource on 'Web Office" and how it will be "The Next Wave in Productivity Tools ".

I have definately seen a shift in the last 12 months on how Enterprises approach us about certain workflow tools that we provide around delivering external content across their enterprises. In the past hosted solutions behind corporate firewalls was the prefered option- more and more requests however are coming in for 'shared' web based services, with custom configuration to allow their own unique workflow and look-and-feel.

Ross Mayfield CEO of Social Text an enterprise social software company that i have been keeping my eye on -although until now i haven't run into them directly in my enterprise dealings, was interviewed by Rob Hof for this piece. Mayfield also has a good review of the BusinessWeek article and some interesting insight as well. Social Text wants/is playing heavily in the enterprise space and Mayfield writes about some of the differences between consumer and enterprise users. He touches upon security concerns and about the fact that as these tools become more culturally accepted it is making it easier to introduce them to the enterprise because there is less to explain or to train- and obviosuly less convincing to do at the executive level who subscribes to BusinessWeek! Being in the Enterprise content search business for 7 years-i have also seen search becoming easier to introduce across the enterprise- because search has become a cultural norm and RSS delivery in the Enterprise is also going that way.

I am glad that Mayfield doesn't "find chief executives wary of podcasts, blogs, wikis, or social networks" it is encouraging because like the example at the Royal Bank of Scotland where the executives nodded 'no' when questioned if they were using wikis internally-while at the same time the folks on the ground in the room nodded 'yes'-some users of web 2.0 services like myself are lurching in corners ready to pop-up.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

See it: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

daniela barbosa Thursday, June 08, 2006 No comments :

I will get back to the topic of this blog in my next post. i have had a crazy week-but have tons whirling around my head...

Early on in my career I was given the advice to keep my politics out of my business life. I like others see my blog as an extension of my personal and business life. I typically do keep my politics to myself (like you can't tell which side of the fence i fall by spending 2 minutes with me!)- but I don't even think this movie is about politics but about humanism and economics.

I am leaving for a one week trip back east for work and heading off this weekend to see my family, so we decided last night to go see this movie- we knew that we didn't want to wait until I got back.

Please go see this movie- it is extremely important- if we don't see and act on the truth- the wonderful things we are working on will be completely irrelevant soon enough. Typically i would send out e-mails to all my friends and colleagues-this time i am using my blog-

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Free WiFi Access at Airports and Town Squares but not at Hotels

daniela barbosa Tuesday, June 06, 2006 1 comment :

I have been traveling this week, mostly through airports that i have been traveling through for the last year for client visits but today i was 'lucky' enough to have to spend some additional time at these airports. I guess i usually just have better appointment times and can get in and out without waiting around. You can typically see me running through terminals in Seattle, Portland, Newark etc. Today, starting with an hour in Boise- were i was able to download all my e-mails via free WiFi so i can finalize a client deliverable for tommorrow and now in Portland. Yesterday in Boise the Basque square had free WiFi and a lovely outdoor area for us to prep for today's meeting but then i got to the hotel and they wanted $9.95 for 24hrs session. i went to sleep instead. i am going to start refusing to pay for internet access at hotels. it is silly!

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Labs showcases latest product innovations and developments

daniela barbosa Thursday, June 01, 2006 1 comment :

From my weekly Newslink from www.infotoday.com came a story about Reuters Labs following in the footsteps of Google and Yahoo Labs. Reuters is one of the parent companies of the company i work for and i am pretty sure that i have seen this site before? but found it interesting because of the ways that they are experimenting with delivering information. The Reuters NewsBeats are pretty funny, the one from today with a plong-plong piano in the back and the yesterday's massage music-maybe i am just not a fan of the music and perhaps they need to work on the blending of the voice over.

What was interesting was the dashboard. It is a Yahoo Widget so i guess it becomes a widgetdashboard (see Greg's Widget rant) and it took me about 10minutes to get setup because i didn't have the Yahoo Widget App installed. It provides headlines on your favorite news subjects including oddly enough news segments. There doesn't seem to be any personalization, but i am sure it is coming if it goes into production.

The interesting thing is that 7 years ago when the merger between Dow Jones and Reuters business divisions produced Factiva, i used to work with a Reuters product that was a client side application with alerting, that went the way of the browser based destination product quickly-IT groups didn't want enterprise users downloading client apps on local desktops and even recent attempts to provide client side news delivery applications haven't been very successful in the enterprise. Now we are seeing a resurfacing of news applications that are 'client' based and need to be downloaded to the users desktop. Last week i mentioned Touchtone (thank you Chris for the invite-i promise to get to it) -they aren't widgets but go beyond general alerting to personalize views based on definable trigger events.

I have been talking to some of my customers about how Web 2.0/Ajax functionality- widgets or whatever you want to call them -will become important information delivery tools to enterprise users who want to get away from email or website specific delivery of news, Reuters Labs is just one example of what the marketplace is working on.

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