The next step into the future of enterprise is obtaining the tools and software to lead us there. At Reinventing Enterprise summit last week in Boston, Andrew McAfee, Michael Idinopulos and Rob Koplowitz came together to discuss the future of the industry. The persistent topic of the panel was will new software support the new Enterprise 2.0, or can we enhance the software we currently use to most effectively run out businesses on an efficient 2.0 level?
According to Dion Hinchcliffe’s blog, there were three main conclusions brought out of the panel on the topic of the utilization of the new Enterprise 2.0. First off, the wrong tools are being used. We are used to the tools we have been using for years, and neglecting the new and better tools that are now available. Habit is holding us back. Is this all that uncommon? I think that corporations need to introduce these applications in a way that most employees are familiar with. Once they are given a familiar platform, they can then use the skills they already know from the programs and enhance them with the new tools that Enterprise 2.0 can present to them.
Second, a worry is about the misuse of the applications. The solution at the panel was that misuse can be easier to identify and rectify if it is posted and sent through a platform such as a blog. Frankly, there has always been abuse in the workplace of any situation. People take sick days when they are not sick, so why wouldn’t they misuse the web? But for the most part, all of the things that go on in the new business related Web 2.0 application online can be monitored. Unlike conversations around the office, everything posted on the wiki is traceable, so misuse can be recognized and a specific person is identified.
Third, all information could turn into wikis. They could in turn be searched by the company can and everyone could contribute to the discussion prompted by this open platform that encourages comments. The few people that would abuse the system do not outweigh the benefit of everyone else’s knowledge pooled into one place, not to mention the value that it would bring to the company.
So can we use our current applications to entertain the Web 2.0 platform? Hinchcliffe thinks that Google Documents is one of the best Web 2.0 documents because of everything that it can offer. Currently, it is free application open to everyone for use. Why not take advantage of this free web 2.0 software and prepare for future opportunities. It also allows for us to familiarize ourselves with the concept of Web 2.0. In the future, everything we know now will upgrade into a platform that can support the use of Enterprise 2.0 applications. So will your organization be one of the first to start learning so that you can be ahead of the game when it is essential to use these platforms?
Clearly everyone has heard of the recent hype of wikis, mashups, social networking, and even Second Life. The real question remains; are organizations and enterprises taking full advantage of the interactivity and file-sharing applications made available through Web 2.0? We all remember the difficult transition of IM for organizations, even though it was used on a regular basis for people in their personal lives. Now IM has become an enterprise necessity; most organizations use IM and claim that it is valuable to their everyday operations.
Andy Dornan’s lastest news article Growing Pains: Can Web 2.0 Evolve Into An Enterprise Technology goes on to cite specific examples from c-level executives highlighting the value created by the collaborative nature of Web 2.0 applications.
Wikis are continually being used to provide affordable and effective intranets for organizations. Aaron Hathaway, CIO at investment bank Prager, Sealy & Co. seems to agree with that concept:
“It’s awful having an artificial distinction between a wiki and a CMS,” he says. In common with most of the users in our poll, he sees wikis as having greater use within enterprises than other Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs. Wikis’ other big attraction is that, in keeping with their collaborative nature, almost all of them are free.
Organizations can not leave their Content Management Systems just yet, but it will be interesting to watch the role of wikis and where it will take enterprises within the next couple of years.
Social networking receives the most skepticism, but is widely used by many industries. Research and surveys show that the younger executives reaching middle management actually prefer user-generated content and connections over other traditional media. When will all enterprises realize this truth and begin incorporating this form of communication into their business strategy? Jason Blessing, general manager of the small and midsize business division at recruitment service provider Taleo has his own opinions on social networking:
“We have great expectations for Facebook. The thing we really like is that it has a heritage from the top universities, and it’s a place where the Gen Y’s or millennials like to hang out.”
Creating social networking sites focusing on an industry, sport, or specific niche will definitely bring in loyal users, but the question Andy Dornan brings up still remains…
Do we buy dedicated social networking technology or wait until it becomes a standard feature of Web servers and hosting services?
As mentioned in my opening statement, IM has slowly become a critical part of business. Most organizations use it, but some still are left in the dark. There is a question that comes to mind when thinking about IM services. Do we use the same free platform used by teenagers, or do we adopt a different system brought by big name players like IBM or Microsoft?. Public IM services might merge victorious in this battle, since many are integrated into cell phones already.
Organizations have their work cut out for them. Web 2.0 applications and software are constantly evolving and becoming more innovative. The way to stay ahead in this game is to continuously improve interactivity and maximize collaboration efforts. Many companies have begun to cut IT staff due to the growing trend of Web 2.0. Where will this take IT pros in the future? Only time will tell…
I know this might seem remedial for many of you. I know you all understand what these ancronyms stand for. But sometimes we have to remember that those who need to buy into these concepts, who need to accept these changes in how the work and interact with their colleagues, sometimes you have to breakdown the acronyms and lay out there as clearly as possible. I thought this gets as straightforward as possible.
Seems there is a lot in technology news outlets looking at the convergence of Web 2.0 and its infiltration of the Enterprise. Some of it reads as a Sci-Fi thriller, where a traditional society is threatened from within by young collaborators who undermine the status quo. But when you think back about change and its impact on how a business is run, how it does things; well, sometimes it does have an interesting parallel to popular fiction.
There are so many points being discussed about the changing Enterprise and the impact from Web 2.0, incredibly what you read is the inevitability of it; younger employees clamor for effective tools similar to what they find externally. They crave collaboration, and having those tools that allows them to shape information as they need only helps the bottom line. That is the overall premise in an article from Network World with various experts citing examples of such use today. I particularly like David Boloker, CTO of emerging Internet technologies at IBM, example:
…the Bloomberg.com trading application, for example, is a mash-up already deployed for business purposes that makes the trader merely "a masher-up of information,” he says.
That may be the case but the trader might have a thought or two on this description. Nevertheless, the overall point one has to concede is that individual employees are constantly seeking information in forms that often their business is not able to provide, or often willing. The traditional perspective is that an application is done to do a particular job and an employee should use it that way. But in an Enterprise 2.0 strategy, the opportunity is presented that allows employees to take various information streams and create the combinations they need in order to generate a result – ideally.
Because such mashups can result in a myriad of information exchanges, businesses have to be worried about how to keep some controls in place. Boloker goes on to say
Specifications for securing mash-ups, as well as accessing and collecting widgets on a single Web page, could come as soon as the first quarter of 2008, Boloker says. Enterprises might welcome the speed because adoption of Web 2.0 could force them to reevaluate their security policies and practices…
A hint of things to come from IBM…possibly, but in the end, I think Boloker is hinting at that inevitability; that clients of companies such as IBM are now realizing the need of such a strategy, and are keen to get solutions in place. Therefore, it’s a mad dash to create the right solution that can meet that need as quickly as possibly. The next few months will certainly be an interesting time when we’ll see new solutions and offerings enter the market to meet this unrequited need.
When talking about innovativeness in XML and http technology, Google always comes to mind. Google will spend hundreds of millions within the next year to improve their web platform, thus creating a better overall user Web experience. How will this technology compete with Yahoo’s current plans to improve open sourcing software technology?
Vic Gundotra, the new head of Google’s developer programs seems to have an answer:
When competitors adopt the technology, it shows us how we are succeeding. The difference from the past is that companies competed by attracting developers to their proprietary platforms. For Google and others, the Web is the platform and no one owns it.
Is Google in a position to set direction for the Web? Read all about it in Dan Farber’s blog on ZDNet. It’s a must read…
What came first, the chicken or the egg? A similar situation is presented in blog I found at the Content Economy. Which came first, enterprise 2.0 or web 2.0? Is enterprise starting to utilize the web to create its new diverse work structure or is the web evolving to support the business? You can read The Content Economy’s blog to see what they think.
When most people think of social networking sites, FaceBook and My Space come to mind. However, while looking for information on Web 2.0, I came across this website, Social Networking God. It is a comprehensive list of over 350 sites, ranging from music networks, to business networks, even networks for keeping up with what’s going on in your neighborhood. The possibilities for social networking are endless, and this list proves that this revolution is just a start.
At the beginning of the month, Google announced the release of their newest search engine, Version 5.0. In this press release, Google enhanced its web searching abilities to more fully cover Enterprise 2.0 programs. It gives users a way to securely search the enterprise content systems such as IBM FileNet, OpenText Livelink, and Microsoft SharePoint.
In this article in the New York Times today (October 24, 2007), Google is expected to announce that it is now moving into the world of digital television advertisement. They will use the knowledge they have gained from analyzing the effectiveness of online ads and translate that to measure the effectiveness of commercials watched on digital television in partnership with Nielson Company. This newest venture is called Google TV Ads.
Everyone seems to wonder whether Enterprise 2.0 brings real bang for the buck by making daily work of organizations more productive and efficient. While researching the topic, I came across an interesting blog today written by Dion Hinchcliffe, who is a well-known business strategist and enterprise architect.
In this blog Dion compiles a list that covers big lessons in terms of Enterprise 2.0 and what direction it is heading towards. Here’s an interesting excerpt:
Enterprise 2.0 is more a state of mind than a product you can purchase. While a widely covered report from Forrester earlier this year clearly showed that CIOs would prefer to buy one single Enterprise 2.0 suite instead of cobbling together a combination of point solutions for blogging, wikis, RSS consumption, and social networking, the reality is that even the best Enterprise 2.0 suites will be missing key pieces for a long time.
How will we be able to reap the full benefits of Enterprise 2.0? The portability of information, such as what RSS has enabled, has been vital to the growth of Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0, but many organizations still don’t fully understand. I’m sure this blog will serve as useful information in order to keep up with this new network-oriented model. Enjoy!
Who is going to be the next generation to carry on the Web 2.0 revolution? What are these students doing today? Michael Wesch, associate professor at Kansas State University, took a look into this with his Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class. Social computing has especially impacted this generation from a young age. So where are they going with it and how is it impacting them?
I thought you all might find this interesting. David Greenfield has an interesting post on his blog, Team Think, regarding Calculating the Value of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies. In it he mentions a Mark Shell, CIO of Freedom Federal Credit Union’s e-book, where he provides a formula to calculate it. I agree with David’s point, the difficulty in considering Enterprise 2.0’s impact to the bottom-line of a company is in productivity gained rather than simply cost savings. I’m curious if others out there have particular formulations they use either internally or with clients to demonstrate the value of Enterprise 2.0.
I came across a great posting on Read/WriteWeb blog on Big Vendors Scrap Enterprise 2.0 Supremacy, it’s an analysis on a Forrester report, The Big Vendors Converge On Enterprise Web 2.0, recently released. In this blog posting, it looks at the report and highlights specific details, who the major vendors are, the usual suspect abound, as well as highlight one company as missing, Google. I thought that was interesting point, my own opinion that while Google has made inroads in the business app front, I think there’s a great deal of time before we see a specific strategy that would directly compete with the current leaders.
One point it touches on briefly, but what mentioned directly in a comment left on the blog, is what’s happening outside of these large vendors. Read/Write Web suggests that the large businesses are more likely to purchases smaller developers with emerging technologies as a compliment to their overall platform:
However Forrester points out what many of us have been saying for a while: that the big vendors will "acquire best-of-breed vendors to augment, extend, and cover gaps in their own enterprise Web 2.0 portfolios."
Which isn’t surprising, considering the time and effort to develop critical applications, it can be far more profitable to build on top of a core suite of business apps then attempt to develop a stand-alone solution and compete with some of the largest businesses in the world. Of course considering the success of Google, one has to wonder what impact it may one day have.
In a recent article I was reading, David Greenfield was discussing the value of software suites. Currently, when you buy Microsoft Office, you get everything. What if I want Outlook from Microsoft and Lotus Symphony from IBM? With this new revolution of Enterprise 2.0, how can we be assured that each and every aspect of the suite is the best quality we can find?
One CEO thought it would be better to buy the software parts separately.
I raised this question with an enterprise architect at a major financial institution and he insisted that Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 applications should be purchased separately, this way you can get best-of-breed products.
Read David’s blog here and tell us what do you think?
To the outside world, Enterprise 2.0 is a very confusing topic. This week, I found this simple presentation explaining the process. It explains who uses it and what tools they can use to run the business. Enjoy the slide show!
Microsoft is diving right into the midst of Enterprise 2.0. Today they announced at the Web 2.0 Summit, strategic partnerships with Atlassian Software Systems Party Limited and NewsGator Technologies Incorporated to incorporate their particular core strengths and applications into Microsoft(R) Office SharePoint(R) Server 2007; a definite focus on business social networking. Click here to read more details at CNN Money.
Just finished a great post on the Smoothspan blog regarding, Lack of Good Platforms is Stunting SaaS and Business Web 2.0. In it, they go over the overall advantages the consumer side has on the Web 2.0 front when compared to the business applications industry. They go on to say:
Because businesses require all sorts of things in their software that consumers don’t care about or think about. Security, configuration to fit business processes, and the desire to actually produce a measurable ROI and not just play around and have fun are all part of it. Robustness, scalability, and the desire to make sure that when you pay for a service you will actually receive that service are another.
Seems quite valid, and for those who are advocating for a Portal 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 strategy for their organization, these questions of ROI, scalability, security, all have to be answered before the powers that be can seriously accept a hit in the budget, but more importantly, change how people work together across the organization to maximize the results.
Which makes development efforts difficult, while consumer Web 2.0 applications can begin as one-size fits all, SaaS providers must provide a unique variation for their clients, even though in essence, it’s the same base application. This leads to Smoothspan next point:
This brings me to another advantage the consumer folks have that drives their costs way down: they have platforms. The LAMP stack is a platform for creating consumer web software. RSS is part of a platform. There are many others. Some carry across to the business world, but not too many. Not enough.
The lack of available platforms is radically slowing the availability of new SaaS and Business Web 2.0 offerings. Companies that want to play in these arenas have to raise a lot more capital and take a lot longer to build their first release than their consumer brethren.
It’s an interesting thought which naturally opens the door to think of and consider the potential for an Open Source solution; which is exactly what they consider in the rest of the article. All in all a good read, and I'm sure, many of these points I’m sure are on your minds as well as we come together for the PCC Conference.
There are many components to Enterprise 2.0 applications. While mashups are hardly new on the Web 2.0 consumer front, for business, the concept has only begun to gain traction. Pulling data and functionality from different web sites and combining them to make new information from the surface doesn’t just seem compelling, it would seem necessary. So why is it taking mashups a long time to catch on in the business world? Maybe the concept is overwhelming and it’s hard to figure out what to place together. Always an issue when integrating new technical tools for the workforce.
Dion Hinchcliff has a few ideas in his latest blog posting on ZDNet’s Enterprise Web 2.0 blog. He explains what he thinks the top ten challenges with enterprise mashups are. The top five are listed below:
1. No commonly accepted assembly model.
2. An immature services landscape.
3. The splintering of widgets.
4. Management and support of end-user mashup apps.
5. Deep support for security and identity.
Many of these situations are easily solved. Although there are no commonly accepted models, the majority of mashups on the web seem to involve maps. Pioneering is something business is known for, any one company can easily make the mashups a must have for any corporate website. Perhaps simply starting with a map and all corporate sites listed, could allow a company to explain what services are offered in each location. There may be issues for a company to worry about as the technology evolves, but mashups can provide useful information, quickly, easily that outweigh the worries. A mashup has to start somewhere, why not a simple one that provides important information to your customers?
But with so many new collaboration tools to choose from, to say one is more valuable over another is just not easy. I’m sure many folks will be interested in discussion, Picking the Right Collaboration Tool, presented by Craig Roth, Vice President and Services Director at Burton Group. I’m sure it will be an opportunity for many participants to share their own viewpoints on mashups and other collaboration tools.
When you think about Portals, Collaboration, and Content, you really have to think about giving. You give, I give, and in this atmosphere of sharing, everyone wins. Well, for our PCC Conference we’re fortunate to have sponsors who also seek to share. I came across a very informative white paper written by VeriSign entitled Effectively Aggregating User-Generated Content: A Critical Step in Managing 21st Century Brands. This paper goes on to describe effective approaches of including user-generated content, such as podcasts and blogs, in order to maintain and protect brands.
Hope you all enjoy the white paper.
Here’s just a quick note to all, we’re linking to the Consejo, Inc. blog, Making Information Technology Work for Organization, with contributions by Shawn Shell, principle with Consejo. Shawn will be joining us at the PCC Conference next month, and will be leading a discussion on Integrating Collaborative Microsoft Workgroups into an Enterprise Portal. We’re looking forward to hearing his points on an effective strategy for integrating. Consejo’s experience working with small- and medium-sized businesses should give us a unique perspective on their particular challenges.
I hope you all will head over to Consejo’s blog, and be sure to join Shawn’s presentation at PCC Conference on November 6th.
In my inbox this morning came an interesting article on eWeek regarding Microsoft's announcement of unified communication software. I thought a couple of points in Bill Gates speech were particularly interesting:
"A new wave of software-driven innovations will eliminate the boundaries between the various modes of communications we use throughout the day. Soon, you'll have a single identity that spans all of the ways people can reach you, and you'll be able to move a conversation seamlessly between voice, text and video and from one device to another as your location and information-sharing needs change," he said.
It’s very clear that need is there, our corporate cultures are moving beyond national borders with employees, vendors, partners, customers spread all across the globe. We’ve seen how new technologies over the past ten years have broadened the reach of companies beyond anything they would have considered possible. Now the problems they face is how to keep up with that internal demand to keep all these connected parties entwined for greater productivity and efficiency:
These workers are accustomed to forming ad hoc virtual communities and to collecting and storing information online, want tools that facilitate the creation of virtual workgroups, and look to team Web sites, wikis and other digital ways of creating and sharing information, he said.
This is at the heart of Portal and Enterprise 2.0 efforts.
Just thought you all may be interested in seeing this great video posted by ZDNet, in it, ZDNet editor in chief Dan Farber talks to Ross Mayfield, chief executive of SocialText; Matthew Glotzbach, product management director of Google Enterprise; and Satish Dharmaraj, chief executive of Zimbra, about why chief information officers are starting to implement Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.
It’s a great video I’m sure you’ll find informative.
As we get closer to the start of the Portals, Collaboration and Content conference, I thought I’d let you know of some great new items we’ve pulled together.
We’ve pulled together several podcasts from the last conference; they include interviews with presenters and attendees.
Rajen Sheth, Product Manager, Google Enterprise. Rajen is a smart guy. He worked at VMWare (now a division of EMC) and Microsoft. During his podcast, Rajen talks about his keynote session titled, How Web 2.0 is Transforming the Enterprise. Rajen also focuses on ways companies can succeed through customer co-creation, the "socializing" of information currently trapped in spreadsheets and e-mail and software as a service. All in all, one of my favorite interviews.
Colin White, Founder of BI Research and PCC Conference Chairman There are few people that know as much about the portal space as Colin White. He's been the PCC Conference chairman for the last eight years and he knows everyone in the industry. In this podcast, Colin talks about what it takes to put the Portals conference together, why he thinks that companies like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google will have a tough time penetrating the enterprise, and where he sees portals, content management and collaboration going in the near future.
Jay Simons, Senior Director, Product Marketing, BEA Our CEO, Barry Libert, would get along well with Jay. Jay speaks in threes and is concise in the way he presents his message. In this podcast, Jay focuses on how the portal, CMS and collaboration or social computing space are evolving. In particular, he discusses how consumer web 2.0 applications are starting to drive innovation in the enterprise market.
Steve Wilson, Senior Director Global Web Communications, McDonald's Corp. An award winner from last year's PCC Conference, Steve reviews McDonald's content management platform/portal, the challenges of reaching 1.6 million employees with corporate messaging and the benefits of creating a 400 person internal community of workers who are focused on creating content daily for the Golden Arch's internal sites.
Neil Cohen, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Akamai During our interview, Neil talks about the impact of the "chatty" nature of Web 2.0 tools and technologies on the internet backbone and how Akamai's technologies can counter balance the affects of these tools and technologies.
Phil Kemelor, Principal Analyst, CMS Watch & Principal of PKWeb Communications Phil discusses his recent books, The Web Analytics Report, and The Executive's Guide to Website Measurement and Testing which provide details on leading web analytic vendor companies, what companies should look for when searching for a web analytics package and how leaders should go about measuring their websites. During our conversation, Phil also touches on some of the topics he addresses in his conference presentation titled, Measuring Success with Web Analytics.
Diane Davidson, Director Customer Marketing, WebEx Diane discusses the importance of real-time, online, voice-to-voice collaboration to the success of companies' portal and community projects. Diane also highlights the benefit of recording meetings or interviews and then re-using that content as transcripts, podcasts, webcasts oron-demand training.
C. J. Liu, Technical Project Manager, Kronos C. J. was one of the attendees at our PCC Conference. In our interview, he was able to provide a unique view of how the conference will help him with the portal implementation his company is working on. In particular, conversations with other attendees, speakers and technology vendors provided best practices, common pitfalls and general advice about portals -- all key factors in helping Kronos succeed with their current implementation.
Seth Earley, CEO and Founder, Earley Associates Seth talks about his role at the Portals conference as a speaker/educator, new trends in the content management space and how to avoid the "hype" of technologies in the marketplace. Seth also addresses the value of minimizing the possible disruptions of Web 2.0 technologies on employees and business partners.
Santi Pierini, SVP Marketing, Day Software Day Software powers McDonald's Corporation's CMS system among many others. During our conversation, Santi provides insight on how the relationship with McDonald's has evolved, his experience at Shared Insights' Portals Conference and where he sees the future of the industry heading.
Sabine Schilg, Director, Portal & Interaction Services Group, IBM Sabine shares insights on how line-of-business heads and IT leaders can help their companies and their users by collaborating on business requirements when building a portal. Sabine also talk about how IBM provides business accelerators like practical dashboards that map to business goals and collaboration tools that allow for "mash ups" that help solve real world business problems.
Tony Byrne, President & Founder, CMS Watch My interview with Tony was short and sweet -- he had a panel to moderate 15 minutes after our interview started so we were on a tight time line. During our podcast, Tony spends some time talking about CMS Watch's unique business model as an independent analysis firm that only works with buyers, not vendors and how this can create some challenging relationships. Finally, Tony discusses the constant innovation that is occurring in the portals, collaboration and content space and how impressed he is by the teams managing these complex implementations.
Hari Vyakarnam, VP Business Development & Punit Pandey, Director of Engineering, Yash Technologies Hari and Punit (our only "tag team" podcast) review the conference, the sessions and the other attendees. The duo from Yash also discuss key issues like a lack of enterprise search and collaboration applications in the portal space. After the interview, I promised Punit that I would throw in a plug for his blog as I understand he is considered quite the "guru" in the portlet space.
Good Morning! In my never-ending search across the web I came across this post on the eContent blog, which pointed me to Jennifer Okimoto from IBM Global Business Services presentation on Knowledge Management. These few slides are quite informative and I recommend folks to take a quick look. But one of the slides stood out to me. I was hoping to link to it here, but wasn't able to. But if you view the slideshow, check out slide #2.
What I found interesting is in the second scene, it gives the impression that the internal employee is asking for Web 2.0 tools. This got me thinking, while there is certainly an increasing population of employees who feel comfortable with these tools, see a value in them, not only in their personal life, but also in their professional life, there still is a disproportional number of internal employees who just don’t see the point.
Now I’m not saying it’s not important for corporations to invest in these technologies, oh no, the opposite. I think for many the question is how do we demonstrate the value? For many folks either they are unfamiliar with Web 2.0 tools, and at the same time, those who are familiar with these, don’t necessarily understand how to utilize them in a professional capacity. No matter what we may think, there is a leap from posting pics of the kids on your Flickr account, to documenting procedural steps in a multi-phase project that spans numerous business units.
It’s clear that the big component of an Enterprise 2.0 strategy is creating awareness and comfort with the new tools. During the session for Integrating a Portal into the Enterprise and Using Content Management, Search, and Collaboration, it’ll be great to hear the experiences of companies such as Avenue A Razorfish and Unisys for example. While corporate environments are quite unique, hearing the dos and don’ts of other companies can be a big help when developing your own strategy.
In a previous post I mention Dion Hinchcliffe’s post regarding Facebook and its strategy to open up its API to 3rd party application developers. Now I come across a great post on NY Times’ blog, Bits, with highlights of an interview with the CEO of LinkedIn, Dan Nye.
It highlights that while LinkedIn will be looking to incorporate external developers into their site, the focus is about the right applications for their audience:
“We have no interest in doing it like Facebook with an open A.P.I. letting people do whatever they want,” Mr. Nye said. “We’re not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other.”
It goes on to describe their strategy:
So LinkedIn will have to approve any company that wants to tap into its system. Mr. Nye says he is looking for two kinds of applications. First, there are deals that enable LinkedIn members to tap into their connections in other places, for example, while using applications like Salesforce.com. Second, some applications will be allowed to add features to LinkedIn’s own site. Mr. Nye offered, as an example, a module connected to a trade show or conference that integrated travel planning and other features.
After reading this of course we all have to wonder, who really has the best strategy for business users, Facebook or LinkedIn? Clearly, LinkedIn is focused exclusively on the business user, but will this more controlled access provide the type of applications that its users want? More importantly, will it happen soon enough?
It’s definitely too early to see who will be the ultimately winner of the hearts and minds of business users, but as an avid user of both, I’ll certainly be watching closely. What are your thoughts on each of these strategies, and who do think will ultimately appeal to business users?
The capacity for humans to create new tools for any particular situation is remarkable. Just considering the flavors and variations of content management technology is remarkable. Where does a business even begin to decide what system it needs for internal and external use? Tony Byrne’s great article, Do you need an ECMS, WCMS, or a Portal?, on CMS Watch really highlights the difficulty. With so much out there, where do you start?
Well Tony does a great job breaking down all the various flavors of these systems, though as you can see below, in many instances they each cross over the others in some way.
Professionals far smarter than me can easily become frustrated looking through all the variations. Where can you begin just to determine which is the best fit for your company? I will say, Tony’s outline of what a company should do seems good advice indeed. Any opportunity to hear sound advice like that is well worth the price of admission. Any one of the discussions under Using Content Management, Search and Collaboration, at the PCC Conference could be very helpful. But again where do you begin? All seem great, whether it’s Paul Rehmet, Director Knowledge Management at Unisys discussing Unisys’ Knowledge.Net and the changes it’s brought to the company, to Colin White, President and Founder of BI Research reviewing Portal 2.0 vendors. There’s plenty to see and hear. I’m certainly interested to know how others are dealing with making such a selection and how they’re approaching the decision.
I was not particularly surprised when I read Dion Hinchcliffe’s post on his Enterprise Web 2.0 blog on ZDNet. The number of articles and blog postings describing the ascendancy of Facebook are just too many to list here, but where I do agree with Dion is that Facebook’s strategy to expand its value by opening its platform to 3rd party application developers gives its growing audience so many more options to develop their experience in many directions internal developers at Facebook could ever think of.
It’s amazing to think that
Facebook currently has an entire category of business applications with over 227 different applications offered today, none of them built by Facebook itself.
Dion goes on to stress that while there is a growing sector of Facebook applications geared to the corporate user, many large organization are still unsure of the value of integrating with the platform:
But it’s abundantly clear that this phenomenon isn’t well understood or appreciated yet by most mainstream businesses, particularly large established ones that often take a parochial view of creating their own destination sites instead of going to where the audience is today. Despite the rise of widgets that spread the presence of a Web site or application to the far corners of the Internet, the mass dynamics of social networking sites has so far almost completely fallen outside of the imagination of the marketing, advertising, sales, CRM, and other departments in the traditional business world.
Naturally, businesses by their very nature are risk-averse and have to consider what the potential upside is then simply ever-increasing levels of collaboration. The focus of creating better means of internal collaboration has reached a tipping point that many businesses are seriously considering new platforms and applications to support this. But how do you incorporate something as unwieldy as integrating, even narrowly, with Facebook? How do you manage the flow of information exchange, assure its value, and then its dissemination to the right individuals across an organization?
It seems to me that there is still so much evolution that will happen on the broader social networking front with platforms like Facebook, before there is a definitive strategy for business and software developers to take full advantage of integrating. Nevertheless, it’s clearly something we all must be aware of and will be watching closely. I’m certainly going to find Jim Danenberg, PhD Candidate and Faculty at Western Michigan University’s discussion on SOA, Collaboration, Web 2.0, and Portals – Building Blocks for the New Work Environments a great forum to hear how others are following this trend and hear how some are taking their steps in the arena.
It’s exciting to see the changes occurring across industries as they move to a robust Portal 2.0 strategy. But so many ideas on what strategy is best will keep people tuned in to the different experiences organizations have. I was reading Janus Boye’s posting on the CMS Watch, Trendsetter Blog, and found this very enlightening:
According to Sacks the market has moved from a focus on browsing, then to searching (e.g., Google), and now to sharing (e.g., Facebook). I don't yet see that more contemporary notions of sharing have really penetrated the enterprise portals market, but it is certainly beginning to impact the enterprise software market, with IBM moving Web 2.0 to Center Stage or BEA Web 2.0.
Collaboration is certainly on the minds of managers when they consider developing their internal portals, how to maximize it, how to incorporate it into the daily work of internal employees so it becomes a necessity rather than a nice to have. I’m sure many of you are eager to learn specifically how others are really adopting this into their organization. I’m looking forward to Donna Jensen’s discussion on Avenue A Razorfish’s experience with their development of their internal wiki.
Welcome to the IIR blog on this November’s Portal, Collaboration and Content (PCC) Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. The blog will be moderated by Colin White, the PCC Conference Chair, and will present and discuss information both before, during, and after the conference. Contributors include conference speakers, sponsors, and attendees, plus anyone who has useful information they would like to contribute.
The blog will cover all aspects of the PCC technologies, techniques and products that will be discussed at the conference. These include (but are not limited to):
