Collaborative Thinking

Design Update: Burton Group Links

I wanted to continue to evolve this blog to assist people that are also (1) clients (2) vendors (3) other people interested in learning more about Burton Group. So, on the right-hand side of the page, you will now notice a "Burton Group" link roll with four entries:

• If you are a Burton Group client of Collaboration & Content Strategies, then you can click on this link to schedule a customer inquiry if something you read hear sparks your interest and you would like to continue the dialog. A log-in page will lead you to the Collaboration & Content Strategies page where you can use the "Request a dialog" feature.
• If you are a vendor in the market and have a product or service that is relevant to my coverage area, then you can click on this link to request a vendor briefing. The link will bring you to a form that will be sent to the appropriate people for scheduling.
• If you are interesting in viewing some complimentary content from Burton Group, then use that link (guest registration required).
• Finally, if you are interested in listening to some podcasts, read Burton Group blogs and so on, then click on the link to the INFLECTION POINT site.

Since this is also the last post of the year, I would like to thank everyone who finds this blog and its content helpful. I especially appreciate the feedback in terms of comments, cross-postings and so on.  Happy New Year.

Microsoft's RSS-related Patents

There is a lot of buzz around Microsoft's proposed patents

• Content syndication platform: A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. In at least some embodiments, the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like.
• Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser: A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. In at least some embodiments, the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like. Further, in at least some embodiments, a user can subscribe to a particular web feed, be provided with a user interface that contains distinct indicia to identify new feeds, and can efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a web browser.

Details are lacking and Microsoft is unlikely to comment, but my guess is that this has more to do with the software implementation around Windows RSS Platform and where/how that design concept will evolve and emerge in the future (Windows Live, SharePoint Server 2007) than with RSS in particular.

The interesting aspect, given my recent post on the concept of a Windows Presence Platform, becomes perhaps more apparent when you read through these two submissions and mentally replace RSS with presence (since various aspects of presence are about syndication).

More On A "Windows Presence Platform"

Based on Alec's blog entry on the topic here and some comments to my own post on the topic here, I wanted to clarify the concept about unifying presence on the desktop:

The post is a play in the Windows RSS Platform, just applying the general design concept to presence. The Windows RSS Platform has multiple integration levels that all desktop applications can plug-into (feed list, downdoad and storage). The Windows RSS Platform itself connects to various servers to obtain the feeds.

Conceptually, I think a similar model would be a tactical win for advancing presence systems. A Windows Presence Platform would continue to support a SIP/SIMPLE connection to a compliant back-end and support all gateway mechanisms related to federation. The idea here is NOT an attempt to do what Trillian and others do re: client-side presence aggregation. A Windows Presence Platform is simply a common client-side infrastructure point that would connect to any SIP/SIMPLE back-end (e.g., Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle).

A Windows Presence Platform would have a complete SDK along with plug-in interfaces that would enable any desktop application to signal presence-related events and tranfer data to the registered back-end service providers. For example, a workflow application would not have to worry about connecting to Communicator or to LCS, it would connect to the Windows Presence Platform which would then signal any presence event to Communicator and LCS  - or perhaps to an Oracle SIP server or to IBM Sametime. The point is to insert a level of abstraction and avoid being dependent on another IM or softphone application.

Presence should not be tied to any single application or require an application to act as a pass-thru mechanism in order to participate in a presence-enabled system. Instead, presence should be handled as a common client infrastructure service available to all desktop applications and also act as a common conduit (and policy enforcement point) to whatever back-end server is registered. Conceptually, there could be multiple back-end servers to signal.

Hopefully that clarifies the concept...

Google's Impact on Microsot's Exchange Business

Interesting thread if you follow Charlie's post which points to Jeff Nolan which points to a magazine article. I am not an e-mail analyst but I do spend a lot of time in the collaboration space and "hang out" with analysts that cover e-mail. I have not seen any large enterprise ditch Microsoft or IBM to go with Google. I know of no large corporate enterprise seriously looking to holistically replace a well-managed corporate e-mail service with a public/consumer-oriented e-mail service. Organizations that have not managed their infrastructure are always looking for a silver bullet but a reactionary approach usually results in the e-mail team being able to argue for the investments necessary to lower total costs of ownership to a point where chargebacks are acceptable (given concerns related to security, compliance, etc). Some corporations have looked at such consumer-oriented services under certain limited circumstances and I have talked to organizations in the educational space about possibly replacing traditional e-mail systems with appliances or hosted offerings.  

I'd be interested in hearing/reading/seeing some factual data points though rather than pontification about Google replacing Office, Google replacing corporate e-mail, Google replacing corporate IM, etc. It makes for nice media hype, but I cannot substantiate the hype with any set of verifiable data points based on client interactions while at Meta or now at Burton.

If that's true then Microsoft is fighting the wrong trend. As Jeff points out, it's not only individual users but also entire companies that are looking to Gmail―and not just for a secondary mailbox to supplement Exchange, but as a primary corporate mail server to replace Exchange.

Source: Google's Impact on Microsot's Exchange Business

The root issue in this thread relates to mail box quotas. The interesting thing about this is that the limits are set by enterprise policy. It's nice to see technology limits removed but at the end of the day, is it is not the vendor forcing this situation in as much as it is management (who does need to rationalize such directions to its workers). End users however that are forwarding e-mail to non-corporate accounts are possibly in violation of their own corporate policies concerning confidentiality, record disposition and so on. Perhaps we'll see an interesting court case down the road where corporate records come into play based on discover of certain messages held in a public e-mail system.

The other root issue is cost. A well-run corporate e-mail system for a large enterprise has been published by research firms to be around $15 per user per month (more or less depending on circumstance and add-ons (compliance etc)). We'll have to see how Google handles large enterprise needs concerning security, virus/hygiene, archival, compliance and so on. Small business is another story all together. But I'm not seeing the mad rush to discard well-managed internal e-mail systems.

I've been tagged...

Irwin has tagged me (as well as some of my Burton Group CCS team mates) as part of the Jeff Pulver "blog tag" game. So five things about me that relatively few people know:

1. My original job was for Great Oak insurance company. It was 80% owned by Avon at the time and we were all assigned Avon Lady ID's ... so yes, in a way I suppose I was an Avon Lady (not really, but it's a good ice breaker).
2. I coached ponytail softball for 11 years at various levels (senior, majors, and minors). All three of my daughters played. It was a great experience.
3. I was an economics major in college. A few weeks before graduation it dawned on me that there were not a lot of jobs in the field. I had taken a Cobol course and the rest is history.
4. I taught one of the first courses on America Online to help people learn to use a web browser. I also was an online tutor for a while as well, helping students with technology-related questions.
5. I am a news, sports and history junkie. On the sports front, I follow college basketball (the UConn huskies women and men programs), the Green Bay Packers (ok, it's a tough year), and the Boston Red Sox. On Sunday mornings I am glued to shows like Meet The Press, This Week and so on. When traveling, it's the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Business Week, Economist and so on. I am consistently reading/watching the news. The History Channel feeds my addition for learning more about past events.

Who to ping (victimize) next? James Govenor, Nick Gall, David Yockelson, Michael Sampson and Dana Dolan.

More Thoughts On Losing & Finding One's Voice

From the Charlene Li's Blog: Losing -- and finding -- one's voice post:

From Chris: I'll fix my e-mail address, thanks for pointing that out...

From Scott Abel:

I agree. Charlene's "voice" is a critical part of her success as a blogger. As blogs are increasingly making it easy -- and quick -- for anyone to publish anything, it's critical that bloggers find their own "voice" and learn to differentiate themselves from the rest. Thanks for making this observation on your blog and allowing your readers to ponder the possibilities of their own "voice".

Scott Abel
www.thecontentwrangler.com

My thoughts: I wish more analysts would find their voice as well! I think our profession is still trying to figure out where blogging fits within the business model of research advisory firms and various governance dynamics around the voice of an analyst, the voice of the service to which the analyst fulfills into, the brand persona of the research firm itself, etc. etc.

From Giacomo Vacca:

Hi Mike,
interesting topic. In the last days I've been thinking about the tones, cadence and number of voices of a blog. My blog offers a single voice (mine, enough independent by my company, and I really appreciate this freedom), I write with an informal register and I don't have a definite timing: it depends on what I have to say and how much I'm busy with other critical tasks.
My point is that "single-voice" blogs should be classified (and ranked) in a different category than "multi-voice" blogs (that sometimes are more online journals, with an editor and a editorial staff).
Best,
Giacomo

My thoughts: Thanks Giacomo -- a very valid point that I should have elaborated on. Group blogs are an interesting topic. Since they are "multi-voice", they present some challenges. Will one "voice" overwhelm others (not just in terms of volume of posts but in style, topics (perhaps more controversal) and so on). Group blogs have a role, but perhaps as a prerequisite, the authors (and guests perhaps) need to arrive at a consensus concerning tone, cadence and so on. Thanks!

From Charlene Li

Mike: Thanks so much for your observations and good wishes. One thing I'd like to add is that early on in my blogging experience I found myself "pressured" to blog at least weekly. Inevitably, those posts were lame. Afterwards, I promised myself never to post unless I had something to say, partly because I wouldn't speak with my true voice, and partly because I didn't want to waste my readers' time. It definitely helps that many of my readers use RSS so regular posting is less of an issue.

Charlene, Thanks again for the post that originated this dialog (interesting isn't it...). I agree. Sometimes I feel like I have to post a "sign of life" entry and when I do disappear for a while, I need to let people know that "work/life" balance got in the way again. I absolutely agree about the "true voice" aspect. There are a handful of analyst bloggers that hopefully will influence and help restructure the conversation and community that analysts typically establish with clients, the industry at-large and with each other actually.

More Thoughts On KM 2.0

Today I'm trying to catch up on replying to several comments on various blog postings. From the Knowledge Management 2.0 - Editorial - CIO entry:

From Daniel W Rasmus:

We tend to over think knowledge management. Too often knowledge transfer is seen as something that requires its own infrastructure, when what it really needs is solid communication and collaboration. People will accidentally leave behind bits (as I have often said though, they don't leave as many bits inside of corporations because unlike the Internet where information wants to be found, corporate information is an accident of process, which means it is mostly not actively managed to be found).

That being said, collaboration and communication bring people together. Content is the starting point for an introduction between people. People hate KM systems because they aren't natural. I see IM as a KM system, especially for the Millennial generation. Just-in-time knowledge transfer.

Sure, searching and repositories and all of the representation issues of knowledge are interesting techie quests. In the meantime, people in the trenches talk to each other to learn what they need to learn, and if some of that learning slops over into a document that can be found, good for the organization that proliferates such sloppy learning.

My thoughts: Thanks Dan. I agree totally on what I often label the "supply siders" of KM (gather up all the documents, unleash a search engine and so on). This was much more the fad in the nineties where KM was used to justify enterprise content management and so on. I also agree on the importance of collaboration and communication as the more proper focus of KM efforts. Content at the end of the day is not knowledge. What is transferred ever so saliently between people as the converse and interact is far more influential in regards to KM. That said, I do disagree on the emerging role that some consumer-oriented tools will play in the enterprise as connection mechanisms. What is interesting is the emergence of a modernized set of design criteria (under the label of social software, post coming on Collaboration Loop later this month sometime), for software that will help in the area of communication especially and collaboration as well. I agree we tend to overthink knowledge management. Unfortunately we tend to underthink human capital management, which has a far greater impact on communication and collaboration than any technology. 

From Mary Adams

Reading your post made me think of the great article on complementary assets in MIT Sloan review this summer (http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2006/summer/11/).  Authors Alan Hughes and Michael S. Scott Morton make a strong case that successful IT investments must be understood and managed together with investments in what they call "complementary assets."  This means that you have to look at training, culture, and business processes in addition to the IT investment. 

Seems obvious but this is the problem with KM and technology as well.  Knowledge assets have to be seen as a system.   This is the focus of the intellectual capital movement.  IC includes knowledge but also people, processes, external relationships and brands.  To create and profit from any of these factors, you have to look at the full suite of complementary assets.  That is, to profit from KM investments, you have to understand the people, the work processes, the network, and so on.

My thoughts: Mary, I appreciate the focus on people in your comment so it's tough to find an area of disagreement (perhaps though that I differentiate between process (the way work is supposed to be done) versus work practice (the way work is localized and done within the process structure)). For me, KM hardly about technology at all. There are technologies that can act as a key enabler but none are a silver bullet. Thanks for the link!

From Scott Quick

Hi Mike,

I am an investor in a small startup - Attensa. 

Your post is a must read for all those Web 2.0 companies hoping to succeed in the enterprise market.  Having spent a good deal of my career in this space, you have correctly characterized the the relationship between the 'Organizational Development' challenges and Technology... and where the true challenges for successful implementation and adoption lie.

Another often overlook dynamic is that many larger enterprise customers are working hard to eliminate silos of information and are purposefully sunsetting smaller departmental applications.  These applications are sexy at first for all the reasons quoted in your post, but then morph into unmanagable, unsecure and unscaleable applications that typically take more time, money and energy to unwind later.

Coming full circle, I'm amazed that we need to relearn the valuable lessons of the past.  Technology is, in and of itself, fairly uninteresting - unless of course it is wrapped in a holistic solution... a solution that addresses all those non-technology issues you correctly allude to in this post.

My thoughts: Scott, again, hard to disagree. I think the need for a generalized and common set of infrastructure services enables "the edge" to build localized, situational applications that otherwise might not exist, but can be constructed within overall governance boundaries that the enterprise needs to establish.

Knowledge Management 2.0 - Editorial - CIO

Using the 80/20 rule as a generalization, 80% of the challenges related to knowledge management are anchored around organizational and process dynamics. Only 20% of the challenge is related to technology enablement. I don't believe I'm being overly generous on the technology side of the issue. Ensuring that the user experience, application services, infrastructure and support frameworks are effective requires a fair amount of focus. I have mixed feelings on the article overall. It's certainly nice to see KM covered in the media. I would have hoped that the KM 2.0 meme would have taken the opportunity to discuss the social aspects of organizations. Given the need for growth and innovation, CXO's are investigating ways to harness the intellectual capital within their organization and extended network of customer, partner and supplier relationships. But any reader take-away that what we need is a new round of technology silver-bullets would be unfortunate. I'm having a bad flashback to the KM hype of the nineties sometimes applied nowadays to blogs, wikis and so on. Below are some reactions to various aspects of the article. It is still worth reading as the companies profiled are doing interesting things:

"New, focused, lightweight applications rewrite the rules about KM. The best part? People will actually use them."

..........................

There are no new rules here. Throwing technology out there in the hope that people will suddenly become motivated and change their communication, information sharing and collaboration behaviors is much more prone to failure than success. There is a sliver of truth here however. The industry is coming to realize that lightweight tools (tags, social bookmarks and other types of attentional applications) that overlay systems can act as connection services in a more natural manner than previous software that was complex costly and cumbersome. But, organizations need to focus on human capital management, leadership, followership, community-building, role/responsibility clarity, decision rights, recognition programs, conflict resolution and other people-centric issues depending on how functional/dysfunctional the organization is in the first place.    

________________

"So why haven't enterprisewide knowledge management tools caught on like wildfire? There's one main problem, says Gartner VP of Research Jeffrey Mann: Users and IT administrators hate them."

........................

Well, they may hate their organization first and hate the tool second. Tools like enterprise content management are rarely rolled out across the enterprise because they are costly, complex and intrusive - regardless of whether people want, or do not want, share what they know. Again, KM is not a tooling problem. It is an organizational problem in terms of workers perceiving that there is a "fair process" (Harvard Business Review, January, 2003). The social contract between workers and employer is quite complex and requires a certain level of engagement, explanation and expectation clarity.   

_________________

"Attention, CIO's: A notable aspect of this new generation of knowledge management tools is the way they offer themselves for casual involvement. "It's not as huge a commitment to use any of these things as it is when you have to set up a server, and install it and license it," says Gartner's Mann.

Acting independently, and without need of server space or tech support, business units can simply try out the new KM systems, sometimes in stealth mode. "In many cases they don't have to sell it to IT, they just go and do it," notes Mann. "You just [use] a credit card, or it's free." Now's a good time for CIO's to get up to speed on what these apps can do."

............................

Casual and informal involvement is the truth here. See my posts here, here, here, here, and here. But the notion that enterprises might consider public services has its clear risks in terms of security and confidentiality.   

_________________

"A KM system that's "actually being used"―this kind of language hints at the skepticism both users and CIO's have had about KM for years. But apps like Illumio and Koral could win enterprise users over one workgroup at a time via viral adoption

One final bit of good news: Users say the new, simpler KM tools make it easier to justify the investment to your fellow C-level executives."

............................

KM is an additive component to a business case. Viral adoption is an important component. Organic, bottom-up champions are often necessary for KM to become socially institutionalized. But, overall, if the outcome does not contribute to innovation, growth, performance or some organizational goal (competency level, succession planning), then CXO's will not likely be any more enthused about it than before.

Source: Knowledge Management 2.0 - Editorial - CIO

Charlene Li's Blog: Losing -- and finding -- one's voice

Charlene is the most prolific blogger in the analyst community. Although we travel in different circles in terms of coverage, her post on "voice" in the context of blogging raises a variety of points that organizations should explore.

Losing -- and finding -- one's voice

One of the things I find most interesting about blogging is the concept of "voice". I'm often told by readers that my blog has an interesting voice which always I find so curious -- because it's not something that I consciously do (OK, now I'm really thinking about it as I write!)

Source: Charlene Li's Blog: Losing -- and finding -- one's voice

Formal vs. Informal: The "voice" of some blogs reflects a publishing mindset. You can tell from the tone and style of the blog entry that the information was probably sent through a structured process that included some level of peer review and management approval. The blog entry might even have been scanned by an editor to ensure proper grammar, etc. Other blogs reflect a more conversational "voice". The tone is more collegial, where there is more "thinking out loud" in regards to events, observations, activities and so on. In a way, "voice as persona" begins to take shape as the style, narrative and ongoing cadence of blog entries establishes some cognitive scaffolding for readers "to get to know" the blogger (as much as they can).

Schedule vs. Cadence: Bloggers (or those managing a blog effort) sometime focused on quantitative or qualitative schedules. This type of model is more output-driven and many times results in policies that "strongly suggest" to bloggers that they must post on some type of regular schedule and that there should be a "completeness" metric to the posting (in terms of fully fleshed out topics, positions and so on). Other approaches forego the focus on output and instead concentrate on developing a cadence where the pattern of blog entries and topics mimics the work/life rhythm of the author. If the blogger is a heavy traveler, then part of the "voice" and cadence of blog postings will include comments on trips, restaurants, tourist sites, photos and so on - in addition to the topics more germane to the blog theme. There may be periods of inactivity, or periods of rapid activity, but there is a steady and consistent "voice" that cannot be equated to the date/time stamp of blog posts.

Voice vs. Voices: While the concept of voice is important to contemplate, it is also helpful to think about the network of "voices" that help form a sense of community as well. A single voice is interesting, and can be incredibly persuasive. Sometimes that is the overriding intent of the blog. The blogger(s) as well as their champions and sponsors could be very content with what their "voice" influences or accomplishes. Other strategies however might place more value in the derivative impacts and synergy that happens as a part of the discourse across multiple blogs. Voices that become deeply intertwingled can become sources of insight and innovation in unexpected ways.

So I'm happy to hear the Charlene's "voice is back"... hopefully more analysts will find their voice as well.

Microsoft Knowledge Network Changes Direction

An unfortunate turn of events. Microsoft has some intriguing social software packaged within Knowledge Network. I'm sure that some organizations will continue to investigate KN and perhaps apply it within certain situations, but the lack of support could be a drawback, especially given the "newness" of this type of expertise and social networking capabilities and its impact on users. Some IT groups may not be comfortable with software that does not have a good track record in the industry and remains somewhat emergent in terms of what it does and how it does it. Other vendors have indeed offered expertise automation tools in the market for some time but they have had limited success. Many have gone under.

This clearly opens the door for IBM and its "Ventura" effort. I would expect IBM to expedite deeper integration with SharePoint.

We are announcing a change to the distribution and support model for KN. Our new plan is to release KN as a Technical Preview rather than as a supported product feature of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. As a Technical Preview, KN will still be available to customers as a web download at no additional cost and will include documentation and community support. However, Technical Previews are not supported or covered by standard product support services or warranties. We appreciate all the enthusiasm and interest in KN from so many of you. We’ve also heard feedback that KN should be integrated into the core Office Client and Server products rather than distributed as a separate component. Responding to this feedback, Microsoft has decided to distribute KN as a Technology Preview in this release and to review the KN feature set for inclusion in future releases of the Office system.

Source: Microsoft Knowledge Network Team Blog