Collaborative Thinking

Enterprise Twitter: Fad Or Tipping Point?

Update: My bad (typo - duh)...

I'm looking forward to this telebriefing (available for clients only however - I know, sorry!). If you are a Burton Group client, please look for the alert notification, or on the web site, for additional information on the session and instructions on attendance:

Enterprise Twitter: Fad Or Tipping Point?

Social messaging, sometimes referred to as micro-blogging, has become incredibly popular on the Internet, exemplified by soauring use of consumer services such as Twitter. Twitter’s growing audience has raised questions as to whether such communication models are applicable within the enterprise. Strategists are considering social messaging as a means to improve not only information sharing and collaboration but also facilitate social networking and community building. There are concerns however. How does social messaging conflict with ongoing unified communications efforts (e.g., instant messaging)? What level of security and compliance requirements are there for these tools? Join Principal Analyst Mike Gotta of Burton Group, along with CEO Tim Young of Socialcast and CEO David Sacks of Yammer as they discuss all of these topics and address questions from audience participants.

Presented by: Mike Gotta, Tim Young CEO Socialcast, David Sacks CEO Yammer

Dates:

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
2:00 p.m. EDT/11:00 a.m. PDT/18:00 UTC GMT/20:00 CEST

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
9:00 a.m. EDT/6:00 a.m. PDT/13:00 UTC GMT/15:00 CEST

Somers Relay For Life

This blog is almost entirely about my professional activities with some insight to my hobbies and other interests. However, once a year I take a moment out of my "analyst life" on this blog to post something that pulls our entire family and our local community together:

Once again the Gotta family is involved in the Somers’ Relay For Life walk-a-thon (being held on May 30-31, 2009), to benefit the American Cancer Society (ACS). Cancer has touched many of our family members and friends over the years.

My wife Cathy is working hard scheduling entertainment for the day and is coordinating activities for the young adults walking throughout the night. My daughter's Meg and Rachael are the captains of our team, “Waving Good-Bye to Cancer”. Denise will join us when she returns from Scotland (semester abroad). Our team consists of 5 adults and 10 youth that range from 16-23 years old. We are currently involved in a variety of group fund-raisers such as bake sales and bottle/can drives. We are also reaching out to our family, friends, and other people in our lives for a donation. Your contributions are more important than ever before given these tough economic times. Families rely on the ACS to help fight this devastating disease.

Please help in whatever small way you can to help make our Relay For Life walk-a-thon successful. You can make a gift by following the links to either Meagan’s or Rachael’s personal donation page. Information on how to make an offline (postal mail) donation can be found here. There's also a widget located in the upper right corner of my blog that you can click on as well.

Pictures from last year's effort. This shot is a little blurry but it was a wonderful moment as people wrote their memories on the bus.

The Gotta family and the rest of the Waving Good-Bye To Cancer team very much appreciate your generosity. Thank you!

And now, back to our normal programming...

Facebook Open Stream API (summary of articles)

I'm playing with the Facebook AIR application. Works ok. I can see my activity stream now without going to the Facebook web site. My first thought is how people will react as applications (e.g., Xobni) begin leaking out activity stream information into totally different application contexts. Facebook does not do a very good job at all (in my opinion) when it comes to:

1. Informing users as to which Facebook Connect applications are accessing their data for external purposes
2. Notifying users of what data those applications are sharing externally
3. Allowing users to set permission levels at a data item level per application (vs. global Connect settings)

From Facebook

The Facebook Open Stream API

Interact with Your Stream Anywhere

Using the Open Stream API

From Inside Facebook:

Live Notes from Facebook “Technology Tasting” Event in Palo Alto

What Does Facebook’s “Open Stream” Mean for Marketers?

New AIR Applications Take Real-Time Sharing Outside Facebook.com

First Look: Getting Data from the Facebook Stream API

Facebook Announces New APIs for Reading and Publishing to the Home Page Stream (Updated)

From ProgrammableWeb

Facebook Opens User Activity Stream to Developers

From John McCrea

Photos from the “Birth of the Social Web” at Facebook This Evening

Facebook Launches its “Open Stream API,” Supporting the Emerging Activity Stream Spec

From Mashable:

Facebook To Open Your Status Updates to Developers

Seesmic Desktop: An Early Look at the Future of Facebook Apps

More Facebook On the Desktop: Xobni in Outlook

Facebook Open Stream API: The Next Huge Platform?

From ReadWriteWeb

Despite New Openness, Facebook Remains Fundamentally Closed

Microsoft Vine: Social Messaging Entry For Alerts & Status

I really do enjoy seeing this type of innovation coming from Microsoft - the SharePoint team could learn a lot by working more closely with these folks - and consider leveraging their solutions for the next release of SharePoint.

Brier Dudley's blog | Microsoft debuts Vine in Seattle: Twitter+Facebook on steroids | Seattle Times Newspaper

It's been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine -- a service that's debuting today with a beta test in Seattle -- could be a contender.

Vine is a hyperlocal, personalized message and alert system. It's intended to be a dashboard that people can use to keep tabs of their family, friends, activities and major events in their community.

The dashboard -- which appears as a widget on a PC screen -- displays a map of the user's community and the status of their contacts. It also has buttons to send alerts or reports, which can be sent and received on the PC or as text messages on a cellphone.

Brier Dudley's blog | Microsoft debuts Vine in Seattle: Twitter+Facebook on steroids | Seattle Times Newspaper

Microsoft to begin public test of Twitter-like notification service | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Microsoft is taking reservations starting April 28 for a limited beta of a new public-information service called Vine.

The service, slated to go to testers in May, uses alerts, reports and a personal dashboard to allow users to stay in touch, particularly during crisis situations.

The Vine service initially was developed by the Windows Live team, post Hurricane Katrina. I heard a bit about the service back in June 2008, after which the service ― like a number of Windows Live properties ― seemed to just disappear. It turns out the concept was passed over to Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie’s division and incubated like other technologies in Microsoft’s Start Up Business Accelerator group. “Eventually, products and services started in the accelerator will transition into one of Microsoft’s existing business divisions,” a spokesperson said.

Microsoft to begin public test of Twitter-like notification service | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Microsoft Vine is Twitter for Emergencies

Microsoft has an early beta of a new product called Vine. Currently available for beta testers in Seattle, it’s a location-aware social networking application focused on being a robust means of local communication that’ll work even in times of emergency.

It’s a desktop client (available for Windows only), and you can also post to it via e-mail or SMS. It gathers local news from 20,000 sources and displays it on a map. It lets you post alerts (short messages) and reports (longer posts). Finally, it integrates with Facebook, while Twitter integration will be added at a later date.

Microsoft Vine is Twitter for Emergencies

Microsoft Vine To Connect Family, Friends When Crisis Hits

So what is it? Vine is a tool keep people connected during a crisis, but it’s also used to for more mundane, everyday tasks. My guess is it will hit a sweet spot with the masses. My parents, for example, are going to love this.

It will gather local news (you tell it where you live or are at the moment). News items are gathered from 20,000 local and national news sources, plus public safety announcements from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The tool shows you news items on a local map. You can choose to filter out certain types of news (sports, entertainment, etc.).

Vine also gives you status updates from Facebook for close friends and family. Twitter and other social network news feeds will also be added over time. This lets you see what people are up to, as well as their location on a map if they share it.

Microsoft Vine To Connect Family, Friends When Crisis Hits

Musings on Oracle/Sun re: social networking

Some quick thoughts:

• Sun has an internal "Corporate Facebook" platform called "SunSpace".
  • This could help bootstrap an Oracle effort to deliver a dedicated social network site (ala Lotus Connections) to compliment WebCenter (which is more of a portal-centric play for social networking).
  • SunSpace could conceptually "surround" Beehive.
  • However, Oracle has not indicated that it believes in the concept of a destination site for social networking.
• An interested component of SunSpace is called "community equity".
  • The underlying algorithms could augment the capabilities Oracle acquired from Tacit and BEA (Pathways) to analyze a variety of network relationships across people, artifacts, activities, etc.
• There is some internal work going on to pilot an enterprise social messaging systems (called !sweet).
  • Complimentary to OraTweet.
  • Social messaging would be a valuable addition to Beehive.
• There has also been a lot of interesting work regarding FOAF and SSL at Sun.
• Sun had been involved in Project SocialSite, which is based on OpenSocial and Apache Shindig. It appears that the project will move under Apache.
  • Oracle would clearly benefit by leveraging a distributed model for enabling other web systems with social widgets.

Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Social Networking Workshop

If you are heading to the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston (June 22-25), you might find the workshop below worth attending. Information on how you can enroll in the workshop package can be found on the Registration page. I'll also be moderating a panel on best practices on adoption of enterprise social networking on Wednesday afternoon with folks from Genentech, Sabre, and Harvard University (Community & Social Network Sites: Think Adoption, Not Deployment) and presenting a brief summary of the workshop below on Thursday morning. It will be a busy week. I'm also moderating a session on the role of portals in an E2.0 world with representatives from IBM and Oracle on Tuesday (Socializing Enterprise Portals) and sitting on a general session panel Wednesday morning discussing social messaging in the enterprise. Note: I'm also on the advisory board for the event.

Reality 2.0: Getting Started With Enterprise Social Networking

Social networking promises to address an array challenges and opportunities within the enterprise such as bridging generational shifts in the workforce, facilitating collaboration and community building, and supporting strategic talent initiatives. Despite these potential benefits, a number of organizations moving forward with enterprise social networking projects experience a noticeable level of uncertainty. The road to success is complex. Project teams need to overcome the perception that social tools and applications are not a critical investment. Common issues proponents of social networking face include: establishing the business case, acquiring funding, determining metrics, developing governance policies, and addressing security concerns. In addition, strategists need to anticipate how best to handle cultural issues and adoption barriers that will emerge over the course of social networking projects.

In the fall of 2008, Burton Group conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 65 business and IT personnel representing 21 organizations to gain greater insight on enterprise social networking. These unguided discussions captured a variety of real-life stories, emerging best practices and common barriers confronting social networking project teams. Indeed, analysis of the study data reveals a repeating pattern of 15 critical issues organizations will likely encounter as the move forward with their internal social networking initiatives. This workshop provides an interactive forum for people to learn more about what other organizations are doing - their challenges - their successes - as well as their pain-points. Q&A time will be set aside after each module. The workshop will end with a general summation, updates on market trends, and address any remaining audience concerns.

Who Should Attend

• Business and IT staff whose job responsibility involves the following: innovation, talent management, collaboration, knowledge management, or community-building
• Corporate communications and HR staff involved in employee engagement strategies, learning, and strategic talent initiatives
• Social networking project teams who wish to learn more about business and cultural barriers, employee profiles, expertise location, community seeding tactics, and adoption tactics
• Business or IT executives and managers with responsibility for creating, sponsoring, or implementing social networking initiatives
• Strategists who would like to expand their knowledge of social networking trends

You Will Learn

• What are the critical issues confronting social networking project teams, and how organizations are responding to those challenges and opportunities
• How project teams are dealing with the business case for enterprise social networking, including concerns over ROI and metrics
• What cultural issues do social networking projects tend to surface, and how did organizations in the study address legal, HR, compliance and security considerations
• What difficulties project teams will likely encounter as they try to convince employees to adopt social networking platforms (e.g., profiles), and what adoption tactics were used to jumpstart participation (e.g., expertise location, communities).
• How interviewees felt their IT organizations were handling with the topic of social networking, along with high-level impressions from participants regarding their experiences with different tools (e.g., IBM Lotus Connections, Jive Software, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

The Era Of Volunteerism?

Just a short excerpt from an upcoming document on the business and cultural aspects of enterprise social networking that came out of my field research project:

"When interviewees spoke of “culture”, their anecdotes revealed a spectrum of issues that influence the degree to which employees choose to participate in work-related activities. The role an employee has in a business activity compels him or her to perform a task and contribute certain information. However, the depth or richness of actions taken and information shared on a voluntary basis beyond what that role minimally demands can vary tremendously based on cultural influences.

A culture that causes employee’s to hold back what they know, or suppress their level of participation beyond the mechanics of their job, means workers are not engaged to their full capacity. Under such circumstances, workers may be reluctant to share their expertise with co-workers, or divulge what they know only within trusted social circles. Such a cultural atmosphere can thwart efforts to persuade people to connect, share, and build community in ways envisioned by social networking proponents. Social networking projects however are not the first organizational or IT strategy to identify overcoming unhealthy cultural barriers as a critical success factor. During its heyday, similar issues stymied knowledge management (KM) projects as well ? and still do.

A common thread between social networking and KM that strategists should acknowledge is the principle that volunteered participation and resulting contributions are a daily decision employees make ? and one that they essentially control." (emphasis added).

I've tried to distinguish in several of my E2.0 blog postings on the difference between "directed" and "volunteered" participation. Often, when people discuss communication, information sharing and collaboration, we lose sight that in most enterprises - people converse, share information and work together to some degree whether they like it or not - especially now (it's just nice to have a job). People's roles, duties - and sometimes continued employment - "direct" then to interact - especially if those activities are part of business processes or other structured activities.

For instance, working together to put out an RFP, or respond to an RFP, can be a highly collaborative endeavor. If you are assigned to that activity - you will work together. But people don't always do the best job they can, or should, in terms of collaborating with each other. People inside the team (or outside the team for that matter), may not fully contribute - even if they see, or are given, the opportunity. It might be for no other reason other than they simply chose not to fully engage and take action. Why? Do we just chalk it up to culture and give up because it cannot be changed? Note: I disagree with this viewpoint.

Ultimately, people still make choices on sharing what they know. How do we influence them (if possible) to make choices that directly help co-workers and indirectly help the organization overall when they are not compelled to do so by the structure of their role/task? How do you instill a sense of volunteerism (if that's even the right phrase)? We find ourselves shifting from tooling into the realm of attitude and behavior change (some might include culture change) which are better understood through the lens of psychology, sociology, etc. I agree with Kate that changing culture is difficult but not impossible. Enabling an environment where people are more willing to volunteer above that which they feel is necessary has been one of the intractable challenges faced by industrial-age organizations.

That seems to be the area where E2.0 attempts to address. I don't believe E2.0 applies to all types of communication, information sharing and collaboration. Some might disagree (which is fine) - but my understanding of E2.0 hinges on the term "emergent". Although McAfee phrases it as "use of emergent social software", I've always interpreted it (rightly or wrongly) as "emergent use of social software". The notion of emergence, participation, and volunteerism come together when you consider O'Reilly's thoughts on an "architecture of participation" and Snowden's thoughts on rendering knowledge "Knowledge ... cannot be conscripted".

Why is ROI so difficult when it comes to social networking and Enterprise 2.0? One core factor might be the intangible nature of the beast. How do you predict the ROI of something that hinges on your ability to deliver practices and systems that influence attitude and behavior - which, in turn, may/may not create better business outcomes or achieve some other organizational goal? In many of the E2.0 case studies being quoted lately it seems that the ROI numbers are based on looking back on a deployment of some kind - not predictions beforehand that later proved to be true. ROI is a little easier when done in the rear view mirror - but that might be the best we can do right now (perhaps stories are the new ROI and the people in them the new metrics).

Unfortunately, many project teams don't have that luxury and are confronted with predicting ROI (and the metrics use to gauge success) before they gain project approval or can expand out of a pilot stage and reach any type of critical mass that might generate the success stories. In any case, the main point of this post was to highlight the notion of volunteered participation. I veered off a bit into ROI but the two seem somewhat intertwined...

Bowling Alone: The State Of Enterprise Instant Messaging

Instant messaging has not taken off in the enterprise as have other communication tools, such as e-mail. At one time, IBM quoted that Sametime had around 20 million seats and Microsoft has said that it has around 10 million seats of Enterprise IM deployed. This number might be off a little - but compared to e-mail for instance - deployment of enterprise IM has been disappointing given that the technology has been around for about a decade.

So it begs the question - why hasn't IM been more broadly deployed across the enterprise?

One of the older reasons I used to hear from clients years ago was the question of "need" - e-mail was already deployed, and e-mail messages arrived in "near time", so what was the extra value (i.e., ROI) of having IM as another communication option? I haven't head that reason as much in recent years, but it was a fairly common refrain at one time.

Other clients I talked to discussed the hidden up-front costs associated with IM related to security and compliance. While security and compliance issues clearly apply to e-mail as well - in many instances, e-mail had already been deployed across the enterprise. With IM, these issues added to the criteria strategists had to include before they made initial the go/no-go decision. (Again, we're back to cost/benefit analysis and ROI factors.)

More recently, enterprise IM has become part of a broader discussion on unified communications (UC). The reason that IM was not viewed as a necessity for some organization was the fact that it was so disconnected from other communication tools. As an integrated component within a UC platform, it was thought that enterprise IM would finally become a reality.

While enterprise IM has made headway, you still can't but wonder why there is so little excitement around that type of interaction model to improve communication, information sharing and collaboration?

Identifying some of blocking factors (e.g., business case, ROI, security, compliance, integration with UC) are pieces of the puzzle. However, I now believe that the most compelling reason why enterprise IM, has not taken off as expected can be traced to Twitter, and how it has gained widespread popularity. We are now seeing “Twitter clones" (sometimes called micro-blogging or social messaging) targeting the enterprise and it would not surprise me if these tools outpace enterprise IM adoption over the next 3-5 years.

Enterprise IM is not very social - at all (thus the "bowling alone" metaphor). You have a “buddy list” that sits on your desktop for most of the day, and on many days, nothing much at all happens. You see people's presence indicator change from green to yellow to red, or you see their status message change - and maybe if you're lucky someone will actually IM you, or you might IM them. However, for the most part, IM serves a very functional purpose ? you use it when you need to contact someone. O f course, there are exceptions - IBM has demonstrated how IM can be used for large-scale jam sessions. A company Microsoft acquired (Parlano) had a nice application for persistent group chat (now a component within OCS R2), that was popular in the financial sector. Still, those situations are the exception and not the rule for most organizations.

I will not go as far as to say that enterprise IM is dead. In fact, for direct real-time communication it will continue to serve a very valuable service. Enterprise IM should be viewed as a functional component with UC platforms. That is a very good trend - people's IM experience will benefit from the richer type of telephony, conferencing, and presence integration found within UC platforms.

Enterprise versions of Twitter are not going to eliminate the need for IM and UC platforms (or e-mail for that matter). Micro-blogging/social messaging tools do however fulfill a user need that enterprise IM/UC platform providers have chosen to ignore, or to support poorly. If Twitter has demonstrated anything, it’s that people enjoy a more openly social and communal experience. As I outlined in an earlier post, UC And Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0, social messaging tools actually augment UC platforms and UC platforms have good reasons to integrate with social messaging tools.   

I wonder why UC vendors have been so slow to recognize this trend. To me, the synergies and gaps are obvious. Yet, UC providers have been laggards when it comes to this emerging space (micro-blogging/social messaging). IBM's Lotus Connections team is implementing something close to Twitter in an upcoming release (one might argue that it is closer to activity streams/FriendFeed than Twitter) - but still - at least it's in the ballpark. But IBM's Sametime team still is trying to figure out the different between IM/UC integration and micro-blogging/social messaging/activity streams as indicated by this recent post, Are you confused about how Sametime relates to Connections?.

That inability to sense and respond to market inflections from unexpected sources is one of the problems dominant vendors always seem to have. When vendors and product teams are locked into their solution so deeply that they cannot pivot and attack their own assumptions (sometimes because the disruption is not understood clearly), they miss an opportunity to respond and innovate. In this case, the source of innovation came from another IBM team (Connections). But customers will want capabilities being delivered by the Connections team to expand over time and if the two teams fail to coordinate roles and responsibilities, overlaps might be difficult to explain. 

But IBM is no different than other vendors. Who will deliver micro-blogging/social messaging from Microsoft? The OCS team or the SharePoint team? Will Cisco try to extend its own UC platform anchored around SIP/SIMPLE to address micro-blogging/social messaging or will it push the reset button and acquire/build a tool that more closely mimics a Twitter or FriendFeed model? Vendors that become so enamored with their own products and fail to follow where customers lead them might also find themselves - well - bowling alone.

UC And Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0

Over on the Enterprise 2.0 blog, Irwin Lazar discusses whether UC and Web 2.0 are "friend or foe"? Here are some of my thoughts. Deeper commentary can be found here: Turning Instant Messaging and Presence Upside-Down & Inside-Out.

Unified Communications	Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0	Synergy
Instant Messaging, Persistent Group Chat	Social Messaging / Micro-blogging	IM will remain more point-to-point. Social Messaging will take-on Persistent Group chat features. IM will replace direct messaging in enterprise social messaging tools.
Presence, Rich Presence	Activity Streams, Geolocation	Presence will remain but will focus on people's availability for communication. Activity streams and Geolocation will become the focus of more advanced rich presence efforts.
"Buddy List"	Social Graph and "Follow"	The concept of a private buddy list will be surpassed by social graph and "follow" features in social networking platforms.
Directory-based Profiles	Social Network Site Profile	UC will not be the focus for user profiles and will instead leverage profiles from social networking platforms.

The obvious opportunity for UC vendors is to augment Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 by adding click-to-call, click-to-conference, presence awareness, etc. If UC vendors could get their heads out of the SIP/SIMPLE world, then they could possibly make a run at social messaging (which will likely involve XMPP, Atom/AtomPub, microformats, perhaps portable contacts, etc). But existing vendors such as IBM and Microsoft have so much already invested - that I don't see them being able to turn around their respective mindsets. Cisco perhaps because they need to do something to disrupt the market and their XMPP asset (Jabber) could play a strategic role in a Cisco-based social messaging tool (or they acquire someone). I also don't see enough cross-team synergy on the Microsoft side between SharePoint and OCS. The OCS team is heavily focused (obsessed perhaps) with cracking the code necessary to dominate the telephony space. The social aspects of UC are just not critical enough to have them signficantly alter their course I imagine. IBM is trying to keep Sametime relevant in a traditional collaboration and UC market - Lotus Connections is IBM's social play. The Connections team is adding capabilities related to Activity Streams - so I expect some awkward positioning to come out of IBM as they balance two teams with different strategic goals. Avaya remains a dark horse on the fringe I suppose. No other major player in the UC space really matters when it comes to this UC/Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 intersect. The expertise location idea has been around since the late nineties (Tacit, etc). So it's not really all that "new" - tagging and some techniques are causing people to take a new look, but issues related to profiles are numerous and often over-sold as an expertise "silver bullet" by vendors.

UC and Web 2.0: Friends or Foes?

At this week’s VoiceCon conference I had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion featuring Cisco VP & CTO of UC, Joe Burton, and IBM Lotus UC and Collaboration Services U.S. Leader Peter Fay on the role of Web 2.0 in an enterprise UC architecture.

Enterprise 2.0 Blog ? Blog Archive ? UC and Web 2.0: Friends or Foes?