« April 2007 | Main | June 2007 »
May 25, 2007
New Collaborative Weblog
Collaborage is a railing against the forces that stand in the way of complete re-invention of how business gets done in a large organization. This re-invention will be defined by the new collaborative and social applications including Weblogs, Wikis, Profiles, Collaborative Environments, RSS, and many others. Hopefully, you will find these implementation observations of value in your implementation of Web 2.0 technology.
View Collaborage
Posted by Todd at 10:16 PM
It's Your Metadata
An enterprise asset is a technical resource that can be used across business units and/or across applications. This definition includes assets such as Web services, shared components, systems, interfaces, data definition and schemas. The idea is that an enterprise repository should contain any asset regardless of type. That being said, most organizations have a collection of repositories to fulfill the service of metadata delivery. One common theme is that if you don't share the asset, then why would you catalog it? What would you do if a business unit approached your metadata organization with a truckload of data assets but wanted to lock access down so that no one could access the information? Worse yet, these data assets are not enterprise level and can't be shared with other business units.
View Article
Posted by Todd at 10:10 PM
May 16, 2007
Welcome to the Herring Club
Animal Planet is a great resource of business metaphors and last night had a great show on Dolphins. One of their favorite foods is herring which forms a giant ball when attacked. The thinking is that if they come together, they will appear to be bigger and a more formidable foe. Unfortunately, thousands of years of evolution and basic instincts plays right into the Dolphins hands, I mean fins. The tightly packed school of herring creates an undersea McDonalds; fast food for Flipper. I won’t describe the actual details of the feast, but you get the idea that mother nature isn’t always the kindest thing to watch.
What struck me was how our corporate hierarchal structures do the same thing; create giant balls of fish. They hire the same people, with similar backgrounds, similar skills, and knowledge. Then if that wasn’t enough, they immerse them into similar technologies, cultures, processes, and structures. We don’t want people that color outside the lines and we have been taught that since second grade. We, as employees, gladly accept this as the norm. Our assumption is that if we pool together and appear the same then we are safe from outsourcing, downsizing, and job stagnation. Don’t believe me that we are all treated the same? Ask your HR professional what percentage of employees got a below average rating last year? Mathematically speaking, that number should be 49% but you and I know it’s more like .05%. Are you the one getting packed (herring) or doing the packing (Dolphin)? Either way, the end result is the same.
Do you blog every day? Do you own www.johndoe.com and develop your personal brand? Do you collect, track, manage, and evaluate yourself by your trademarks at the end of the year? Do you update your resume or CV quarterly? If your organization deploys Social Software, will you be one of the 1% that actually participates? If not, welcome to the Herring Club, glad you’re here.
Posted by Todd at 12:50 PM
May 9, 2007
Governance and the Open Source Repository
The Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives is one of the few texts to combine OSS in public and private sector activities into a single reference source. This authoritative publication examines how the use of open source software (OSS) affects practices in society, business, government, education, and law. It provides a balance of theoretical perspectives, experiences, and cases in relation to these key areas. This thorough collection includes an overview of the culture from which OSS emerged and the development practices though which OSS is created and modified. The Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives is an international collaboration including authors from six continents and more than 12 countries. This multinational and multicultural perspective becomes crucial when making effective decisions about software in todays global policy and business environments. This text is an essential reference to business persons, policy makers, educators, and private citizens who are curious about how factors related to OSS may affect different aspects of their lives.
Posted by Todd at 1:46 AM
May 4, 2007
Who are you in Web 2.0
Well, let’s see who you are in the 0.0 and 1.0 world. The easiest way is to take a look at the corporate directory. “S”, “Ste”, “Stephens”. Ah, here I am “Robert Stephens”, not Todd but Robert. I am employee number 458279 with email address rs9999. My phone numbers and address are here. And so is my job title, “Architect”. There you go; I am a number, an address, a title, and a component of some hierarchal structure that seems to be wrong. Not sure about you, but after 24 years in this business, you would think that I would have accomplished a little more than that.
Now, let’s imagine someone in a 2.0 world. Not a number, but someone that is an innovator because I can see they have several patents to their name. They are an author, due to their recent book publication at iUniverse mentioned in their blog. They have skills, knowledge, and experience that are clearly communicated and oddly enough, up to date in the profile. They are a thought leader based on their contributions to the Wiki space. Reading their blog comments, I can see this person is an educator and willing to communicate the complexities of their subject matter. They are a leader, not in title or organization structure, but a leader of thought and strategic direction. They have an enormous network of corporate relations based on the contextual tagging. This person is honest, open and trustworthy based on the communication and projects they have lead. They represent the values we want based on the family and volunteer efforts described in their profile. Employee number 14528 does say much but the vast experiences, jobs, and qualifications do. This person is an asset, an individual, and valuable to where this organization is going.
Who would you hire or fire? Personally, that Robert guy doesn't sound like he is doing anything of value so get ride of him. That second person sounds like the kind of leadership we need. Hire her and pay her what ever she wants
Posted by Todd at 11:38 AM