Collaborage

Go All In with Enterprise 2.0

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:52:06 -0500

My Enterprise 2.0 implementation isn't as successful as I thought it would be? I hear that statement quite a bit these days where vendors present this nirvana like vision of an open organization where information freely flows from every individual. The idea of simply loading some hardware with a collection of Web 2.0 tools and value emerges is simply a pipe dream. Implementing Enterprise 2.0 takes energy and an enormous commitment from everyone involved. So how long does it take to become an Enterprise 2.0 success story? I believe it was Thomas Watson (IBM) that answered the question of how long it takes to become great in business. His response was "one second". It happens when you decide to be great and willing to make the commitments necessary to make it happen. You have heard it too; we selected a vendor and implemented a large farm of servers. We even have solid executive support but the implementation hasn't taken off for some reason. Could it be that you are still standing on the edge of the pool, dipping your toe to see how cold the water is? What do you say to a business customer that comes to you and says "I want to use this in my business to increase innovation, what is the solution set fro accomplishing this?" If you answer involves something along the lines of "Hmmm, err, You start with, hmmm, a wiki page and then add something..." then you have not committed to your Enterprise 2.0 effort. If instead you hand the business owner some solid documentation, ROI analysis, 2.0 patterns and even success stories then your own the right track. If they ask you how they can ensure success or at the very least get a high percentage of contribution you had better have a better comment then "beats me, I just work here". Full commitment to Enterprise 2.0 involves more than just technology. You have to look at it as a program like any other effort for the organization. When you have a drive for United Way, do you just email folks with some URL? No, you create mailers, communication events, and you get senior management involved. You set targets, objectives, and share the vision to the entire organization. But in Enterprise 2.0, you took the Field of Dreams idea of just build it and they will come. When it doesn't happen you scratch your head and then blame the culture.

Dear Enterprise 2.0,

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:48:31 -0500

I wanted to write you a note, not of appreciation but of concern for the future of the organization. Not sure if you have noticed but the business environment has changed dramatically over the past year or so. I am feeling some of the most unprecedented market pressures that have come my way in decades. We need to increase our levels of innovation while at the same time reducing the costs from the operational units. We expect change, invite change, and need new paradigms in order to not only survive but prosper in the coming years.

I appreciate that you are spending so much time discussing what is 2.0 and what it is not. That being said, I need help now not when you figure the full boundaries of your open society. We now have more tools than a Swiss Army Knife and like all new innovations consolidation will occur but that takes time. Unfortunately, time is not something I have a lot of. Don't assume that because I understand Web 2.0 that I have a full comprehension of Enterprise 2.0. And, neither should you. You seem to have nailed the technical aspects down but you're missing or ignoring the most important aspects of this change. My business imperatives are simple: globalization, information management, innovation, speed, ROI, cost transformation, and survival. So when you come to my leader's office, please be prepared to answer a few questions:

How can I integrate these tools within my environment and address my imperatives?
What do I need to do for my people? Training? Education? Transformation?
What services can be added to the tools to serve my business needs?
What solutions can you bring to table to have an immediate impact to my productivity?
How do I convince my business managers to replace their current processes with you?
How can I measure success and how will I know that I am heading down the right path?
What patterns, templates, and success stories do you have to show me?

I have an enterprise full of people that claim to understand Web 2.0. What I need from you is the implication of 2.0 to my business model. My door is wide open and I am waiting for you,

Sincerely,

The Business

Recognize the Risk of Enterprise 2.0

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:47:12 -0500

Like the vision of that perfect mate, we all have this ideal vision of Enterprise 2.0. We take the best perceptions of success and imagine our organization fitting into that mold exactly. We see some 2.0 CEO flying in and laying the foundation of Enterprise 2.0 at our feet. Information Technology delivers the perfect collection of Web 2.0 tools and places them at our finger tips where business value has been waiting for years to emerge. It reminds me of the Christmas Story, where the little boy imagines himself as this great sharp shooter that saves the town from the evil bandits. When in reality, Enterprise 2.0 is more like the "Leg Lamp"; messy, crazy, unpredictable, and risky to say the least. For the vast majority of implementations, the Enterprise 2.0 effort will begin with a spark or an idea where someone takes a risk. Maybe the infrastructure is funded but someone has to step up and take that first step. After that person gets shot in the back, reprimanded, or fired then another person has to take the reins. I admire the work of Luis Suarez and Scott Gavin, for they are some of the few that survived and became industry leading voices. But the death trail of failed voices cannot be overlooked. Despite this view of organizations just waiting for Enterprise 2.0, most have done business profitably for years without them. How much courage does it take for someone to start an internal blog when their management see little or no value? Would you ask 5 levels above you permission to post a few ideas or your own? Do you have the onions to step out into a field of conversation that could determine your next career step; up or down? It easy for us on the outside to say just do it! Take a risk and you will be rewarded but those successes are few are far between. The point of this post is to recognize those that try and take that giant leap. They are willing to gamble their career on a communication medium and the ideals of those of us on the outside. Much in the same way, people with MBA's think they know how to run a company. We assume that all Enterprise 2.0 implementations are simply a case study. Add a few best practices and what emerges is Collaboration success. This is clearly a pipe dream and fails to recognize the challenges, risks, and hurdles that must be overcome by those within the company walls. Take the time to thank you few that take the risks and contribute to your Enterprise 2.0 effort. You can take all of the value from the vendor and consultants and it won't even come close to value contributed by those early adopters.

Another Sharepoint Enterprise 2.0 Myth Debunked

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:47:13 -0500

Well, the assertions keep coming from a wide variety of well known Enterprise 2.0 experts on the subject that Sharepoint is not Enterprise 2.0. So I thought I would take the time to debunk another one of the common complaints.

Sharepoint forces the user to enter the data into a format specified by the system versus allowing the freedom of format as most Enterprise 2.0 tools.

On the surface, this seems reasonable criticism, if it were only true. Let's do the unthinkable and actually compare my blog application (Moveable Type) that I use here against the capabilities of those in Sharepoint. Like all blogs, my blog allows for a title, category, blog entry, and tags. The essence of the complaint isn't in the quantity of structured fields my blog uses but within the post entry field. Here is what options I have when entering in text: 1. Add a Link or Mail Link to text 2. Bold, Italicize and Underline text 3. Add a Quote That's all you can do inside the application from the standard interface. Now, you can use an HTML editor to create the post which does allow you unlimited capability to design the information your way but you would need some additional software like Dreamweaver or Frontpage. Now, let's take a look at a Sharepoint blog and see what options we have there. Looks like the same core fields are present but maybe the short coming is in the post editor. What options are available here, surly they are less than the traditional blog: 1. Cut, Copy, and Paste 2. Table Functions: Add, Split, Delete, and Merge 3. Add a Link or Mail Link to Text 4. Setting the Font and Altering the Size 5. Alignment: Left, Right, and Center 6. Paragraph Alignment 7. Add a Quote 8. Color Fill and Font Color And guess what, you can create and paste HTML code just like Moveable Type. Bingo, you have unlimited capabilities for design. Maybe my math is a bit off, but it sure looks like Sharepoint provides GREATER capability than my blog application. Now, some of the nay-sayers will say that they didn't mean the end user but that blog applications can be customized and functionality added like a Tag Cloud which, by the way, didn't come with my blog application. But, isn't that another complaint of Sharepoint that you have to add Web Parts due to lack of functionality. Seems like we have an apples to apples comparison. Don't get me wrong, some of the criticism of Sharepoint is spot on. Unfortunately, a lot of it is simply made up or comes from people with little or no experience with Sharepoint.

Sharepoint Bites Back

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:19:32 -0500

This post is a rebuttal, of sort, to the enormous Sharepoint bashing that has taken place over the past few weeks within the blog and twitter communities. Thomas Vandar Wal's post on Sharepoint 2007: Gateway Drug to Enterprise 2.0 was of particular interest because he actually took the time to put some thought into his comments. While we are not joined at the hip in agreement, I respect his research and thoughts on the Sharepoint product. Let me begin be bringing the small print to the forefront and say that I have not spoken to hundreds of Sharepoint owners but rather collaborated with tens of thousands of customers in three different organizations. While I have talked to my fair share of Sharepoint owners, I want to stick to my own observations. This does limit my point of view and perhaps skews it into a specific direction. Also, it's not fair for me to pick apart each statement without getting a full understanding from the author. Ideally, this should be a give an take but that being said, here goes:

SharePoint works well for organization prescribed groups that live in hierarchies and are focused on strict processes and defined sign-offs. Most organization has a need for a tool that does what SharePoint does well.

Organizations can be described in many ways, from being an open enterprise to a hierarchal one. However, 99.9% of the organizations are somewhere in between these two extremes. Most organizations, without Sharepoint, have evolved to communicate the organizational messages, coordinate tasks and efforts, and in most cases, cooperate within the different business units. I would label these organizations as slanted toward the hierarchal side. Sharepoint does help in these areas but the key utility of the product is collaboration which continues toward our journey to an open organization. That is to say, you need a more open organization to collaborate than one still segmented by organizational structure. The tool doesn't define the degree of openness in an organization; it's how the tool is implemented. I do agree that if you continue to move toward an open enterprise, your ability to successfully deploy Social Software goes up. An open organization is ideal for implementing Sharepoint.

47% use it primarily for file sharing (and/or as an internal Portal)

I am surprised that this number isn't higher considering the vagueness of the question. 50% of folks use it to share information, excellent! They should keep working and they might get that number higher. If that number is true for my organizations, then it leaves 53% or 26,000 Sharepoint environments using it for something else other than document management. Sweet!

There is great information being shared and flowing into the system, but we don't know it exists, nor can we easily share it, nor do much of anything with that information

Ok, I had to chuckle at this one considering we have heard this same comments for years when we deployed document management, web content management, records management, and most every other information management solution. There is a fine line between having too much information and the right information. To think that Enterprise 2.0 is going to solve this problem is a tad naive. In fact, I might argue that Enterprise 2.0 will double, triple, or 10x the amount of information within the enterprise. Like in Web 2.0, 90% of the information will be crap and worthless. Finding that 10% will be the key. One must assume that tags, rating, and book marking is somehow going to make this flood of information manageable might be an overstatement. What Enterprise 2.0 might do for you is to personalize your interests which eliminates much of the noise. Of course, Sharepoint does the same thing in the MOSS environment by implementing various solution sets to help in managing this volume of information. You can have ranking, rating, tagging, and many other 2.0 components. Of course, nothing beats a good search engine.

took about one year, 40 FTE, and 1 to 5 million U. S. dollars. Very few organizations have those type of resources with availability to take on that task

Wow, that is impressive. Not sure of the size of the implementation but I will say we used a fourth of the resources. You don't have to invest big money to gain business value from the product. What I didn't see is the savings or ROI with the Sharepoint project. I had to the chance to have dinner with many of the IT executives at Lockheed Martin during their yearly executive conference. In no way did I walk away thinking the CIO or the leadership team were fools and could be suckered in by anyone. They were hardnosed folks focused on the business value of their investments in information technology. I have no doubt they took into consideration all the different options when moving forward with Sharepoint.

At various conferences, across many industries, I have spoken at I have been asked to sit in on the SharePoint sessions, which turn into something like group therapy sessions

Boy I wish I was in those sessions picking apart the failed implementation methodologies. Look, reguardless of the technology or tool there will be issues and concerns you need to deal with. That being said, it's still the fastest growing product in their history. When given a choice, business users still go with Sharepoint 9 out of 10 times. And, if it wasn’t for a few governance rules that number would be much higher.

Sharepoint is not Enterprise 2.0

I remember reading a book on the universe when the subject of removing Pluto as a planet came up. The author basically said that the universe is a big and lonely place; we can use all of the friends we can find. In many ways I see the same thing dealing with Sharepoint. What is the point of excluding certain tools from the definition? At some point will we exclude SocialText but include Confluence? Who makes these decisions? In my opinion, Collaborative and Social Software are not competitive products but complimentary. We should focus on expanding information management, not constraining it; that would be so 1.0. Our organization may be unique with its size but the business user has many choices. That is to say, the business user has several options in selecting a document management tool, in selecting information management solutions, and they even have several choices in collaborative applications. Although, we consumed several of our competitors last year, a few still remain. God knows, the enormous options in web content. Of course, the user also has several choices in the Social Software area as well. So, not only can the user select different product categories, they have options even within the category. That being said, there is only one "Big Dog" which makes them an easy target for those trying to move up the value chain. So, keep the criticism coming.

Sharepoint versus the World

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:22:37 -0500

Over the past week or so, there has been a lot of bashing Sharepoint by the Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 crowd. Now, let's be fair and say that Microsoft does try to brand Sharepoint as an Enterprise 2.0 tool so perhaps the criticism is fair from that point of view. However, comparing Sharepoint to other Web 2.0 applications is like comparing apples and oranges. If you were to break apart Sharepoint and pull out the Wiki solution and then run a comparison to Confluence, Social Text, or other wiki tools, Sharepoint comes up short in just about every way. The same can be said that if you break apart the Blog and then compare to other blog solutions, Sharepoint comes in behind the top products. If we get away from Enterprise 2.0 and pull out the document management component then once again, Sharepoint falls behind other mainstream products like Documentum. The point is simple, when you pull apart the Ferrari, the parts all look the same. So then why is Sharepoint the highest selling product in Microsoft history? Why then does the business user pick Sharepoint over the competitive (E2.0 included) products 9 out of 10 times? The answer is that in most cases the business wants a solution not a tool. Whenever a customer comes to the group and say they want a wiki, I don't hesitate to send them to the corporate wiki. I look at my role as to provide the best solution reguardless of tool so if they just want a blog then we send them down the hall. However, when they want a solution then Sharepoint is the best offer hand down. In other words, the business has no issue having an 80% solution when they can combine everything they want in a single package. So where do you shop for you groceries? Do you buy your vegetables from the Farmers Market? Do you buy your fruit from the Nebs Grocery on Hwy 54? Do you buy your meats from the local butcher? No? Why not? So you shop at your local Kroger, Publix or Wal-Mart. I see, you are willing to settle for slightly less quality in order to get everything you want at one location. Look, Enterprise 2.0 can be deployed with Sharepoint and many organizations are doing just that. Don't get too hung up on the tools and focus on the strategy instead. Enterprise 2.0 is about changing the culture, not which tool you select.

Free Career Management Advice Book

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:23:41 -0500

As everyone knows, we are in a terrible economic environment that is seeing 600,000 jobs lost on a monthly basis. Even those that have a job are spending several hours a day worrying about the future. While it's not much of a gesture, I want to offer my book to anyone for the asking. Simply send me an email at todd@rtodd or connect with me through LinkedIn and I'll email you a PDF version of Trademark 2.0. While it's not much, maybe a few of the ideas can help.

Here are a few comments on the book

Some of the author's points challenge conventional thinking and really made me re-evaluate some of my career and personal marketing plans. I really enjoyed some of the marketing ideas and intend to pursue several of them. I highly recommend this book to anyone in the IT or high tech world.

Those who have already read books from Eddie Obeng, Thomas Friedman, and James Martin will be familiar with the concepts and possibilities of the NewWorld and will recognize many of it's rapidly growing realities. With their 'NewWorld of 2.0' 'light switched on', they will be hungry to learn, and receptive to the 'what' and 'how' ideas that Trademark 2.0 has to offer. They will just get the 'why', and get on with the process of learning. Please don't be misled by the title. The `2.0' is not something that only applies to techies. Whilst anyone who works in technology should have heard of '2.0' and will be more familiar with the subjects and capabilities talked about, such as blogs and wiki's, collaboration and knowledge management, it would be wrong, very wrong, to see this book as a book solely for techies. It's highly relevant to everyone. This book should trigger deep and profound thought. If it doesn't, there is probably a book called `In blissful ignorance' or perhaps `doomed' that needs to be written for you. For everyone else, Trademark 2.0 will have been time and money well spent.

I really enjoyed reading Trademark 2.0. The author used examples throughout the book that perfectly illustrated his points. Some of the author’s points challenge conventional thinking and really made me re-evaluate some of my career and personal marketing plans. I really enjoyed some of the marketing ideas and intend to pursue several of them. I highly recommend this book to anyone in the IT or high tech world

I think trademark 2.0 is an excellent guide book for this race of NewWorld'ers who have the expertise but lack the ability to channel that knowledge and experience using new media and all the toys that web2.0 can provide

More Enterprise 2.0 Attitudes

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:42:23 -0500

Nice list of key attitudes for Enterprise 2.0 by Kate Carruthers which were compiled via her conversations during the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum. http://katecarruthers.com/blog/2009/03/key-attitudes-for-enterprise-20-success/ If Kate will allow, I’ll add a few of my own attitudes from the bottom of the enterprise versus the top (i.e. Executive Point of View). 6. Take Ownership: You need people to take ownership and set the pace for the Social Software environment. Maybe that’s a handful of corporate bloggers that contribute on a regular basis. Maybe it’s an organization that moves it’s documentation to the corporate wiki or the organization that replaced it’s intranet with a Collaborative solution. Someone needs to take the chance and take the lead. Reward them and encourage them, they are your guiding lights. 7. Help: You might be surprised to learn that not everyone in the organization knows how to utilize Social or Collaborative applications in the business environment. You need to demonstrate for them with training, templates, showcases, and best practices. People, by their nature, want to replicate what works so give them the shortest path possible by supporting their efforts. 8. Focus on the Customer: Focus on the customer and their needs versus the technology. Sometimes we get overly focused on those things that keep us from failing like hardware, software, and development and forget about the actual needs of the customer. For technologist, the components of failure are for easier to put time into but the components of customer cuss are for more critical to the long term. 9. Don’t Assume: Yes, don’t assume anything but ask frequently. Do you know this software is available for your business unit to use? Do you know how to integrate collaborative workflow into your business processes? Why are you not using these applications? Asking the customer is the best way to change your Social Software project into a Social Software Program. 10. Integration: Find ways to integrate the Collaborative and Social Software into the core business processes of your organization. If the tool is just a fun toy to spend time on, like a water cooler, then you want get much business value from it. How can I improve, replace or add business value leveraging these new tools. 11. Measure: Simply put, measure everything. What others can you add?

The Enterprise 2.0 McKinsey Report

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:15:15 -0500

By now, most Enterprise 2.0 experts have seen the McKinsey Report that focused on the six ways to make Web 2.0 work. The part I like most about the report is that the researchers actually asked the practitioners what was working instead of looking for the "experts" in the field. Here are the six main points. 1. The Transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top. 2. The best uses come from the users but they require help to scale. 3. What's in the workflow is what gets done. 4. Appeal to the participants' egos and needs 5. The right solution comes from the right participants. 6. Balance the op-down and self-management of risk. You know this is some good stuff because you rarely read about #2 and #3 in the books and publications on enterprise 2.0. My belief is that this isn't the sexy stuff that pulls in the readers but the cold hard reality of implementation. A very good read... http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Six_ways_to_make_Web_20_work_2294

Sharepoint 800-lb Gorilla?

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:53:27 -0500

It is rare to actually have the time to troll around the web looking for items of interest. My first stop was to Susan Scrupski's blog to see what she is writing about. Her slides on Enterprise 2.0 caught my attention. Here is the quote from the 5th slide:

Microsoft is IT's BFF. Just deal with it. Microsoft will continue to play in the starring role of the 800-lb gorilla in the corporate corridors of IT power. And, sadly, IT still has a heavy hand in what technology users can liberate their inner social child with. If Microsoft says it has wikis, blogs, and RSS then guess what…? IT will believe them and make a safe choice. Unless, of course, they choose IBM Lotus Connections, which is a better choice.

Ok, I should begin with an agreement that if traditional control based IT is in charge then the Sharepoint implementation will be limited as would the social tools be. Hence, the nature of management is to limit and control. We see that in our own implementation (50,000 Collaborative Environments); despite our success the traditional IT organization continues to put up roadblocks. But, what would life be without the challenges. In my humble opinion, Susan is looking at this from the ideology perspective but not the end users perspective. I can promise you one thing is for certain, if the business wasn't getting value from the application then they wouldn't be using it. Two years ago, not many folks actually knew of Sharepoint and now it's pervasive. This success has nothing to do with the traditional "focus on failure" ideas of IT nor the other options available to them (yes, Connections is in the space as well). The great thing about being in a very large company is that the end users have a choice to which solution they select. Yes, there are several other collaborative solutions; two of which we consumed last year. Another issue I take exception to is that business users rarely want a wiki or a blog as some singularity application. They want a business solution to their communications and customer engagement problems. To think that a single blog is all they need is clearly short sighted. They want a solution package that includes traditional Intranet, profiles, information management, surveys, blogs, etc. While I agree that if you take a single communication element like blog and try to compare IBM to Microsoft then IBM wins. But, when you look at the needs of the business for a solution, then the BFF wins hands down. Ok, one more comment. To think that IT is on the side of Microsoft in every company may be over stated. In fact, I would say our organization is the exact opposite in that they make no secret of their dislike. That being said, the better product continues to become the 800-lb gorilla. Not because of some sacred relationship with IT but simply a better solution for the business. I have said this many times, it is not the tool but the implementation that matters more than anything.

10 Years at AT&T

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:00:51 -0500

Hard to believe that I have been in this business for 25 years and this marks my 10th year with AT&T (BellSouth). Not sure what that says about me other than I do stick with things; perhaps too long in some cases. In the economy, let's hope for another 10 years. Interesting TIME posted 25 people to blame for the current economic crises. Oddly, they didn't include the media and the election which was nothing but a megaphone of how bad everything is. If you tell people something long enough they will believe you. Maybe now that the bill is signed Washington and the media can stop the fear message.

SoCon09 Thoughts and Comments

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:38:06 -0500

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the SoCon09 Conference at Kennesaw State University. To be fair, they called this an "Un-Conference" versus conference to distinguish it from other Social Web conferences. As far as a social event, I would give it an "A+" for getting folks to network and providing the setting to encourage communication. The majority of folks seemed to have small businesses or worked for themselves which allowed the ability to use this conference to establish and expand their network. The conference started with Jeff Haynie from Appcelerator discussing entrepreneurship. This was a very good session where we had someone who is actually living the topic and sharing his knowledge with the rest of us. I ended up with two pages of notes and lots of good ideas to take back with me. His last tip was telling; Ideas are worthless, it's all about execution. Amen! Unfortunately, the conference went down hill from there. The next speaker, well... I am still not sure why he was there and other than having a discussion with 200 people on, well... nothing, it made little sense. It was like a Jerry Seinfeld episode; much to do about nothing. I can't say that I took one single note other than the speaker's name. The next speaker started out strong but then followed suit in basically having a pointless discussion with 200 people that usually went like this.

Hi, I am John Doe, and I have a company called something and you can find me at something.com. I wrote an e-book that is also available on something.com. I am an expert on XYZ and you can contact me by my email, me@something.com or follow my twitter account which is something. Now for my question…. Ummm, I forgot what we were talking about

Ok, it wasn't that bad but close. This speaker had some great points that I wished he could have taken a deeper dive into to help folks understand how to apply them. Those first 10-15 minutes could have easily been extended into a full hour of education. The first session of the afternoon started strong but once again fell into useless self promotional banter by the attendees. The final session (Hosted by David S. Cohen) of the afternoon was on building a personal brand and we needed another hour. Not sure if folks attending were tired of the self-promotion but everyone in the room was clearly trying to learn and get better at the concepts of building a personal brand. One gentleman from CNN actually took to the board to write down the tips and techniques that everyone provided. If I had not been doing this stuff for 10 years, this would have been a great session to attend and learn from a few folks that have actually done it. I would say that the first and last sessions were the best but overall I would have to give the educational value of the conference a "C-". Again, if the idea of an un-conference is to allow folks to network and create social connections then this conference was spot on. As far as an educational conference, they have some work to do.

Twitter Can Be Rude

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:34:53 -0500

Ok, call me old fashion or just out of touch but idea of conference attendees doing Twitter during the session is annoying at best. As a speaker, I would consider this rude behavior that basically says that my opinion is more important than what the speaker is actually saying. This weekend, I attended the SoCon09 Conference where this behavior was not only normal but expected. This lady sitting two seats over was hitting her keyboard so hard that it was distracting to those sitting around her. Like talking in a movie theater or answering a phone call during a business meeting, it is simply rude and disrespectful. On top of that, she would then ask the two people sitting next to her what did he say? Maybe they could create a "Twitter Pen" area of seating where these folks can all sit together and twitter themselves to death. That way, those of us that paid to hear the speaker versus keyboards, can get some value.

TAG Presentation

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 06:45:39 -0500

Yesterday's presentation to the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) went fairly well considering I wasn't feeling up to par. The group was a bit older than I expected from a Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 perspective. Also, not as many job hunters as I would have expected especially since TAG is a great networking opportunity. Only a couple of folks mentioned they were between jobs. There were many consultant types there pitching their wares which is fine and I did get a chuckle out of one guy complaining about his phone bill. The presentation was basically on the how you succeed at implementing Enterprise 2.0 which seemed to resonate with most folks. The key points included: 1. Most implementation focus on the things that keep you from failing but not on those things that make you succeed. 2. While Culture may be an issue, it is only a minor one when compared to problems with trust, awareness, education, and politics. 3. Utilize the three tiered business model to ensure your long term success. I did have one person think that education and awareness were just culture issues. I had to let it slide, no sense starting a brawl on a cold day. Overall it was a good crowd with some great questions. SoCon09 is this weekend and I think I am feeling good enough to attend but I am having a challenge to decide which session to attend. I didn't see the Enterprise 2.0 session that I thought would emerge but the ones on personal branding look interesting. Considering that was the topic of my book and having done this for 10 years, I might enjoy poking holes in the conversation. Just kidding, I am sure they have some good information and even an old dog can learn new tricks.

Better Than Free

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:06:40 -0500

Kevin Kelly has authored a wonderful Web Book Download over on Changethis.com that discusses how you can create value in a world where everything is free. The basic idea is that with the Internet, the distribution cost of information and many other products have fallen to zero. So how can you stand out and create value? Mr. Kelly points out eight simple ideas. 1. Immediacy: Your ability to deliver products and services faster 2. Personalization: Provide customizations to your base product 3. Interpretation: Adding special services on top of free products 4. Authenticity: People will buy from those that are authentic (See Pine and Gilmore) 5. Accessibility: Clean, Easy to Use, and Simple wins every time (See iPhone) 6. Embodiment: Usability 7. Patronage: Loyalty to the brand, the creator, and product 8. Findability: Only the brightest stars get found Excellent list and wonderful reference that I can use inside the world of Enterprise 2.0. If I assume that Collaboration and Social Software is almost free then I had better leverage some of these concepts in order rise above the fold. We actually do just that in providing value-add products and services to the enterprise. With the exception of #1 and #7, we excel at the other six and that sets us apart from many of the groups within the organization. I can't count the number of times I have heard that other products or service providers don't do what we do (services) even when they have a better product. How cool is that? Are you adding products, services, or some of those eight components Mr. Kelly talks about to your Enterprise 2.0 offering?