Archive for October, 2007
by Bill Ives
October 31, 2007 at 7:49 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
Here is a focused application of Web 2.0 that makes a lot of sense. Last week I spoke with Umberto Milletti, CEO, and Rand Schulman, Chief Marketing Officer, of InsideView. They have tool that aggregates the stuff available on the Web together with some top subscription services to bring, what they call, “opportunity analysis” to sales and marketing. They aggregate information from such Web sources as LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, and press releases and such traditional sources as D&B, Hoover’s, and Reuters. Today, the good news/bad news for sales and marketing is there is much more information available on people and organizations. Why not leverage the accessibility of this information and the ability to select, distill, and aggregate it to obtain just what you need to be more effective?
InsideView also goes a step further and provides integrated mashups with a number of the top SFA/CRM providers. I saw an example of accessing data from InsideView through salesforce.com. Why not make these old style tools provide you with some intelligence rather simply feed them information? Traditional CDM tools tend to be passive storage vessels for data that you provide. With a Web 2.0 tool like InsideView you add a service that proactively offers you market intelligence in the context of your CRM data. It does not replace CRM tools, it becomes an active layer on top of them.
Having spent much of the past 25 years supporting sales and marketing functions within enterprises of all sizes, the value of InsideView resonates well. As they indicated, you can use InsideView to target companies undergoing specific business changes that relate to your offerings, approach prospects, find decision-makers, and make productive introductions to bypass inefficient cold calling efforts.
Like a number of enterprise 2.0 tools, InsideView grew from the personal challenges faced by some of the founders coupled with the new opportunities on the Web. Umberto was a founder of Digital Think, an eLearning company started in the 90s. They had high turnover in the sales area. These cycles continued, until they realized it was not just about hiring the right people, it’s about giving the sales people the right information to be more productive and efficient. There have always been some information sources on potential clients but Web 2.0 opened many more possibilities. After Digital Think was sold, Umberto focused on this business issue with several partners and InsideView was born. They now have an InsideView blog, along with their website, to document their story in more depth.
There are some additional benefits from taking an enterprise 2.0 approach. Since there is a now a common, easily accessed source for market intelligence, the lines between marketing and sales get blurred and collaboration is easier. Sales people have a greater capability to get their own leads and do their own market research that then can get shared back up to the marketing organization. Salespeople can become an intelligent arm of marketing bringing back stuff from the field that is meaningful to them and thus to many of their colleagues.
WebEx is one user. Here sales people can set InsideView to look for things such as training initiatives, large employee hiring cycles, and off shore development, that can benefit from WebEx services. They can also look for more general indicators like leadership changes and good or bad financial results. Once they access this filtered information, becomes easy to share it with the rest of the organization. By looking at the selling triggers that sales people use, marketing can better understand what the sale people are seeing. They can also add suggested new selling triggers based on new marketing initiatives and what they learn from other. The enterprise 2.0 approach enables a more connected organization.
by Jevon MacDonald
October 31, 2007 at 1:38 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
OpenSocial will be announced this Thursday. OpenSocial is an API that allows for the interoperability of Social Networking services.
I have written recently about how I feel about closed platforms, and that I think open systems will prevail in the long term. Coupled with sensible strategy, openly accessible platforms are superior in many ways.
The same problems have been a speck in the eye of enterprise software for a long time now, and the time is approaching in which it will be time to stand up and begin rejecting closed platforms.
There is some homework to do before that time comes however. Organizations need to be well armed with contracts which require software interoperability, set usability standards and demand certain performance benchmarks be met. The days of all-knowing and all-controlling vendors and IT departments are set to be washed out to sea.
As Google attempts to outdo Facebook and Microsoft through openness, so too will you see smart IT vendors competing by being open inside the enterprise. Smart IT Departments and CIO/CTOs will see their role as stewards and protectors of this open system inside your enterprise. The benefit for your organization is that you can now confidently access smaller, more innovative, vendors who could not previously offer a sufficient set of deployment options to suit your larger enterprise.
You’ve paid enough of your hard earned money. Demand it.
by Rob Paterson
October 31, 2007 at 10:12 am · Filed under
Emergency, Enterprise 2.0, Mobile Messaging 2.0, Mobile Phones, Robert Scoble, Social Computing, Twitter, Twittergram, University, mobile
I think now that the point is made - Twitter is currently THE BEST TOOL for communicating widely in an emergency
(ParisLemon) Another day, another show of Twitter’s true power. Barely a week after the Southern California fires began and Twitter helped get out important messages to people, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hits the Bay Area and info about is posted numerous times on Twitter before the ground is even done shaking. It’s barely been 30 minutes and already I have 4 solid pages of earthquake news and insight.
Ariel Waldman posted the first tweet about it (that I saw) and from there nearly ever blogger/tech geek/person in the entirity of the Bay Area has posted in on the quake - and many of the multiple times. I knew the exact location and magnitude before the story had even hit the news.
I say again, this is the power of Twitter.
Not only does it get your message out - but it uses very small amounts of the cell network and so can often get through when an overload crashes the system. Robert Scoble sent out a Twittergram to his list including Maryam his wife. With a Twittergram you can use voice. So you can in effect use the cell phone system without overloading it.
I think that the ubiquity of cell phones means that any organization now can have a Twitter Emergency Strategy - you can of course link this to a complementing Facebook strategy too.
So imagine a fire in your office - or an epidemic in the school - or a shooter at your university - a flood in your region - with Twitter, you can reach most people affected and then you can keep them updated - all it requires is that you have a plan and get them following as a precaution. Not hard!
by Paula Thornton
October 31, 2007 at 12:32 am · Filed under
Business Model, Economics, Enterprise 2.0
The relevancy of this topic to our conversations? Understanding the economics of 2.0.
In the Friday afternoon discussion on Media at FASTforward07, I was impressed by Disney’s shift in understanding of the value of intellectual property (a HUGE battle that is most often the fiercest with internal legal counsel). American Airlines has apparently not brought their economic advisors together with their legal counsel (or they have money to burn — perhaps the same legal counsel has advised them that the pilot union’s efforts to gain back past wage concessions won’t amount to much).
American Airlines has brought suit against Google for trademark infringement. The basis of the suit is that Google’s practice of including competitive paid links in page results when someone searches on “American Airlines” (and related trademarked terms) is an infringement on their trademark rights.
But then this is the same company where one of their key staff responsible for AA.com (now long gone, and sigh, a ‘twenty-something’) said to me with deep incredulousness: “Why would someone come to our web site to find a phone number?”
Apparently they haven’t learned the same principle that Bill Gates finally learned. In year after year, Gartner analysts could goad Bill into a near feeding frenzy when onstage with his competitors. One year the shift was phenomenal. Calm, collected, unmiffed, I swear I could feel from the back of a LARGE conference room a near-group-hug about to break out. Bill shared his newfound awareness, “I discovered that this isn’t a zero sum game. When my competitors earn a dollar, the pie is suddenly bigger and we all earn more.” [or something to that effect…it was over a decade ago — so sue me!]
Fortunately, 2.0 opens the voice of reason so we can point out to American Airlines publicly what is likely being discussed in their halls privately. Where’s that darned company spokeswoman when you need her to point out that pursuing a case against Google (which has already won similar cases of this nature) ”would dramatically increase…costs and make American Airlines less competitive with other carriers.”?
Someone should point out to them…even if they win…they lose.
[Can I mention, they have BEA portal technology? Nuf said.]
by Joe McKendrick
October 30, 2007 at 9:15 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, SOA, Web 2.0
Hmmm. Is Gartner telling us to “make sure there are adults in the room” before launching into Web 2.0 activities?
Last year, when we first launched this blogsite, I speculated that we’ll eventually see Web 2.0 and SOA blending into a common purpose with common technologies. Eventually. In the meantime, however, the relationship between Web 2.0 and SOA is much like the two individuals we’ve seen in the Apple commercials: “Hello, I’m PC… Hello, I’m a Mac.”
In this case, the uptight, corporate guy in the suit is SOA, and the laid-back cool dude is Web 2.0.
That analogy still holds. I’ll be exploring the promises and obstacles to Web 2.0-SOA convergence later today (Tuesday, Oct. 30) at panel session entitled SOA and Web 2.0: Mashups, SaaS, and Collaboration: Putting the Pieces Together, that will be part of ebizQ’s two-day “SOA in Action” confab. (Virtual confab that is.) Fellow ZDNet blogging community activitists Dana Gardner and Phil Wainewright will be there, with some more to be announced.
A couple of Gartner analysts recently weighed in with some perspectives on the give and take between Web 2.0 and SOA. The consultancy has pinned them down to two levels of activity in the organization: Web 2.0 happens in the front office, and SOA happens in the back office.
But Gartner seems to be saying, “Yes, you can go do your creative Web 2.0 stuff, but you better have a breadwinner in the house, doing the real work, to support it.”
In a new podcast, the analysts speculate that all the buzz around Web 2.0 may be derailing, to some extent, all the heady work that’s been going into SOA. All the excitement around various aspects of Web 2.0 may truly be a distraction from SOA. Gartner analyst Jeff Comport says he has seen many clients “start out with grandiose plans… full architecture, high reuse, repositories and so forth,” he said.
“Somewhere along the line they get distracted by things like Web 2.0. AJAX, and the user interface. And it tends to derail the grand plan to things that are more tactical.” This only the latest phase of the decades-old struggle between the forces of opportunistic and systematic IT, fellow analyst Yefim Natis. “The back end part of IT is a lot more conservative, and is in fact is resisting frequent change. It will only accept change only on a regular planned basis.”
Natis observes that in order to support innovative Web 2.0 approaches, and organization needs the reliability and innovation that back-end IT — and SOA — provides. “In order to be able to innovate, you’re going to have to take care of your core system responsibilities, then add to that your layer of innovation. You can’t convert entire enterprise to a fly-by-night kind of enterprise.”
One area where there seems to be growing cohesion between SOA and Web 2.0, as explained by Gartner’s Yefim Natis in the podcast, is between SOA and SaaS. With SOA practices in place, “as you’re acquiring applications, especially software as a service, what you’re really acquiring is a collection of services. Once you have acquired this collection of services, and you register them in a registry repository, they become an asset of the entire enterprise. The boundaries of the application are becoming very thin.”
by Bill Ives
October 29, 2007 at 8:05 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
I recently spoke with Bill Lucchini, VP and General Manager at QuickBase and Peter Fearey, the Group Marketing Manager. QuickBase is a hosted Enterprise 2.0 application platform designed for business users. It has actually been available in the market since 1999, when QuickBase was acquired by Intuit, the maker of financial management software for individuals and businesses such as QuickBooks®, Quicken® and TurboTax®. Bill said it was an application before its time in the early 00s but revenue has picked up considerably in the past two years as QuickBase fits well within Web 2.0. It tends to get introduced into enterprises in small numbers through individual project teams, sound familiar? QuickBase now has a beachhead in more than half of the Fortune 100. More on the enterprise penetration process later.
QuickBase lets you select ready-made online workgroup applications or templates designed to solve common business problems, customize them to suit individual processes, and share within a team. Most people can modify applications on their own, without enlisting help from their IT department. The applications organize information for easy access, track information, and allow it to be more easily shared. They also promote workflow and facilitate action.
The tool is designed to be user driven to let teams design applications around their preferred processes and not have to change their process to conform to the “best practices” embedded in many traditional workflow-related apps. They have developed a number of templates in such areas as project management, sales management, SOX compliance, such departments as HR, IT, marketing, and legal, as well as such verticals as real estate management, professional services, and healthcare.
I saw a demo and it looked easy enough for even me to use. The templates, such as project management, come with varying degrees of complexity, so you can choose your desired depth. There are role-based dashboards, reports, timelines, calendars, and much more. You can also remove stuff if you find it too complex or covering activities you do not do and you can customize the features that you decide to retain such reports. Workflow features include automated e-mail notifications that can also be customized on a variety of features.
QuickBase sounds and looks like a very flexible and useful tool that certainly fits the spirit of enterprise 2.0. People often start with one application and then see how it can be used for other tasks. After that QuickBase starts to proliferate across the organization for other uses and other areas. I was especially interested in how it has made significant inroads into large enterprises. QuickBase often first arrives under the eye of IT through business teams of 20 to 30 users.
The QuickBase team decided the take the IT adoption and approval process head on. Now they often call CIOs and IT leaders and tell them about QuickBase’s use within the organization. They approached this notification at first with some healthy concern. Would the IT people get upset and rip it out? There is a happy ending here as this has not happened. They have not gotten thrown out and, in many cases the IT people have added additional seats and uses once they understand the benefits to the business users. In many cases, IT often uses QuickBase to solve their own problems, such as help desk tracking, project portfolio management and project management.
QuickBase also added some components for IT. In addition to a range of security features, they provide an oversight capability so IT can monitor the QuickBase use. The teams retain control but IT can see what is happening and learn from it. The only top down control offered is LDAP for secured log on.
When they started this sales process, they had over 2,000 seats in one enterprise. Now they have reached this number in 13 organizations and it is growing. There is much opportunity for more growth beyond 2,000. Intuit, their parent company, has 8,000 employees but it has 35,000 QuickBase seats as they use it to work with their suppliers and other partners in their extended enterprise. In this user population there are 30,000 different applications. They recently used it to coordinate housing and other support for employees displaced by the San Diego fires.
I think there are some good enterprise 2.0 adoption lessons from QuickBase that can benefit all of us. Confront IT head on and present the benefits. Do not try to stay hidden. Trust in the benefits of what you are doing and be proactive.
by Paula Thornton
October 29, 2007 at 5:46 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
Apparently he wasn’t even memorable enough for me to remember him, even though I just wrote about him a few weeks ago.
So how is it that this Forrester analyst is at an event called “Reinventing the Enterprise Summit“, on a panel described by Dion Hinchcliffe as “a lively panel of industry luminaries”?
I hadn’t heard of him before reading his Forrester piece, “The Big Vendors Converge on Enterprise Web 2.0“, which I rated a zero…insisting that I would have preferred a negative scale for such a blatant mis-use of fiduciary responsibility (what if someone had paid for the report outright at $250 a pop?). And I certainly wasn’t impressed by his list of prior reports (hardly qualification for either writing the report or serving on the panel).
There must be an underground Kool-Aid fest going on somewhere.
If we apply the 6-degrees test, Rob was previously a product manager at Microsoft (responsible for the SAP partnership for Duet, which he then got paid to cover for Forrester — objective?), and the event was hosted by Avenue A | Razorfish, now owned by Microsoft…but also likely with some vested interest in gaining attention from a Forrester analyst. He was once responsible for marketing Oracle’s Collaboration Suite, which in 2004 was to rival MS Exchange and Lotus Domino servers for corporate email dominance (even though Rob was previously part of the Lotus team). I think I’m going to faint from all the inbreeding. Pass the Kool-Aid.
To cover my bases…Rob may be a nice guy…I’ve never met him. I’m just not yet a convert/fan. He clearly thinks 2.0 is a technology play. He talks words, not substance, and asks all the wrong questions (I distinctly hear the ”whah, whah, whah” of the teacher in Charlie Brown animations).
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by Rob Paterson
October 29, 2007 at 9:15 am · Filed under
Blue Monster, Chris Anderson, Enterprise 2.0, Fox, Gaping Void, Hugh McLeod, Hulu.com, Long Tail, NBC, NPR, News Corporation, PBS, Public Media, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Objects, Web Advertising, Wired
Hulu.com is an important experiment for how TV will shift from being available only when the broadcaster schedules it to when we want it - Having it My Way!
(From the NYT) Hulu is the new-media creation of two old-media rivals, NBC, which is owned by General Electric, and Fox, owned by the News Corporation. Since March, when the broadcasters announced their joint effort to bring free, ad-supported television shows to the Web, critics have pounced, predicting the venture would be doomed by diverging agendas, technical challenges and an all-powerful enemy: YouTube.
Skeptical bloggers even slapped Hulu with a derisive moniker: “Clown Co.”
Now the defense is ready to present its case.
Today, Hulu, now an independent company with more than a hundred employees and its own offices in Los Angeles, will begin privately testing its new service with select users at Hulu.com. It will also begin sending its videos to the sites of five distribution partners, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, Yahoo and Comcast.
Hulu is presenting select episodes of some 90 television shows, including new and old programs from NBC (“The Office,” “The A-Team”), Fox (“24” and “The Simpsons”) and an assortment of smaller broadcasters like USA Networks. It has also added two new partners, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which distributes programs like “Chapelle’s Show” and “Reno 911,” and Sony Pictures Television, which will make selections in its archives like “I Dream of Jeannie,” available on Hulu.com.
All the shows are viewable inside a Web browser and festooned with advertisements.
However Hulu works out - they are on a track that is clear - people want video as they ant their music:
- Easy to find
- Available in chunks
- Available ON THE WEB - when they want it and usable on a variety of platforms such as an iPod and a 50inch HD LCD screen
Who pays and how will still be settled.
Also what I think Hulu has missed is the value of creating community around a show - this is Hugh’s great insight about Social Objects - it is the Conversation around the object that is more important than the object.
3. The Blue Monster wine is also part of the “Smarter Wine” conversation. The main thesis is that it’s not the wine per se that is interesting, it’s the conversations that happen around the wine that is interesting. And that is true for all social objects. People matter. Objects don’t.
The advertising money is shifting to the web - so will the content - it will go there faster than we imagine. For the laws of exponetial growth are in force. I think that the Tipping point is here:
I think that Broadcast TV is now in the Titanic Mode - It is large and feels unsinkable - BUT - the ship has grazed the ice - at the moment no one feels anything - but the wound is fatal and it is only a matter of time before the ship sinks.
The Iceberg is the weight of money that is leaving conventional media and going to the web. My forecast is that 2008 will be the year - 2008 will be the year where the web/digital will become where the ad money will go - the work for all providers of all types of content then will be to reset their universe.
Today most people in TV and radio see the web as a growing and important channel. In 2008, the smart people will see the web as the primary channel and that their old channel is now the supporting channel. Of course most will not see this and they will be lucky to find a life boat.
You think I exaggerate? Here is Chris Anderson on the “Music Industry” I quote him in full:
At a speech last week I was asked a question that has come up every day since the Radiohead (and Madonna, NIN, Prince, etc, etc) announcement: What’s going to happen to the music industry?
To which I answered “Which music industry?” You don’t mean just the one that sells CDs, do you? Because it’s a big mistake to equate the major labels and their plastic disc business with the industry as a whole. Indeed, when you stand back and look at all of music, things don’t look so bad at all.
Indeed, it appears that every single part of the music industry except the sale of compact discs is up.
- Concerts and merchandise: UP (+4%)
- Digital tracks: UP (+46%)
- Ringtones: UP (+86% last year, but probably just single-digit percent this year)
- Licensing for commercials, TV shows, movies and videogames: UP (Warner Music saw licensing grow by about $20 million over the past year)
- Even vinyl singles (think DJs): UP (more than doubled in the UK)
- And, if you include the iPod in the music industry, as I’d argue a fair-minded analysis would: UP, UP, UP! (+31% this year)
Only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry not including the MP3 players, but just around 25% if you do include them.
So the problem with the music labels is not that music is an industry in decline, but that they have a too-narrow view of what business they’re in. Madonna’s switch from a label to a concert promoter should be a clue. This quote from an excellent article (it’s worth reading it all) in Entertainment Weekly says it all:
”Soon a lot of these companies won’t define themselves as record companies,” says Steve Greenberg, the former head of Columbia Records who now runs the independent record company S-Curve. ”They’ll define themselves as artist development companies. If you’re involved in an entire career with an artist, then everyone’s interests can be aligned.”
I think most music will soon be free, as artists give away the product as marketing for their performances and licensing, and as a celebrity accelerant that creates more opportunities to make money than just from the sale of a record.
And for those who say that this avenue is only available to artists at the head of the curve, such as Madonna and Radiohead, I’d point out that the other group poorly served by the labels are those at the bottom of the curve, the many thousands of bands who fall below the radar of the hit-driven majors. I’d argue that they, too, have nothing to lose by letting their music go free, nothing to lose but the prospect of becoming indentured to companies stuck in last century’s model of monetizing music.
Most people see TV and Radio like the people who make CD’s. All the forces that are turning the music industry upside down are coming to TV and Radio - for after all - a video and an audio file are the same as music - they are in reality all digital now.
by Rob Paterson
October 28, 2007 at 11:47 am · Filed under
Emergency, Enterprise 2.0, KPBS, Mobile Phones, NPR, News, PBS, Public Media, Social Media, Twitter, University, Web 2.0
Here is a short but informative report by NPR on KPBS’s historic use of Social Media to cover the fire. One of the key Apps was “My Maps” -
The Google map has had over 1.2 million hits and even the fire fighters used it as The Source. Google themlseves have been a huge help and gave support to KPBS as the load on the map increased.
I think that the fire and KPBS’s work has been a watershed for public broadcasting - their work has shown that a small station with few staff can offer the public a huge service in an emergency.
More - it also shows universities who are all struggling to find a process to help their own communities in an emergency such as the recent shootings can do so in an affordable manner.
by Joe McKendrick
October 25, 2007 at 1:37 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Messy World, Microsoft, Social Media, Web 2.0
I guess Microsoft doesn’t want to be left behind in the Web 2.0 revolution after all. The software giant even beat Google to the punch, putting up a $240 million equity stake in the social networking site.
As part of this newly expanded “strategic alliance,” Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally in addition to the United States.
As ZDNet’s Larry Dignan put it: “Guess Facebook isn’t a fad after all. And Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer put up $240 million to prove it.”
Larry opines that Facebook has more to lose than Microsoft in the deal. “The Microsoft deal gives Facebook a nice cash infusion for expansion. But does it make sense to hitch your ad wagon to a third-place ad platform? By locking up the U.S. and international markets, Microsoft gets a win. Facebook gets its options limited.”
Just to put things in perspective, the investment equates to about one and a half days of earnings for Microsoft — “a rounding error” on their books.
Microsoft once dominated the technology landscape to the point where it was even accused of being a monopoly. While Windows is still the predominant OS on desktops and clients, it doesn’t seem to be the force it once was. The Windows Vista launch earlier this year was a ho-hum affair, compared to the rock-and-roll razzle-dazzle that accompanied Windows 95, 98 and 2000.
That’s because end-users and companies have so many other options now. There is an open source OS that can run on any machine, not to mention resurgent Apple Macs. And, the Web platform enables people to work, interact, and play from any type of client device — if anything, the OS just seems to get in the way.
But Microsoft continues a tradition of old-line tech companies bolstering new concepts. Remember, Microsoft itself got its big break when IBM threw some of its own pocket change its way back in 1981.
by Rob Paterson
October 25, 2007 at 5:47 am · Filed under
Emergency, Enterprise 2.0, Mobile Messaging 2.0, Mobile Phones, NPR, PBS, Public Media, Social Media, Twitter
“San Diego’s KPBS-FM lost its main transmitter this morning as a wildfire burned Mt. San Miguel. By 8:30 a.m., its all-news coverage of the region’s multiple fires moved from 89.5 to 94.9 MHz, using a music station’s frequency lent by Lincoln Financial Media Co.” (The Current)
Thank goodness for the loan - but by having a major online presence, KPBS, would still have been in action - so what is your Station’s Emergency plan?
In my former life, I worked for CIBC a large Canadian Bank. WE knew that if for any reason, we lost a major dealing room, we might go out of business. So we worked with our competitors and set up an emergency dealing room in several key centres. So on Sept 12, CIBC, whose office was in the next door building to WTC and was wrecked by the collapse of the larger structures, was open for business.
We live in a much more volatile world where major weather systems can take out entire states. So what about developing a state wide plan for your state? I assure you that the day after the hurricane/fire/flood is not the time to be thinking about what to do.
Social media will surely play a major role in any such plan?
by Bill Ives
October 24, 2007 at 5:55 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
I did a post, Twitter Enters the Enterprise?, that was a bit provocative and stirred up a bunch of Twitter supporters. I think it got more comments that anything I have written on this blog but I have not been keeping track. I recently co-presented on new media for leaders at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government with my friend Cesar Brea. Cesar is a Twitter user (see Twying Out Twitter) and confirmed that Twitter users can be passionate. He presented an interesting mashup, Twittervsion, that combines Twitter with Google Maps so you can see where people are using Twitter around the world and what they are saying (should they opt in to participate).
He described some interesting applications of this mashup in his post, Twittervision: From Cool, To Tool. “Picture scenarios that filter Twittervision into logical groups (pre-defined groups of people watching a webcast, or people linking and reacting to news, for example). Now picture further parsing the Twitter posts for the occurrence of keywords signaling reactions, a la We Feel Fine, and then mapping those occurrences to a heat map overlay on the Twittervision Google Map. What emerges is an “evolving geospatialized map of emotional reaction to events”.
Cesar demonstrated how this might work at our session. The application, We Feel Fine, provides the heat. It is an application developed by a few former Googleites. That lets you see what feelings are occurring on the web. It has a data collection engine that automatically scours the Internet every ten minutes, harvesting human feelings from a large number of blogs. The blog data comes from a variety of online sources, including LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, MySpace, Blogger, Flickr, Technorati, Feedster, Ice Rocket, and Google. We Feel Fine scans blog posts for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling” and then looks to see if it includes one of 5,000 pre-identified “feelings” to gauge the temperature of these blogs. While there will be obvious “mistakes” the law of large numbers should smooth that out.
I think is a great example of the creativity that mashups allow. The breakthroughs will likely often come from the fourth or fifth generation iteration of the combinations that go beyond the vision of the originators. The ease of development allows for these extensions.
by Paula Thornton
October 24, 2007 at 4:39 pm · Filed under
Business Model, Economics, Enterprise 2.0
This was bebo founder Michael Birch describing how the current business landscape has not had lower barriers to entry since the California Goldrush.
His comments were made during a Social Networking panel discussion at Google’s recent Zeitgeist ‘07 (a partner event) – a must watch/listen.
The entire conversation reinforces a statement that was forming as a ‘need to post’ earlier today in my muddled mind: identifying and capitalizing new business potential requires strong skills in applying the principles of classic economics (have you noticed the trend in industry voices having strong backgrounds in economics?). Case in point, Chris Anderson used the Blockbuster | NetFlix comparison to show how NetFlix captialized on a sweet spot in the economic model of media rentals (including leveraging the time value of the model to their advantage). Then TNR Entertainment finds a way to tweak a couple of other elements in the economic model to play to their own advantage…an advantage large enough to make even big boys like IBM successful too.
The good news is…there is no end to dimensions to be tweaked. It just takes some digging and the patience to hit the right vein.
by Rob Paterson
October 24, 2007 at 8:32 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Corante, Debi Jones, Emergency, Enterprise 2.0, Flickr, KPBS, Mobile Messaging 2.0, Mobile Phones, NPR, News, PBS, Public Media, Social Media, Twitter, Wisdom of Crowds, security
If you live where I do 3,000 miles away from the fires, maybe pictures of the fires and interviews with people who have lost their homes might be interesting. BUT what if you live where the fires are? Surely then I would want to know in real time EXACTLY what was going on.
KPBS - a public TV Station is providing this service using Google Maps, Twitter & Flickr. They are also broadcasting on air and on the web! They have all the bases covered. I have suggested to some PBS/NPR stations that they should create an Emergency Plan - they have pushed back saying that they don’t do “News”. Here is a joint license showing that covering emergency well is surely one of the key “Public” tasks of such a station - showing also how by using social media - they can do this really well by accessing their community
Here is the Google Map - all the key detail is there - what is going on and where and when (875,000 views and counting this morning)
Here is the Twitter feed - note that the feed is operating on a minute by minute basis
Here is the link to Flickr
They are using the Comments Section on a blog as a tool to allow people to make local reports - see how it works here
They have got the full suite all cleverly applied
Update - In this kind of emergency - Mobile Phones are now the main link - here is a great post by Debi Jones on how this is playing out:
The disastrous fires burning in San Diego have initiated a service used by the city and county government to inform and update residents. Mandatory evacuation orders have been communicated via reverse 911 on both landline phones and mobile phones. The messages are prerecorded and as I’ve said, three messages have been received on my phone. The first was an evacuation order. The next message was a notice that San Diego schools are closed until further notice along with the instruction to keep children inside and restrict their activity levels (smoke and ash is so thick in the air that keeping it out of your house is impossible during large fires). The third message was information on evacuation centers that were still open as several are already full.
Regulation in the US for Enhanced 911 or emergency service which incorporates location data has resulted in a number of emergency related services that are unique to the US market when compared to other geographical regions like Western Europe or Asia. The reverse 911 system isn’t specifically a mobile service, but that it does include mobile phones is impressive and to see this system work in the case of a disaster saving time and lives is an important development. To this point, 262,000 households have received reverse 911 calls.
It is likely in a very bad situation that cell phone networks will get jammed - what we are learning though is that SMS tends to get through - so Twitter as a feed may be the core of a good plan
Advisories have been announced on CNN and local San Diego TV stations asking people to limit their mobile phone use as the networks are saturated. This is a common problem during emergencies as we’ve seen over and over. The one component that continued to provide communication during the London bombings, post Katrina flooding in New Orleans and now in San Diego is text messaging. Twice today my mobile calls have been rejected with the network reporting, “all circuits are busy”. And yet, I’ve continued to be able to send out SMS.
by Rob Paterson
October 24, 2007 at 5:15 am · Filed under
Common Craft, Dead Paradigms, Enterprise 2.0, Jevon MacDonald, Zombies
Jevon has been writing about Dead Paradigms - I call them “Zombies” - Now Common Craft - who make the best videos about social media - nail the issue for once and all time
by Rob Paterson
October 23, 2007 at 3:38 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Michael Yon, Public Media, SaaS, Social Media, SocialText, War, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds, barriers
Thanks to a reader - Rob Lantz - I have discovered the Ernie Pyle of our time.
His name is Michael Yon. Michael works for no paper and lives off donations. He is writing the most compelling material of the conflict in Iraq.
Here is a taste - gripping and so human - so different from CNN
Off course the official Army hates him - but as you can see by this article - the guys love him. He is a real warrior, was in the Special Forces, who can pick up a weapon when it all goes wrong as it does in this story.
What’s really like on the ground for both US Troops - now moved out of the Green Zone and into the community - and for the Iraqis who live there - what do both really need from each other? Here Yon shows us a view not seen before by “Real” journalists who read the press releases in the Green Zone.
Without a paper behind him - he can tell the truth. The more we can publicize his work the more the truth can be told - a glimpse of the “Paper” of the future?
by Bill Ives
October 22, 2007 at 8:26 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
There was a survey that came out recently titled, Facebook, MySpace tolerated by Business, Survey Says. Aside from the weird phrasing, it turns out that the title could have just as easily been Facebook, MySpace blocked by business. As they reported, “Darin Stahl, research lead at Info-Tech Research Group Inc. in London, Ontario, said only 46% of the IT managers at the 200 companies polled by his firm explicitly block access to social networking sites. Forty-nine percent tolerate employee use of such sites, and 3% actually encourage use.”
That seems to be a lot of blocking. The researcher goes on, “The reason more companies aren’t blocking social networking sites is probably because they have more critical issues to deal with, Stahl said…They’re probably picking their battles. One could argue that if it hasn’t come up and reared its head, they’re not fighting it.” This is hardly a ringing endorsement. He goes on, “In addition to security concerns, employee productivity was cited as a top concern, Stahl said. “It was viewed as a big time waster and really had very little to do with business value of your average accounts-payable clerk.”
Even though I am not an accounts-payable clerk, I guess that Darin Stahl will not be my Facebook friend. He also might not find many friends with your average accounts-payable clerks. BTW, I did find a Darin Stahl from nearby Hamilton Ontario in Facebook with three friends and an undeveloped profile. It might be the same guy, but not sure. He could have been doing more “research.”
The article itself takes a bit more balanced view. It points out that Facebook already hosts networks for employees at companies such as Apple Inc. and is “preparing to launch a new feature that according to recent reports would allow it to act as a more professional networking utility.” This could be a good thing as there are still vestiges of its exclusive college days. The article author, Shamus McGillicuddy, does not appear to be on Facebook, at least not in a public way.
Personally, I say kudos to the 3% of firms who encourage the use of Facebook. MySpace might be a different story unless you are in the music business. Here are ten lessons from Facebook for the enterprise from Derek Abdinor. One of his points is that employees can learn through Facebook about how to make better use of the web and these lessons are often very applicable to their work.
by Paula Thornton
October 22, 2007 at 4:38 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Business Model, Chris Anderson, Enterprise 2.0
One memory of FASTforward07, was the confidence/credibility Ray Lane instilled when he spoke of his belief that Oracle and SAP are positioned survive the challenges of 2.0 because of their investments in R&D.
In comments to a recent post of mine, Atul Rai drew attention to a post of his own about SAP and Oracle’s foray into 2.0 space.
It would seem that SAP is dedicated to more than the “lipstick on a pig” routine (as has been witnessed elsewhere). They’ve ripped a page from Disney’s playbook by creating their own Imagineering group, yet add a specific goal for differentiation: “Incorporate new ways of using emerging Web 2.0 technologies to harness the power of its customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software into tools that are easy to use, engaging and eminently attractive to an increasingly younger and tech-savvy mix of employees and customers.”
I can’t figure out the trend of justifying these investments based on satisfying demanding youth: “We’re focused on bridging the generation gap and figuring out the best ways to engage this new generation of digital natives who are ADD — and have their IM and their iPods and multiple other things going all at once — to find out how they will work in the enterprise of the future.” I’ve been screaming about the issues these approaches solve since I was their age, way before we knew that we too were AD/HD (the more appropriate term in formal circles).
The challenge still remains to see how well the work of a ‘spinoff’ can be integrated back to the mother ship. Of course, if they do so in true 2.0 style, it won’t matter, because they’ll leapfrog the mother ship (culture and all).
I was shocked once again this past week as a colleague pooh-poohed the messages of another FASTforward07 speaker, Chris Anderson. He seems to get no respect for his model of untapped potential. Enterprise Solutions are classic embodiments of Chris’s model, only the potential is even greater. The opportunity is to flatten the high end and move it to the right. Enterprise solutions embody two fundamental design flaws: 1) they embrace “a” business model – making them inherently wrong for EVERY business model and 2) they’re designed for “a” person, making them ill-suited to EVERYONE. The beauty of the fundamentals of The Long Tail, is that the model (esp. “shortening the distance”) reinforces the value of solutions designed to address individual needs (including optimized interfaces for different accessibility needs). There is huge untapped potential in these specialized interfaces and functions – potential that will unseat massive, endless designs positioned for the elusive EVERYONE.
Even Microsoft seems to understand the value of this approach by its commitment to the Expressions collection (I’m checking out Blend as a mechanism for presentations/prototypes). These offerings will gain tremendous potential when .net extensions are supported. Effectively, those of us who design front-ends can design them just the way we want them to look/behave and developers don’t have to (get to) touch them at all.
