Does Enterprise 2.0 Need to be ‘Governed’?

September 30, 2008 at 8:51 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

Many organizations are wrestling with the ways of governance for their service oriented architecture. SOA projects risk running seriously awry without getting a handle on their purpose and direction for the business.

Of course, since SOA and Enterprise 2.0 overlap so closely, this begs the question: should this governance be extended to Enterprise 2.0 activities?  For example, mashups are essentially the same as the composite applications that have formed the core of SOA projects for years now.

This was the question I recently put to a panel at ebizQ’s recent SOA Governance panel. I had the opportunity to moderate a stellar line-up of industry experts: Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director with Burton Group, and former Chief Technology Officer at Systinet; Ron Schmelzer, managing partner with ZapThink; Frank Martinez, senior vice president, product strategy for SOA Software; David Bressler, SOA Evangelist for the Actional products at Progress Software; Ed Horst, vice president of marketing and product strategy for AmberPoint; and John Michelson, a founder and chief scientist of iTKO LISA. (Archived audio replay available here.)

I posed the question: A lot of people engaged in rapid application development, or service development via mashups and other Web 2.0 methods. There’s a lot of potential for chaos. Should the emerging governance structures we see for SOA be extended to Web 2.0?  Should we go to the Web 2.0 folks and say, ‘Hi, I’m from the governance committee, and I’m here to help’?  Or will this kill Web 2.0 initiatives? Or, perhaps, Web 2.0ers will simply find a workaround the rules and policies?

Anne Thomas Manes says a lot of REST advocates she speaks with feel that governance isn’t required for REST-based services. “At which point I respond saying, are you kidding? Think about how many people have created really, really bad POX applications that they claim to be rest and actually have almost no representation of the REST principles involved. They don’t follow any of the constraints, and they’re basically just tunneling RPCs to URLs.”

Ron Schmelzer added that “we’re moving towards an environment where computing is being highly decentralized, where we’re not relying IT to be a sole providers of capabilities, but rather were relying more on the audience to create the value of that content.” But governance is paramount at the service provider level, he continued. “Organizations like Google and Amazon and YouTube simply can’t manage that environment where they have millions of people…making millions of contributions on a daily basis, without having some sort of environment where they can have control at the design at the change time and the runtime stage.”

Google Maps is a classic example, he continued. “There are thousands of applications now that are dependent on Google Maps API…  Google cant version that interface. They can’t just decide to up and change the way that the function works. If they do, they could be breaking some highly critical application that’s dependent on it.”

Such services require governance — “there’s really no choice,” Ron said. “It’s a matter of how they enable… Web 2.0 to continue to grow and provide value without making it brittle.”

Consumers of services also have issues, particularly in terms of keeping up with versioning. David Bressler pointed to soem of the issues that may arise when a service provider changes its apps. “When Google changes, if I’m the consumer, I want to make sure I’m not impacted,” he said. “As an enterprise, if I have a dozen different applications that are using my salesforce interface linking to Salesforce.com, I don’t want to have to manage a dozen different teams at the same team.”

Thus, governance takes on importance both on the producer and provider sides of Enterprise 2.0 services. (Archived audio replay of the panel discussion available here.)

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Enterprise 2.0 for Good Times, Enterprise 2.0 for Bad Times (And Everywhere in Between)

September 30, 2008 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

This past week has provided quite a lesson in the functioning of credit markets, and potential impacts on the economy at large. Will the credit crisis broaden into a deeper recession?  Who knows. But, as I’ve said in previous posts, the next economic downturn will be different than ones in the past, thanks to Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0.

For one, companies looking to trim expenditures will find Enterprise 2.0-style tools to be compelling solutions. eWeek’s Clint Boulton just explored some of the scenarios we may see in “Recession 2.0,” if it were to come to pass.

For example, there could be more Web conferencing instead of business travel. This was a shift first seen in the 2001 post-dot-bomb downturn.

There would also be more interest in collaborative and cloud computing. “Organizations that are looking to move into new technologies, normally a project that would be put on hold when budgets are tight, can still do small implementations with SAAS, including blogs, wikis and social-networking tools to lower costs.”

One more observation on this. Even if the economy suddenly broke into a growth surge, and money started flowing from all directions, we’ll still see growth in collaborative and cloud applications. Companies recognize that the growing capabilities now offered by Enterprise 2.0 and cloud applications offer a huge competitive advantage, not only because they are low cost, but also because they are flexible, and even more important, open up the information flow between teams, departments, partners, and customers.

We have seen the future, and it is online, it is collaborative, and it is wide open — no matter what the state of the economy.

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Inside or Outside? Gartner Attempts to Clear Cloud ‘Confusion’

September 29, 2008 at 10:56 am · Filed under Cloud Computing

Analyst firm Gartner just issued a statement that it believes there is “confusion” in the market over the definition of “cloud computing,” and wants to set the record straight.

Gartner defines cloud computing as “a style of computing in which massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.”

However, the consultancy’s analysts say, there have been different perceptions of what is included in cloud computing.  ”The term cloud computing has come to mean two very different things: a broader use that focuses on ‘cloud,’ and a more-focused use on system infrastructure and virtualization,” said David Mitchell Smith, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “Mixing the discussion of ‘cloud-enabling technologies’ with ‘cloud computing services’ creates confusion.”

Gartner says some commentators and vendors have applied the “cloud” label to internal initiatives, such as virtualization and automation. However, in the broader context, cloud computing applies to “the perspective of the Internet/Web/software as a service (SaaS). The focus is more on cloud than computing with the emphasis placed on access to services from elsewhere (that is, from the cloud).”

Gartner says the internal aspects and the external Web-based aspects are related, but that the internal definition is more of a “subset” of the larger phenonemon.

Is Gartner getting too picky on this? By employing the same standards and principles, organizations will be supporting their own, secure internal “clouds” as well as relying on the global cloud. In many cases, the overlap will not even be apparent to end users.

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Will Tools Like Twitter Change the Ways We Work With Flows of Information and Knowledge ?

September 28, 2008 at 12:28 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Blogging, Change, Conferences, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Hylton Joliffe, Social Computing, Stuart Henshall, Twitter, User Revolution, Web 2.0

This is an edited version of a post I recently put up on the KMWorld 2008 blog (in blockquotes, below).  The KMWorld 2008 conference was interesting (FAST had an exhibitor’s booth) and the contrast with last year in terms of the tangible interest in and take-up of social computing tools was evident.

People everywhere are beginning to understand, and practice with, the utility of "watching" snippets and fragments of peoples’ thoughts (see Dave Snowden’s KMWorld article titled "Everything Is Fragmented") and being able to instantiate and jump into a possible conversation when something interesting to them flows by.

 It works … for example, late last night I twittered a response to one of Jeremiah Owyang’s tweets pointing to his recent blog post about "What’s After The Social Web?", and shortly thereafter I had a Twitter direct message from Jeremiah in my email inbox saying "sounds interesting, I think you’re on to something .. tell me more".  A professional, potentially knowledge-building, conversation is brewing.

Here’s a summary of Stuart Henshall’s reflections on working with and in knowledge flows with the nascent micro-blogging

.

A Master Strategist’s Take on a (Possible) Future of Knowledge “Management”

From the keyboard of Stuart Henshall, one of the most advanced thinkers about the “flows” of information combined with usability and innovation.

Stuart helped out with the blogging at the just-ended KMWorld and also gave a presentation on the last day about how people are beginning to use Twitter to connect, stimulate, catalyze and coordinate flows of information.

I thought he did a great job of outlining interesting possibilities .. but it seems he made some people nervous and some people stretch their minds. That may be because he has been immersed in the world of constant micro-flows of information and mobility for the last half-year while many of those at KMWorld are just now beginning to come to terms with blogging, using wikis and social computing. There may be one of those classic mismatches, the kind that lead to phrases like “You can always recognize the pioneers, they’re the ones walking around with arrows sticking out of their backs“.

Here’s Stuart’s post:.

Social Media or KM / KM or Social Media

I sat in earlier on a session on the Future of KM. There are three very different people on the panel. I’ve been listening with half an ear. This means what I write may have nothing to do with the context of the session. However, part of the reason we come to events like this is to spark other thoughts and tangents.

So far today I’ve not heard the word “flows”, I don’t hear “lifestreaming” I still feel what I am hearing is that knowledge is to be managed, moved, manipulated. Plus I just heard Dave Pollard say that SARS, 9/11, Katrina etc were all failures of classic knowledge management. I can’t quite put my finger on why KM isn’t learning and moving forward more quickly. It suggests to me that there remains a bigger problem.

Individuals are increasingly using personal tools, blogs, wikis, social networks, mobile phone, etc. As they move into this realm publicly they create more information about themselves. I’m increasingly seeing these tools being put to use by marketing / PR. KM seems to be missing these social media implications. Thus adoption of these tools is not being driven by the need to manage knowledge. Rather it’s driven by responding faster, being more adaptive, building on what others do, opening up systems so they can find that they need just in time. It’s a learning centric approach. I see it when I go to blogging sessions and talk to people there. The difference is they are believers.

[ Snip ... ]

I’m thinking more and more that the social media experts are likely to usurp or overturn many KM practices in time. The fact that SAP, Oracle and IBM are today all working with Twitter like updates is at least encouraging.

Maybe they can still sell a knowledge platform?

.

It’s interesting that Stuart pointed out the directions large collaboration platforms are taking; Hylton Jolliffe, who manages this blog, just sent me an email a few days ago pointing out that Oracle’s developments with BeeHive may be signalling a new phase, while this ZDNet article (Did Oracle Burst The Enterprise 2.0 Startup Bubble?) suggest something similar.

At this very same conference one year ago (KMWorld 2007) Stuart wrote a post with which I agree 100% (link in the paragraph below) … while people in companies and business everywhere are looking for business case or ROI justification for using social media tools (while understanding semi-consciously that of course useful knowledge gets built in social interaction) they have to work (and experiment) at overcoming a lifetime of working in environments that divide and separate problems, responsibilities and challenges into discrete and divided bundles of tasks that are supposed to fit together like an orderly paint-by-numbers-like template (by which I mean an organizational chart).

To understand how using social media to increase effectiveness, responsiveness and innovation in an environment characterized by constant flows of information, you have to Use the Tools First; Then Talk To Me.

Read the whole post on a possible future for KM here ..

Powered by Qumana

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Enterprise 2.0 Implementation, the book!

September 28, 2008 at 10:02 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

A few months ago Jeremy Thomas asked me if I would consider writing the forward for a new book he was writing with Aaron Newman. I was honored to be asked and said I would love to do it.

Today I have the final version of their hard work sitting in front of me: Enterprise 2.0 Implementation.

In a review of WikiPatterns, I called it “the first Enterprise 2.0 playbook” because it gave strategic advice on how to encourage adoption and spur interaction. In that context, Enterprise 2.0 Implementation is your Enterprise 2.0 blueprint. It provides a technical and tactical overview of how IT can understand and implement Enterprise 2.0 technologies. A book like this has been a need for a long time, and it will play a big role in taking Enterprise 2.0 mainstream.

This book covers everything from deploying Blogs and Wikis to building social networks and developing RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) and in the final chapter Aaron and Jeremy touch on Governance, Compliance, Risk Management and there is a big chapter on Security (which is one of the strongest components of the book).

Aaron and Jeremy have done a great job, and I know that a lot of blood and sweat has gone in to this. I am proud to have been asked to contribute, and I hope you will pick up the book and give it a read.

Packed with real-world examples and timesaving tips, Enterprise 2.0 Implementation shows how to use viral and social networking tools to gain the competitive edge. Get full details on managing corporate blogs, wikis, mashups, RSS feeds, tagging and bookmarking data, and RIAs. You’ll also learn how to maximize ROI, use Semantic Web technologies, and implement security.

• Expand corporate presence to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Ning
• Build internal social networks using open source and commercial applications
• Reduce infrastructure and IT costs through SaaS vendors
• Consolidate disparate information using Enterprise 2.0 Discovery
• Manage wikis, blogs, mashups, and RSS/Atom feeds
• Set up Rich Internet Applications
• Develop security, risk management, and disaster recovery strategies

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Enterprise 2.0 Vendors need to get more serious about mobile

September 25, 2008 at 1:50 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

Unlike just a few years ago, there are no shortage of Web 2.0 applications for the Enterprise. There are widget frameworks, platforms, realtime collaboration, blogging tools, social networks and more.

There is one major common denominator that I see between the current Enterprise 2.0 offerings, and that is the obsession with the desktop webbrowser as the major source of interaction with the application.

The truth is that the most successful Enterprise 2.0 applications will focus heavily on mobile and will take in to consideration the considerably different use cases related to how different functions use mobile devices.

The market for enterprise mobile applications is, depending on who you ask, somewhere in the range of $12bn per year. This would, by my finger-in-the-wind method of guessing, vastly eclipse the current size of the enterprise 2.0 market.

Enterprise 2.0 platforms and applications cannot be taken seriously until they offer industry leading mobile experiences. While one of the benefits often touted by Enterprise 2.0 vendors is a reduction in travel requirements, business travel remains at high levels, even during this economic downturn.

Vendors will need to consider the vastly different use-cases for the type of user that spends most of their day on a blackberry vs. the user who spends most of their time in front of a computer. Mobile Enterprise 2.0 applications cannot be simple mobile-ready versions of the existing application. Mobile applications should focus on messaging, triaging, delegation and other high-level information-based behaviors that augment the information and interactions taking place inside a proper Enterprise 2.0 application.

I believe that one of the obstacles to going mobile to date has been the Content Management focus of many Enterprise 2.0 platforms. Content Management companies and philosophies do not typically transfer well to mobile. This is particularly a problem for smaller vendors who seem largely confused by what a mobile business application really looks like, and how user behavior translates to mobile.

The first successful Enterprise 2.0 applications for mobile may come out of the CRM 2.0 or Business Intelligence disciplines, as they are significantly better prepared for creating relevant mobile apps within their current set of use cases.

Are you working on an Enterprise 2.0 mobile application? I want to hear about it. Get in touch ( jevon at firestoker dot com)

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Web Oriented Architecture and SOA: Different Acronyms, Same Things

September 23, 2008 at 5:01 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, SOA

I recently had the opportunity to take part in a podcast with Dave Linthicum, noted speaker, author and entrepreneur in SOA and integration, about the rise of Web Oriented Architecture (WOA), and what it means to SOA. (Podcast link here.)

Dave and I talked about the rise of WOA, and we both agreed that WOA and SOA have more in common than they are different. Both seek to address business problems by evoking shared, standardized services from across the network.

As Dave put it: “I view them as one in the same… I never saw service oriented architecture being limited at the firewall.”  We can “abstract services that somebody else owns and host, which is even better, because you’re not paying a lot of money for those things, able to bind solutions within yoiur enterprise, and create solutions around the whole notion of SOA, and extend it out to the world via Web APIs.”

However, a lot of the action now seems to be taking place within WOA frameworks, Dave adds. “SOA is boring, takes forever …no one ever seems to move the ball too far forward in the world of SOA…. A lot of the service orchestration and successes in leveraging services.. in binding them to solutions seems to be occurring on the Web..  around the sopcial networking stuff, the platform as a service areas… ”

But still, WOA is service oriented architecture applied on a global scale: “If you look at the fundamental approaches and really what they’re trying to accomplish, they’re really both innate SOA and WOA,” Dave said.

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Looking at Trends in the Online Customer Experience

September 22, 2008 at 5:29 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

A recent Harris Interactive survey, sponsored by Tealeaf, highlights trends in online transactions and the opportunities for companies that focus on improving these online customer experiences. The survey focused on consumer transactions on shopping, banking, travel and insurance websites. It was conducted in early August 2008 with over two thousand participants.

The headlines are:

First, for the fourth consecutive year, nearly 9 out of 10 (87%) online adults who have conducted an online transaction in the past year have experienced problems. Those who experience problems conducting online transactions also reported feeling disappointed (55%), angry (41%), and confused (23%). I usually feel all of the above. Second, 41% of online adults who experience transaction problems would switch to a competitor or abandon a transaction entirely. This represents a potential 57 billion dollars (US) impact for shopping sites alone. Third, four in five online adults who experience problems (84%) share their experiences with others — both online and offline. This is certainly consistent with all the customer service work I used to do. It is perhaps even higher.

I fall into all three of these above groups. Forrester found compatible results in their survey “Obstacles to Customer Experience Success, 2008,” where 91% of business decision-makers said customer experience is either very important or critical to their 2008 efforts. We have high expectations with web sites ─ more than four in five (84%) online adults feel there is no reason why an online transaction can’t be completed on the first try — but most sites are not meeting those expectations.

At the same time there is an increasing preference to do things online — 84% of all adults who go online have conducted an online transaction in the past year and more than one-third (35%) generally prefer to conduct business online, according to the survey. I imagine that this is especially true for some industries where there are extra charges to do things with a person. Further, 22% of online adults who have conducted an online transaction in the past year expect even better customer service online than when shopping in-person. Two-thirds (64%) expect the same level of customer service online as they are accustomed to receiving in-person at a store. Somehow, we think machines are more accurate than people. However, people who are around software a lot perhaps know better. I am both amazed and yet not surprised that people still have such difficulty with online transactions. Personally, I am always amazed and pleased when it works. I guess my expectations are lower through experience.

Even when a site has call center backup, 45% of online adults who have experienced bad customer service from a company’s call center when calling about website problems subsequently stopped doing
business with the company entirely. As I mentioned above, (84%) share their bad experiences with others and more than half (53%) tell their friends and family specifically in order to discourage them from using that website or doing business with that company.

I found the channels of bad news interesting as 82% of online adults who share their experiences with others do so using non-online modes of communication such as:
- In-person (74%) and
- Phone conversations (50%) with friends and family.

On the other hand, 58% use online channels to share complaints or reviews such as:
- On the company’s website (39%);
- In an email to friends and family (23%);
- On a ratings and reviews websites (16%);
- On an online message board (8%); and,
- On a blog and/or social network (7%).

While non-online modes of communication are more popular, they may reach a more limited audience. It is likely that online channels actually have a broader reach since a web site posting or email can be shared with thousands. Twitter is being used more and more for this and firms like Comcast are monitoring this channel for cusomter complaints. This is one reason that firms set up their own social networking sites to try to monitor, understand, and work to address customer concerns (see my recent posts - Best Practices for Business Social Networking Sites from Dotser.)

Another option is to continuously monitor and improve the firm’s online customer experience. This is treating the problem at the source. Of course, you would also want to do this monitoring on a social networking site. Site monitoring can drive down the bad experiences in the first place and stop the cycle of complaints. Tealeaf provides a suite of products for this purpose that I recently discussed on the AppGap – see Tealeaf Brings Visibility to Online Customer Experiences.

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More on Enterprise Twittering & Dr. Vaine on Corporate Blogging

September 18, 2008 at 4:40 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

I recently discovered Mary Abraham’s blog, Above & Beyond KM, as we are going to be on a panel together. She is both a lawyer and a knowledge manager. Here is a great post on Twittering Inside the Firewall. She makes a great argument against doing technology for its own sake. - What existing workflow or tool will Twitter replace or enhance within your law firm? (or any firm) We should ask this about all tools. It does not have to be a tool replacement but the tool should address some workflow to add value, even if it is a transformative application. I am still wondering this about Twitter myself. There are also some useful links to other posts on the topic.

Mary also pointed me to this great video on blogging within the enterprise. It is on the Green Chameleon Blog, Dr. David Vaine on Corporate Blogging. The video speaks for itself so I will not even attempt to add value.

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Enterprise 2.0 - Now a necessity in a low/no capital world - The Death of the Dinos

September 18, 2008 at 6:20 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, capital, credit

Easy to get capital and easy to get credit is vanishing and enterprises that rely on this will not make it.

A deep undercurrent of this blog has been how difficult it is for a conventional organization to adopt a 2.0 world. The entrenched habits of control, centralization and top down could not be shifted. No amount of appeals, about the power of a 2.0 world, more speed, better infomation, better conection inside and outside the enterprise, landed with the change.

I think we all underestimated the height and the steepness of the slope of the “landscape” that had to be crossed to go into the next “valley” of the 2.0 world.

Systems remain stable for a long time - so long as the key environment to support them exists. For real change to occur, you have to get out of the “valley”, over the mountain and into the next valley. So the dinosaurs ruled for millions of years, while the more adaptive mammals lurked in the shadows waiting the moment when the environment would change and set them free.

So until last week, it was still possible for organizations to chug along with a 1.0 perspective. For its key environmental factor, cheap and easy credit and access to capital was still in place.

Well dear readers - this is no longer the case. The asteroid has hit the worlds financial markets and the dinosaurs will die.Large cumbersome beings that need a lot of capital and credit and who cannot adapt quickly will die.

Credit and assets based on cheap credit are simply evaporating. So is the “photosynthesis” process of capital and credit creation. Investment banking and conventional banking is in the process of losing its own capital base. Even the credit of the US itself will be tested to the limit in the ensuing months.

What we are experiencing is not a normal correction but the equivalent of an asteroid strike.

It will get worse. For another key environmental factor for the 1.0 model was cheap and easily availble energy. As the new reality of Peak Oil becomes clear, then all business models also based on moving goods long distances and from huge central hubs fail. Of course this model is also based on massive usage of financial capital.

So how does this play out and who wins?

Mammals won for 2 reasons. They were small and because they raised their young they could extend their offspring’s ability to adapt by adding cultural learning to their natural instinct.

We cannot know in any detail what the future will now bring.

All we can know is that the nimble and the smart will do better than the clumsy and the unthinking. All we know is that any model based on large amounts of capital will not make it - so forget nuclear as an option for energy.

The new of course exists in proto form today as it did when the dinosaurs roamed. The new will be based on network models. It will use the network effect and it will use social capital to do big things. It will use its distributed intelligence to “see” what to do and to undersatdn the chaos that we will be living in.

The time for a world based on a model that is itself based on nature itself rather than a machine is dawning.

Understanding the “natural economy” , the “natural organization” and social capital will be the key to your survival. Not just in business but in every part of our lives.

For we as citizens of the “machine world” gave up all control to the “System”. We became isolated and helpless. We lived in the Matrix. We did not even know what we had given up.

2.0 is I think really short hand for using technology to help us go home to a world based on a community rather than one based on being cogs in a machine.

Until now many of us were merely playing with the idea of taking the Red Pill. Now its life or death. Life or death for organizations, life or death for us as people.

In closing I don’t think that this will be all bad. Here is a passage that has affected me deeply for decades. When I first read it, I could not imagine the circumstances that would make it come true. Now I can.

There will come a time when humanity will choose to go against nature, to exploit her bounteous gifts, causing a sickness across the planet. People will forget the ecstasies of communion, and life will become drab and colorless.

In these coming dark ages, though, a deep sense of loss will cause the beginnings of a Great Return. They will look at the landscape and the old temples, built to withstand the cataclysms of millennia and understand once again the sacred laws of Existence.

When this day comes, humanity will have come of age. It will consciously acknowledge its role in the creative impulse that comes from the Sun, fertilizes the Earth, and calls forth the flame in the hearts of men and women to worship Life and the miraculous forces behind Creation.

Miller, Hamish & Broadhurst, Paul. The Sun and the Serpent: An Investigation into Earth Energies

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Best Practices for Business Social Networking Sites from Dotser

September 15, 2008 at 3:40 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

Many companies have started to use social networking. Some have set up groups on Facebook and other existing sites. Others are starting their own social networking sites. These can be standalone sites or a tab on the firm’s web site. Last week I spoke with Catherine Brown, Director of Business Social Networking at Dotster, a provider of internet businesses services, on best practices for business social networking.

There are many benefits for a business to set up its own user community. It can be a demonstration of the firm’s commitment to customer feedback. It can be a listening post to what customers are saying about its products and, with their own site, the firm owns the data. It can enhance brand loyalty and provide increased self-help between its customers reducing customer service calls. Setting up a group on a site like Facebook leaves all control over transparency, ad selection, ad placement, features, and data in the hands of a firm with a different set of objectives as discussed before on this blog see - Enterprise 2.0 is not Web 2.0 nor is it an Oxymoron.

So what are best practices for setting up a business social network? Catherine said to start by developing a clear and comprehensive customer profile. What are their characteristics and concerns? Do more than promote product news. Define other issues that match the audience profile and add that content. Then define the business objectives of the site and select features to support these objectives (e.g. forums, blogs, wikis, etc.). Develop the site and engage in active promotion through channels other than the site (e.g. email, ads, personal connections, etc.).

You can make the site open to anyone who registers, This is best for fairly simple or straightforward products, especially when you want more exposure as part of the effort. You can also set up customer only, or even invitation only, communities for dealing with more complex products or sensitive issues. Developer or partner sites may fall into this category. One of the Dotster communities support exchange between divorced women. You can also set up your community to attract search spiders or have it stay private depending on your objectives. Catherine also recommends active moderation of your business community whether it is open or private.

I asked about the blogs versus forums on communities. Catherine said that they both have their place and can be part of the same communities. In their communities for divorced women, the forum is used to exchange information ad advice. Blogs are used as journals of individual experience. There can also be a company blog as information resource within the community. Catherine said that each community she works with is different and I think this is a likely the most important best practice to remember. Setting up your own site provides a lot of control. Make sure you exercise it. I am going to discuss the features of Dotster on the AppGap this week. They provide versions for both small businesses and larger enterprises.