by Jevon MacDonald
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)
by Joe McKendrick
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.
by Bill Ives
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.
by Bill Ives
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.
by Rob Paterson
September 18, 2008 at 6:20 am · Filed under
Capital, Credit, Enterprise 2.0
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
