Facebook for Business – the garage band interview

Dennis Howlett who is now going to be writing a blog for ZDNet summing up Google Group discussions on Enterprise Irregular musings, recently penned a great post on Facebook. Here is a video of Dennis and Loic LeMeur who runs leWeb3 discussing the benefits of Facebook for business professionals.

Liberate Your Control Freaks – The Slide Show

Another winner by Stephen Collins. This comes to us courtesy of IBM’s Ian Hughes who picked it up from IBM’s internal blogs. Info on how to post the slideshow on your blog is on slideshare. This presentation was originally given at Webjam 3 earlier this month in Sydney.

Happy Birthday, Ross

At the risk of alienating (confusing?) all my friends on Facebook and in the blogosphere… I’m taking a public moment to wish Ross Perot a Happy Birthday. If it were not for him, I would not have enjoyed the 20+ excellent years I have had in the technology business. I joined EDS as a young writer in 1986. Perot meant a great deal to the early employees of EDS. I will always have a place in my heart for him and his first management team.

Reality confronts Hype – or is it the Next Big Shadow Market?

I imagine we’ll be seeing more of this, but after the lovefest from the e2.0 conference, I was disappointed to read this post in SearchSMB by Jeff Kelly who covered Dennis Moore speaking earlier this month at the IDC IT Forum & Expo in Boston:

So how do you foster a work environment that stresses access to real-time information, knowledge sharing and employee collaboration? You guessed it: Web 2.0.

Blogs, RSS and wikis are the equivalent today of the PC and voicemail 20 years ago, Moore said, and are the tools that will enable information workers to do their jobs more efficiently than ever before.

Surprising then, or is it, that of the 50 to 60 attendees listening to Moore’s presentation, exactly zero raised a hand when Moore asked how many currently worked at a company that uses any Web 2.0 technologies.

Even more flabbergasting, only half said they even had a reasonable grasp of what Web 2.0 means! And this is a room full of IT pros! Moore even had to explain what RSS was, and by the looks on some of the faces in the crowd, it was clear that it was news to them.

Dennis mentions in the talk that a lot of the enterprise 2.0 tools are coming in circumventing the IT department and that explains why the statistics out in the market don’t jibe with what IT is experiencing. I had a similar experience last month when I attended one of our customer events. I was chatting with a woman who is running a fairly significant project for a large financial services company on a wiki.  She said all the work, and all the contributing collaborators have been getting this done, “under the radar” of the IT department… she actually dipped in to tell me this as if “they” might overhear our conversation, (but IT wasn’t present at this conference). We were at the cocktail party and I wanted to know more, but we had to break to go back into our dinner.

I am really interested in exploring this area more with our clients. We are hosting a large, live webcast in the next few weeks where I’ll have the opportunity to answer questions directly from our customers about their adoption experiences with blogging, wikis, and other enterprise 2.0 initiatives. I may do some live polling on the audience, as well.

User Motivation

Saw an excellent post today published yesterday by Seth Gottlieb, founder and principal of Content Here. Gottlieb was at the Enterprise 2.0 conference at published some observations and suggestions on how to accelerate user adoption in the enterprise:

I heard several times at the conference that knowledge management is 90% people and 10% technology but what I didn’t see was how to get people to step up and deliver their 90%. Most of the ideas that I heard were around making it easier. I think that the secret to Enterprise 2.0 is how to make collaboration and knowledge sharing more personally rewarding. That is where I think we can learn the most from Web 2.0 (more so than with the mechanics of blogs, wikis, and tagging). People out on the web want to publish and put in extra effort to get their contributions noticed. Maybe companies should create their own internal information economies that reward employees for creating content that other people want to read.

You should read the full post to absorb the gist of his argument, but I could not agree with him more and have to admit I had not looked at enterprise 2.0 tools and adoption in this way.    Good stuff.

Incidentally, I was pleased to see that Gottlieb is somehow associated with Molecular.  I referenced Molecular in a post back in September of last year.  They’re part of  Isobar which is a global interactive agency network.   I still believe marketing will be the preferred gateway to the enterprise, depending on the industry, I suppose.   Maybe it’s time to start looking at the IAs again…

 

A Year’s Summary of Personal Reflection

I took some time to think about this post before I committed fingers to keypad. Readers of this blog know I’ve been tracking the burgeoning market in what is now a popular meme called “Enterprise 2.0” for about a year– almost to the day in fact. First, let me say– the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was such an enormous success. It far surpassed my expectations, and I’m still reeling from the widespread coverage and insightful analysis coming out of the conference sessions. The bottom line is– the market I once referred to as a baby, is now indeed a strong, healthy child, growing stronger and bigger every day. I have nothing more intelligent, or more meaningful to add to the dialog that is out in the blogosphere or in the trade media on the various presentations, panels, and informal meetings that took place in Boston last week. I highly recommend you set some bots for “enterprise2conf” and catch everything that has been written from the conference and about the conference. I’ve been tagging several of the posts in my del.icio.us “Reading Room” list you can view on the lower right hand side of my blog.

At this juncture, at my one year anniversary of covering enterprise 2.0, I want to reflect personally on 1.) how the next generation web has changed me 2.) how I believe it is reshaping business and the global online village of “friends,” 3.) the collective responsibility we share by virtue of this powerful medium, and finally 4.) what to expect from those who are “left behind.” This is a long post and a bit of a departure from my typical posts, so I hope you’ll be forgiving and permit me to self-indulge. Don’t worry; it’s a once in a year thing.

Me 2.0

Who wouldda thunk? Where I used to be opinionated and somewhat obnoxious in my 30s as a leading industry observer in the IT services tech sector– quoted hundreds and hundreds of times in every trade pub and major business publication of record, even made it onto TV as a talking head… the blogosphere has humbled me. With sheer humility, I’ve come to realize I am, well, not all that. Even though I participate in this market as a contributor, I feel badly that I take more than I give. The discussion, opinion, and worldwide classroom experience of the blogosphere has rendered me a full-time student for life. As I continue to learn, I hope to contribute more. One lesson I have learned in this experience, is there is no room for arrogance in the next generation web. There will always be someone more insightful, more interesting than you contributing to the worldwide repository of metadata on the web—even if you think you are all that. What’s different in this era is that voice could come from a corner shadow in a faraway place, and not from the pages of the Wall Street Journal or from the stage of a large industry event. What’s really different is the respect these voices command on impact as you read them in blog comments, see them on YouTube or hear them in podcasts. NoName gurus churning out genius. I celebrate them.

Busciety 2.0

Yep. It’s a mashup. Business is mashing up with society at a fast and furious pace as social media networking and blogging continues to blur the lines between people and their professions. We’re learning more about who we are as well as what we do. Hierarchies are breaking down and the zeitgeist of this era is integrating our networks (social and physical) in ways we never before imagined possible. The spirit of trust, respect, and collaboration is propagating around the digital village emerging in different geographies, time zones, and in artificial environments such as online gaming where rules of engagement are being rewritten from the bottom up. My son, for instance, is a World of Warcraft Guild Master. He leads a guild of about 120, with members ranging from the age of 8 to about 35. He says he thinks the average player is about 16 years old. He knows this because he has told me he has spent time with each member individually as he helps them progress through their levels. At one point he had over 200 in his guild, but he parsed it down to about 100. I asked him, “Why would you do that?” He told me, “It’s not how many friends you have; it’s how many you trust.” We just celebrated my son’s birthday this past weekend. He turned 11 this year. He’s a fifth grader learning lessons in organizational psychology that took me decades of professional trial and error to hone.

Over 60 of my professional “friends” have joined me recently on Facebook. We use this word “friends” loosely, but Facebook sure humanizes us, and we act a lot more friendly. Because of an incredibly powerful post I read on Tara Hunt’s blog, I put up photos of my children on Facebook this week. That woman effected a change in my behavior. She touched my life and caused me to take a risk I might otherwise not have taken. Now, I don’t really know Tara. I’ve met her, but I wouldn’t say we’re friends, yet I admire her and thank her for impacting my life. There are many, many examples of ways I have interacted with my social networks and blogger comrades this year. All experiences have been positive, even ones where I had to learn a few hard lessons about digital village etiquette. I have come to know many of my online “friends” who I share tweets (Twitter) banter with, blog comments, and the occasional email. Some I have met in person; some not yet. Invariably, I feel relatively confident I will do business with all of them in some way, some day. Either directly or through an introduction I make through my clients or another part of my network.

 

Don’t be a John Mayer

Why is John Mayer waiting for the world to change?

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood

We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population

So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

With millions and millions blogging (70M+), social networking (160M+), sharing, collaborating, mashing up, feeding, linking, tagging, texting, Twittering, and online gaming… we do have the means to, well, change the world now. Our world, anyway. The online world. I recently looked up the stats and it seems about only 15% of the worldwide population is online, but it’s a good start. It covers 100% the wealthiest countries dominating the globe. No need to wait for John Mayer’s generation to rule the population. So, what is your issue? Is it the environment? Is it a political issue? Is it race/religion/sex? Is it a rights issue? Is it a local issue to your community? The power to influence others is at your fingertips. I’d urge you to use the tools you’re learning in the workforce to do some good for society—to change your world. We’re all passionate about something in our private lives. Use your emergent, user power in the online world for good. Make a difference. It doesn’t even matter if we all disagree with each other and ignite passions for opposing sides—activism is a healthy gift you give yourself first, and then share with others.

 

The Digital Rapture

In the wink of an eye, the “get-its” got it and the resistors didn’t. It was a little scary this year for me. The old schoolers wanted to cling to their power base regardless of where that power emanated from. The range of dissent covered enterprise application vendors, high-priced gurus, consultants who catered to the IT department, traditional IT analysts and editors, old school research houses and publishers, and sometimes even users who just didn’t want to bother to learn something new and really weren’t even protecting a power base. But as the light bulbs went off around me, and I witnessed the viral adoption of how liberating web 2.0, emergent, user-driven collaboration took off in the communities where I participated and in the blogosphere… it was exhilarating. I’ve talked a lot in this blog about the “movement” and have referred to the adoption of web 2.0 in the enterprise in terms of a “revolution.” I’ve even taken Andy McAfee on myself in this regard (yikes!). Now he’s poking me on Facebook. It’s been an amazingly great year. I rejoice with every startup success, and I don’t sweat the case studies. I know they’re coming. Some breakout business model will be borne on a wiki and stand to reinvent some industry because an enlightened executive gave free rein to a smart team of design engineers or product managers, and they collaborated freely—uploading documents, designs, video—sharing ideas around the world until they got it right. It’s only a matter of time. The energy that comes with this digital addiction is infectious. You can’t stop yourself from innovating.

For those who are “left behind,” I imagine there will be gnashing of teeth when all data on the planet finally transcends up into the cloud in the final days. Not because they’ll miss the data, they’ll miss the community. We may be a reckless, rumpled and disorderly group, but we share a common vision about information—its ownership and the right to access it. More importantly, we’re all connected in the blogosphere. This post is more like a column or a speech than a traditional blog post (and if you’re still with me, you’re a trooper). You’ll notice it has very few links or references. It’s a bad example of a blog post, actually. Those who have resisted embracing the web 2.0 gestalt are disconnected from this vast interconnected community. Further, they’re not even connected to each other, save for email and maybe instant messaging. Not even a close comparison to what we’re talking about with social media and web 2.0.

I’ll end my year-end harangue with this: blog. I know it’s short for weblog. But what an unattractive word. I know I’ve seen this mentioned before, but I need to reiterate it. Blog has an onomatopoeia quality to it like the sound an upset stomach might make. Or maybe it’s a really unattractive verb: “blogging” which might be what I look like on the treadmill in the morning. Fits somewhere between plodding and blobbing?

I think the new word for blog should be bond. When we are blogging, we are bonding. We are stitching together the fabric of a new digital society with many voices. The next generation internet has become an always-on lecture hall and playground where those of us who wish to engage in the dialog can participate and thoroughly enjoy the community we built and continue to build.

Thanks for listening. We will now return to our normally scheduled programming.

Up Next? That long-awaited Vyew review.

Boston Rocks

So, in case you haven’t heard– well of course you heard!– the debate went off as planned and on time. I understand there were a few hiccups with the streaming video in different parts of the world, although some visitors had no problem at all. The video is available here:

I’m not going to blog about it now. There has been a tremendous amount of coverage on the debate, and I have a few opinions on it I need to think about as I absorb some of the conversations I’m picking up at this conference. I won’t be doing a lot of blogging here at the conference either. I’m talking to a lot of people, listening to a lot of user stories, and will be checking out a variety of vendor products. There are a several people blogging and writing here at the conference. My inbox on Enterprise 2.0 stories has never been so full. I plan to use these stories to write post-conference.

So… off to the demo pavilion.

Debate morning update

The debate is scheduled to go on this morning. We only have one update: we will not be uploading the videopodcast immediately as previously planned. Live streaming will still be available at http://www.veodia.com/Enterprise2. We will have more details later this morning. Enjoy the debate!

Enterprise 2.0 Conference: At a Glance

Charlie Wood, an Enterprise Irregular brother, set up this fantastic little Google calendar of all the sessions going on at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference. If you use gmail and Google calendar, you can set up your private conference schedule with a few clicks. I had to share. Check it out.

Way to go, Charlie. Thanks a bunch.

Love WordPress?– Me too; just don’t live here.

I love my WordPress blog, but there are certain things you cannot do if you host your blog on WordPress. Like ZoHo Polls, for instance. I wanted to get a poll out about the Davenport/McAfee debate, but couldn’t get the poll to show up on my blog. So, I asked my BSG web 2.0 (can I say geek with affection?) buddy Brian to help me out… the conversation went like this:

3:42 PM bmagierski: ok, got it to work on my wordpress blog using the RunPHP plugin that i Have installed … wordpress strips out iframes by default it seems, so I tricked it by sticking the iframe into php code

however, i don’t think i can install the RunPHP editor in your hosted blog

3:43 PM me: good job, zorg! (i have no idea what you just said)

bmagierski: i found a couple of other tricks that I’m testing

do you want me to post the poll on my blog too?

me: yes, the idea will be to get as many bloggers to post the poll as possible

3:45 PM bmagierski: Ok, but i’m still trying to get it to work on your blog!

me: keep the faith, young jedi knight!

In the end, Brian discovered WordPress won’t allow something-or-other so I can’t post the poll on my blog. You can see it all explained here from WordPress. If you don’t host your blog on WordPress, please consider hosting the poll on your blog. I’m curious to see who will win the popular vote.

You can see the poll on Brian’s site and this is the code to post it on your site:

<iframe frameborder=’0′ src=’http://polls.zoho.com/external/scrupp/davenport-v-mcafee-enterprise-2-0-hype-or-reality&#8217; width=’260′ height=’210′></iframe>