tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11125637326408869602024-02-18T23:10:50.534-08:0021st Century's Real Time Technology. Opportunities in Business, Society and TechnologyReal time technology connects people, businesses and products across the globe. New opportunities are created: Global business across cultural barriers, Collaboration technology and social media, User Experience, Cloud Computing & Desktop Virtualization (VDI), Renewable Energy & the Smart Grid and Product development 24/7. Join me in the journey to explore this space. (All opinions are mine and do not reflect the opinions of my employer, Avaya Inc.)Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-29024837571469765322011-05-06T23:05:00.000-07:002011-05-06T23:05:00.223-07:00Practical Experience with Christensen's Innovation Methodology JOBS(R) Jobs-to-be-done when creating the Avaya Flare User Experience, Avaya Digital Video Device and Cloud Offer. Learning: Add focus on emotions.Clayton Christensen's Jobs-to-be-done approach describe a series of steps to create innovation systematically. This article describes the application of the methodology to the creation of the Avaya Flare User Experience, the Avaya Digital Video Device and the related enterprise cloud offer. We found key for success is to add focus on emotions. And the result to be a condensed job description as more work is required to detail the solutions that it becomes testable against objectives and barriers. This blog is complemented by a slide deck in slideshare covering this topic. Disclaimer: The blog represents my opinions and not the views of my employer Avaya.<br />
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<div id="__ss_7870532" style="width: 425px;"><strong style="display: block; margin: 12px 0px 4px;"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/vonreventlow/practical-experience-with-christensens-innovation-methodology-jobsr-jobstobedone-when-creating-the-avaya-flare-user-experience-avaya-digital-video-device-and-cloud-offer-learning-add-focus-on-emotions" title="Practical Experience with Christensen's Innovation Methodology JOBS(R) Jobs-to-be-done when creating the Avaya Flare User Experience, Avaya Digital Video Device and Cloud Offer. Learning: Add focus on emotions.">Practical Experience with Christensen's Innovation Methodology JOBS(R) Jobs-to-be-done when creating the Avaya Flare User Experience, Avaya Digital Video Device and Cloud Offer. Learning: Add focus on emotions.</a></strong> <iframe frameborder="0" height="355" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/7870532" width="425"></iframe><div style="padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/vonreventlow">vonreventlow</a> </div></div><br />
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<strong>1. Overview of the JOBS Methodology. </strong><br />
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JOBS(R) ( atrademark of Innosight) consists out of 4 steps: Jobs-to-be-done, Objectives, Barriers, and Solutions.<br />
<ol><li>Jobs-to-be-done is the description of the problem a customer tries to solve. Christensen suggests to create complete job descriptions in the form: (Customer) wants to (solve a problem) in (this context).</li>
<li>Objectives. These are the criteria the customer is using to select a solutions. Note this includes functional criteria "like should not cost more than" as well as emotional as well as social objectives.</li>
<li>Barriers. List those which prevent customers to potentially use solutions. Christensen points out the barriers are typically functional as "battery life time beyond 2 days".</li>
<li>Solutions. Create a candidate list of different ways the job could be done. And look for outages of existing solutions.</li>
</ol><strong>2. The Context of our experience with the JOBS methodology: What we wanted to achieve with the Avaya Flare User Experience, The Avaya Digital Video Device and the related cloud offer</strong><br />
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Goal of the project was to move Avaya beyond voice: Add Video Conferencing and Web Conferencing to the portfolio.<br />
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<strong>3. Step One: Identify the Jobs-to-be-done.</strong><br />
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We visted customers and observed users during virtual conferences (voice, video, web conferences). As part of the process we learned its important to start observing users substantially before the actual activity as well as after the activity. It allows to uncover further "Job-to-be-done" that can fuel novel innovation.<br />
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We captured our observations in the form above. Examples are: "Team lead" wants to "exchange information as effectively as possible" in the "distributed team" context. Or "Sales person: wants to "have the latest up to date information on the calling party as fast as possible" in the "inbound call" context.. <br />
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We learned that "saving time" and "getting related information" are key elements. These findings are crucial for the next step: Objectives.<br />
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Thus in addition to Christensen's method we suggest: create a list of objectives when writing the Jobs-to-be-done.<br />
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<strong>4. A new step added to Christensen's method: Use Show and Tell so that team members and customers understand the characteristics of great products: Emotions make great products.</strong><br />
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Enterprise products are typically around solving pain points. However we not only wanted to solve pain points - we wanted to create a great product. To learn what makes a great product we asked project participants to bring products, tools or services they really loved. What we learned was: A great product is<br />
<ol><li>Multifunctional AND simple to use. You would say no surprise.</li>
<li>Makes people's eyes shine when they use and when they talk about it. Note - this is pure emotions.</li>
<li>Feels good when you touch it. Note this is pure emotions.</li>
<li>One can learn how the complete product works in less than 5 seconds. This translates into: the user gets instant gratification. Again this is about emotions.</li>
</ol>We learned that great products are around emotions and not only about solving pain points. <br />
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<strong>5. Step Two: Objectives.</strong><br />
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We found the functional objectives to be straightforward. Here some examples:<br />
<ul><li>100% of users wanting to save time</li>
<li>100% of users looking to get background information on the task at hand quickly. I.e. save time.</li>
<li>50% of users were looking for a solution that makes collaboration of graphically dispersed teams effective.</li>
</ul>Based on the learnings from Show and Tell the soft objectives are THE key to create a great product. Here some examples for emotional objectives:<br />
<ul><li>16% of users - the innovators and early adopters - want to show they are thought leaders</li>
<li>The early majority (34% of users) want to make it safe to use the product. Note that specifically for senior executives face loosing is a substantial issue. (note we excluded the late majority (34%) and the laggards (16%) from the target audience.</li>
<li>Users stated: "I don't want to waste time - i have to get work done"</li>
<li>Users stated: "Needs to be fun to use - like in a game". This is about instant gratification - leading to shiny eyes.</li>
</ul>And a number of examples for social objectives:<br />
<ul><li>For leaders - 50% say "I need to be in control"</li>
<li>Be connected with the rest of my leadership team</li>
<li>Effectively broaden my network inside the organization. Make me more visible. That makes me more effective and powerful (note this is emotional).</li>
</ul><strong>6. Step Three: Barriers. We added emotional and social barriers to Christensen's methodology.</strong><br />
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We found the functional barriers of the current solutions. Examples are<br />
<ul><li>35% of uses stated the quality/performance of current solutions is not good enough</li>
<li>20% complained current solutions are diffult to implement or</li>
<li>20% did see security issues as the barrier.</li>
</ul>We found that there are a significant number of soft barriers. Examples for emotional barriers are<br />
<ul><li>39% of uswers were concerend its more difficult to multitask in videoconferencing setting. Reason being one might face boredom.</li>
<li>35% raised increased nervousness presenting.</li>
<li>25% of users were concerned being controlled in a video setting.</li>
</ul>And we identified social barriers as well. Examples:<br />
<ul><li>Group adoption might be required to make the solutions productive.</li>
<li>The leaders might need to use the solution first.</li>
</ul><strong>7. Step 4. Solutions. We found the above is not enough to create solutions. We did derive a condensed job description instead.</strong><br />
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We found that more work is required to create the solutions. The reason being that the solutions need to be sufficiently detailed to be testable against the objectives and the barriers. This instead we created a condensed job description that served as the focal point for next steps.<br />
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This is how it read.<br />
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We want to build<br />
<ul><li>A universal tool to collaborate, that saves me time. Universal like the human hand - the most versatile tool ever invented.</li>
<li>The tool delivers the background information I need for the job at hand.</li>
<li>It feels good, makes my eyes shine when i use and other folks can learn it in less than 5 seconds. So its safe to suggest to others to use it.</li>
<li>We want to make measurable if we are on track: Goal is a net promoter score of 75% during development.</li>
</ul>We used that to guide the next phase - searching for the solution. That's a different story for another blog at a different time.<br />
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<strong>8. Results</strong><br />
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We succeeded. Avaya Flare made it to the top of the stack of no jittters cool enterprise products 2010. It consistently rated 8.5+ out of 10 in wow factor and 9+ out of 10 in ease of use. And people get in 2 seconds how it works.Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-12323127319946998862011-04-05T20:10:00.000-07:002011-04-05T20:10:58.097-07:00User Experience of Cloud based Mobile SystemsMany readers of my blog asked in email: could i please compile the relevant research with references? Here you go: Today we want to focus on page load speed and latency. <br />
<div> </div><div><div id="__ss_7529433" style="width: 425px;"><strong style="display: block; margin: 12px 0px 4px;"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/vonreventlow/faster-cloud-based-web-for-mobile-devices-latency-and-how-to-accelerate-by-christian-von-reventlow-v1" title="Faster cloud based web for mobile devices latency and how to accelerate by christian von reventlow v1">Faster cloud based web for mobile devices latency and how to accelerate by christian von reventlow v1</a></strong><object height="355" id="__sse7529433" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=fastercloudbasedwebformobiledevices-latencyandhowtoacceleratebychristianvonreventlowv1-110405205145-phpapp02&stripped_title=faster-cloud-based-web-for-mobile-devices-latency-and-how-to-accelerate-by-christian-von-reventlow-v1&userName=vonreventlow" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><embed name="__sse7529433" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=fastercloudbasedwebformobiledevices-latencyandhowtoacceleratebychristianvonreventlowv1-110405205145-phpapp02&stripped_title=faster-cloud-based-web-for-mobile-devices-latency-and-how-to-accelerate-by-christian-von-reventlow-v1&userName=vonreventlow" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/vonreventlow">vonreventlow</a>.</div></div><br />
</div><div>(Note the views represent my personal opinions and are not the views of my employer Avaya, detailed references are in the embeeded powerpoint presentation)</div><br />
1. What are the page load limits for an acceptable user experience?<br />
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Google, Yahoo and others have researched this. The findings are:<br />
<ul><li>The time users are willing to wait before they navigate away from a page has decreased from 8 seconds in the year 2000 to 3 seconds in 2009. 2 seconds load time of a landing page decreases both the conversion rate and the total number of pages viewed by 10% - when compared to a 1 second load time. </li>
<li>In addition users never get in a flow if the load time is too long. When a page loads in 200ms users click within 500ms. They experience that as a smooth flow. However time to the next click increases by 4 seconds when a page loads in 2 seconds.</li>
</ul>Thus my view is: 2 seconds is the 2011 page load limit for an acceptable user experience. And i expect it to become less in the years to come.<br />
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2. How are various mobile web pages compare to the 2 seconds page loading speed limit? And are the cloud service providers giving you response times that allow to hit this limit/<br />
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There is a very limited number of mobile web pages with a load times below 2 seconds. In a recent review by blaze.io only 20% of the web pages were below this limit. Specifically a Google and a Microsoft Bing site were below this limit. This shows that both companies have taken their published research seriously.<br />
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I measured the actual latency of applications run on various clouds during 6 hours on a Monday morning on the east coast - resulting in 2.9 seconds to 4 seconds on wired network. Content delivery networks measured over 7 days showed between 6 and 12 seconds with an average around 8 seconds. Variability was quite large and reached 120% in an instance.<br />
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3. What is the right architecture to deliver your mobile web?<br />
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Typically LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) or similar setups are used. <br />
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When designing the systems avoid sessions. Use cookies to store userID and login status. Scaling the webapps, image conversion, audio and video is easy - they scale horizontally. Use Hardware loadbalancers followed by SW loadbalancers as Wackamole, Poud, perbal or Apache with mod_proxy. And just add more servers. <br />
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Queuing helps for peak periods. However at some point you want to turn off the page as people learned from Macy's and JCPenny's web site performance at a recent Black Friday. People return later when the page is not available. But they are frustrated if the page is extremly slow and are reluctant to return.<br />
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Scaling the database is more tricky. As Carl Henderson puts it: Avoid it and go for a bigger box if possible. If you can't avoid it go for database replications. In most applications the read/write ratio is 80/20 or 90/10. That allows Master-Slave replication. Add memcaching to make scaling cheaper. A sideline cache as Danga will help.<br />
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When you need High Availability go for Master-Master replication, or to increase bandwidth Dual Tree architecture. Even more scale can get created with ringlike MySQL databaser clusters. Or by dividing tables into disjoint sets, federating by users or partitioning the database horizontally (Shards). Have a look on the Flickr architecture in the slide deck as an example of these methods.<br />
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4. What are the challenges on the device side and how to resolve them?<br />
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There are so many devices out there with so many different screen sizes. And so many different browsers with different capabilities. ..unfortunately on a global scale - IOS, Android, and Blackberry devices are a minority...<br />
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Coping with this variety gets done best by starting the design of a web page with a mobile only web page assuming a browser with minimum capabilities. Use a default stylesheet. And then enhance the view progressively using Javascript and @mediaquery. And adapt the content of the screen for the devices you want to support. WURFL is a database that contains hundreds of devices with their specific capabilities. Use CSS instead of Javascript for performance. And compress data. Plus - very relevant -send only data that will rendered on the screen. <br />
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Note that many PC oriented web pages have lots of data that never gets rendered. Find an example in the presentation where around 80% of the data transmitted to the mobile device never gets rendered.<br />
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Some tools help in the process. As an example: the open source phone gap tool allows to build Javascript based application that run on Apple's Ios, Android and Blackberry. And it supports WURFL easing supporting various screen sizes and resolutions.<br />
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Take Yahoo!'s 14 or now 34 performance rules and suggestions by people as Yibuu, Jason Grigsby, and Steve Souders to heart:<br />
<ul><li>Make fewer HTTP Requests. Don't forget that HTTP connections pipeline requests - slowing things down. And that according to the standard many browsers only support 2 connections per domain. Thus you want to use multiple domains to parallelize things. (and how many a browser supports varies from browser to browser...)</li>
<li>Limit cookies as they get loaded with each request. Better only one. Or zero on some connections.</li>
<li>Encourage caching with expire headers far out. And test if it works on your target browser.</li>
<li>GZIP compression. Can take out up to 75% of transmission volume</li>
<li>Javascript and CSS need to go external. And use only 1 each. Go for CSS and not for table layouts. And use CSS sprites - at least some browser support it.</li>
<li>And minimize DNS lookups - as the are blocking till the DNS is resolved.</li>
</ul>Testing your results is key. Tools like Yslow or Safar Web Inspector allow to understand the size of the individual elements of a page being downloaded, display a waterfall chart showing how time gets consumed and come up with suggestions on what needs to be done to improve the page.<br />
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Find some more suggestions in the powerpoint. And if you want to take things to the next level read Steve sounders article: Faster Webpages from the velocity-20090622.ppt. Just Google it.<br />
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5. And is the cloud making things better and simpler?<br />
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Unfortunately it does not look like it. Recent research shows that on average 8 hosts are involved in each transactions: Hosts delivering session information, search or CMS content - all inside of the firewall. And other hosts like Web Analystics, CDN content, Videos from a media server, ads from an adserver or information from a shopping card server.<br />
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And measurement shows, that more is required to be below the 2 seconds page load limit for a great user experience. At least for the majority of web pages out there. And even more so for mobile devices.<br />
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6. Conclusion<br />
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The quest for page load speed and low latency will continue. And many organization will need to continue to invest in optimizing their mobile web experience.<br />
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As a consequence all types of mobile applications - fat mobile apps, hybrid apps downloading data from the cloud and web based applications will be around.<br />
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It will be fun to see how HTML 5 with resident data will impact the game..<br />
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Let me know what you think. Questions? Suggestions?Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-48757805692745119432010-11-14T18:36:00.000-08:002010-11-14T18:36:35.655-08:00The future of business intelligence (BI) is beyond DSS. It makes rich contextual collaboration (as in Avaya Flare) a reality<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Business intelligence (BI) is the phrase used to describe data driven decision Support System (DSS). Large amount of data get analyzed. The systems help identify trends, relationship between data sets and identify anomalies. Results get represented as briefing books, through report and query tools and executive information systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Target audiences are analysts and selected executives supporting their decision processes. Collaborative decision making has been the new trend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gartner stated it in their strategic planning assumption: "In 2009, collaborative decision making will emerge as a new product category that combines social media software with BU platform capabilities."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What we are talking about in this blog goes way beyond this. The world of Business Intelligence is poised to change dramatically. Connected sensors and data collection are everywhere or can get easily created even by non-geeks. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Look at these stories:</span></div><ul><li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Product and services rating systems are part of purchasing platforms (e.g. Amazon, trip-advisor). </span></div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Purchasing transaction data and credit card information are captured my many organizations.</span></div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Connected sensors or ID devices are being built into a multitude of products: From smart-phones, Bluetooth headsets, shoes (Nike), RFID tags embedded in car wheels (originally purposed to support the manufacturing process) to wireless scales</span></div></li>
<li><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">High end sensor technologies become available to everybody. A great example is computer vision programmable & usable by nonprogrammers (like openCV) - allowing computers to capture information and make decisions based on what they see. </span></div></li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These input and sensor data get fed into on-line services. Over time these will turn into a sensor web with API's for automated access through other services. Plus all documents and communication in organizations become retrievable and searchable. As a consequence new services will appear leveraging all these data to provide business intelligence to a much broader audience in organizations and to the individual. Why is that relevant today?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Human's invented organization thousands of years ago because division of labor and specialization are key drivers for efficiency, quality and speed. However with the division of labor comes the need to collaborate - that is bridging the gaps between the individual specialists or specialist organizations. Making collaboration most effective is thus the next step in organizational development. Business Intelligence has the potential to supply the context information making the collaboration most effective - thus creating what I call "Contextual collaboration".</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With that Business Intelligence will move substantial beyond its origin - Decision Support Systems (DSS).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>New services will appear delivering contextual information to individuals and groups in an organization and in their private life. This will move BI out of the ivory tower of analysts and specialized executives - making it a main stream tool available to everyone. And personal BI sounds new or frightening? I bet you used it already and loved it: didn't you use personal BI last time when you purchased a product online - picking that product with the most stars in the online retailers customer ratings?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Key element of the Avaya Flare user experience is contextual collaboration. Information from BI systems can get fed to Avaya Flare - presenting the information required to make collaboration most effective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Please leave comments on my Avaya blog </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #2b2b2b; font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><a href="http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2010/11/the-future-of-business-intelligence-bi-is-beyond-dss-it-will-be-transformed-through-cloud-computing-.html">http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2010/11/the-future-of-business-intelligence-bi-is-beyond-dss-it-will-be-transformed-through-cloud-computing-.html</a> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">as well as on my private blog. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or reach out to me at <a href="mailto:reventlow@avaya.com">reventlow@avaya.com</a> or <a href="mailto:vonreventlow@yahoo.com%22%3Evonreventlow@yahoo.com">mailto:vonreventlow@yahoo.com%22%3Evonreventlow@yahoo.com</a> and follow me on twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/vonreventlow">www.twitter.com/vonreventlow</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Keywords: Contextual Collaboration, Business collaboration, Collaboration software, Project collaboration, Team collaboration, Web based collaboration, Collaboration tool, Collaboration, Collaboration strategy, Collaboration management, Collaboration strategies, Collaborate, Online collaboration, Collaboration technology, Collaborative tools, Hosted collaboration, Collaboration open source, Group collaboration, Document collaboration, Google collaboration, Web collaboration</span></div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-24069847991123774302010-09-28T08:51:00.000-07:002010-09-28T09:44:56.920-07:00Why was Android used to implement Avaya Flare?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Network world reported in his article “New Avaya device takes on Cisco (Apple, too) in tablet war" on Avaya Flare. </span><a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/091510-avaya-tablet.html"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/091510-avaya-tablet.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They call it “a powerful<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Android-based touchscreen tablet that support new communications software to rival Cisco’s recently announced communication tablet Cius”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And move on to describe the user experience “</span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Members are drawn in from a Rolodex of contacts listed on the right of the screen and dragged into a spotlight at the center, representing the conference”. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Check the user experience out at </span><a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/campaign/avaya-flare-experience-guided-tour/"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Calibri;">Guided tour of the Avaya Flare user experience</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. Plus see how our customers use the device in the videos: </span><a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/VideoPlayerPopup.aspx?CurrentPath=/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/videos/flare_executive.flv"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Calibri;">An executive using Avaya Flare</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,</span><a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/VideoPlayerPopup.aspx?CurrentPath=/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/videos/flare_financial.flv"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Calibri;">Higher customer satisfaction in financial institutions using Avaya Flare</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.</span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the comments section at network world readers asked: why was Android used to implement Avaya Flare? The reasons are</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Android is an open platform. The tablet thus can run 10.000’s of standard applications off the shelf</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a large Android developer community – so it’s easy for an Avaya customer to find someone building special applications for the customers business context. In addition leveraging Avaya Ace no special telecom skills are needed to write applications.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Android did give my development team a jumpstart. Many functions we had to develop in projects before were available right out of the standard Android load.</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last – but not least – its fun to develop with new technologies. Our developers love to learn new things and apply it to our customer’s business environment. As a consequence we have a motivated and energized team.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me know what your thoughts on the use of Android are! Here as well as on the Avaya blog at <a href="http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2010/09/title-why-was-android-used-to-implement-avaya-flare.html">http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2010/09/title-why-was-android-used-to-implement-avaya-flare.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Christian von Reventlow, VP new Products at Avaya, Inventor of Avaya Flare.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tags: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Contextual Collaboration, Business collaboration, Collaboration software, Project collaboration, Team collaboration, Web based collaboration, Collaboration tool, Collaboration, Collaboration strategy, Collaboration management, Collaboration strategies, Collaborate, Online collaboration, Collaboration technology, Collaborative tools, Hosted collaboration, Collaboration open source, Group collaboration, Document collaboration, Google collaboration, Web collaboration</span></span></span></div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-45428353034898008002010-09-16T08:10:00.000-07:002010-09-16T08:10:32.003-07:00Just released my baby: the Avaya Flare User Experience and the Avaya Desktop Video Device. An Android tablet with HD Video conferencingAvaya yesterday released the results of my work from the last year: the Avaya Flare User Experience and the Avaya Desktop Video Device. Its an Android tablet with HD Video conferening. iI got created through my MoJo project which some of you know.<br />
<br />
It's build to make collaboration really easy:<br />
1) A user experience that is intuitive, fun and easy to use. It has consistently rated 8.5+ out of 10 in wow factor and 9+ our of 10 in ease of use. And it takes less than 5 seconds to figure out how it works.<br />
2) It integrates stereo voice, HD video conferencing, Web conferencing & document sharing, email, instant messaging, Facebook, Linked_In, PC screensharing, remote access to your office PC and desktop virtualization.<br />
3) It brings contextual collaboration to life - automatically showing information relvant for the specific context. For example for people it shows previous communication you had with that person, documents you might have worked on or where the person lives.<br />
<br />
Special thanks to all of you - customers, business partners, Avaya Associates and friends and family who helped and worked day and night to create Avaya Flare - both the user experience as well as the Android based HD video collaboration tablet!<br />
Check the user experience out at <a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/campaign/avaya-flare-experience-guided-tour/">Guided tour of the Avaya Flare user experience</a>.<br />
<br />
Plus see how our customers use the device in the videos:<br />
<a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/VideoPlayerPopup.aspx?CurrentPath=/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/videos/flare_executive.flv">An executive using Avaya Flare</a>,<br />
<a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/VideoPlayerPopup.aspx?CurrentPath=/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/videos/flare_financial.flv">Higher customer satisfaction in financial institutions using Avaya Flare</a> and<br />
<a href="http://www.avaya.com/usa/VideoPlayerPopup.aspx?CurrentPath=/master-usa/en-us/resource/assets/videos/flare_healthcare.flv">Using Avaya Flare in a doctors office to solve medical issues faster</a><br />
<br />
I want to evolve the user experience and capabilities of Avaya Flare. Thus please let me know what you like and what you want to get improved. Plus let me know new ideas you might have. Pls post a comment so that we can discuss.Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-9126543521977519612010-08-19T05:37:00.000-07:002010-09-16T08:10:08.773-07:00Practical Video Guide on Contextual Collaboration. Part 1 IntroductionPractical Video Guide on Contextual Collaboration. This blog series covers how to use technology to leverage context to make collaboration more productive. <br />
<br />
<strong>Part 1: Definition of contextual collaboration.</strong><br />
<br />
This video explains the concept of contextual collaboration: All collaboration happens in a context. Examples are <br />
1) if you reach out to a person by phone your relationship to the person is the context<br />
2) if you have a team meeting your team might be the context<br />
3) If you send an email to a customer the customer relationship is the context.<br />
Your collaboration will be more productive if you have all relevant information for that context readily available. Thats why we talk about <strong>Contextual Collaboration.</strong><br />
<br />
The blog series covers <br />
1) Whats relevant in various contexts<br />
2) Technologies which you can use to make contextual collaboration more productive<br />
3) How to deploy it in your enterprise and private life such that true value is created.<br />
<br />
<br />
<object height="225" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11552422&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11552422&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/11552422">Part 1 of the practical video guide on Contextual Collaboration: Use the context to make your collaboration more productive.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user3635147">Christian von Reventlow</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Pls leave comments on my Avaya blog<br />
<a href="http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2010/08/video-blog-series-on-contextual-collaboration-part-1-introduction.html">http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/2010/08/video-blog-series-on-contextual-collaboration-part-1-introduction.html</a> or <br />
<a href="http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/author/authord5beb/">http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/author/authord5beb/</a><br />
and my private blog<br />
<a href="http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/">http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<br />
Or reach out to me at <a href="mailto:reventlow@avaya.com">reventlow@avaya.com</a> or <a href="mailto:vonreventlow@yahoo.com">mailto:vonreventlow@yahoo.com</a>and follow me on twitter www.twitter.com/vonreventlowChristian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-14450822728506919902010-04-12T17:26:00.000-07:002010-08-19T05:40:20.722-07:00Enterprise 'Chat Roulette': Planning For Unplanned Collaboration (Part 3 in a Series)<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://casinopartyspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/roulette-table.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://casinopartyspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/roulette-table.bmp" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(This is part 3 in the "Contextual Collaboration" series. Read <a href="http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/2010/03/contextual-collaboration-whats-that.html">Part 1 here</a> and <a href="http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/2010/03/contextual-collaboration-part-2-in.html">Part 2 here</a>.)</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Series Summary:</b> Modern enterprise collaboration technologies have been designed to address the need for workers to efficiently and productively collaborate using realtime communication solutions. However, despite hundreds of collaboration solutions deployed and used, most businesses are still losing productivity. Why is this happening? In this "Contextual Collaboration" series I explore how the "Loss of Context" in business communications affects and limits the productivity gains promised by business collaboration technologies. With "context" as a filter, the series explores which collaboration technologies are able to deliver measurable productivity gains, which ones actually make the problem worse and what kind of new solutions are needed as the nature of work and life change in the face of a constantly changing enterprise business landscape. </span></i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In prior posts in the series I explored the growing realization by all of us that information has become too abundant. Enterprise workers are overloaded by "Too Much Information"(TMI) and we all struggle daily just to sort through it. After all the sorting few of us time left to actually process all the information and effectively act on it. The result is that much of the information we do manage to process can lose it's context before it can be leveraged. Without context, information cannot be effectively assessed and incorporated into some productive action. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">What makes this problem especially acute is many of us now work "remotely" in a "satellite offices" or fully independently in "virtual offices" (VO). In more and more industries a growing population of workers are now classified as "Virtual Office workers" with no official, company-owned office to go to every day to do their work. Virtual office workers often initially like the flexibility and reduced commuting time of "VO". But there significant drawbacks to VO. VO workers lose the benefit of co-located co-workers that they can conveniently collaborate with to help process and act on the business information tsunami. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In this post I explore one possible technology idea/solution for this face-to-face collaboration problem. The solution is aimed at recapturing what I call the "unplanned productivity" or "emergent productivity" effect that comes from office workers being able to draw on the knowledge and expertise of co-located co-workers. To get started let me explain a little more what do I mean by "Emergent Productivity. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In the past almost everyone went to an office to work with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of coworkers all in the same building, or complex of buildings. In that settings you and your coworkers would be would be regularly "running into each other in the halls". It was taken for granted that you were always going to be having both planned and unplanned, face-to-face meetings with your coworkers "at the office". It's been widely known for a long time that the most effective and productive meetings were very often those that were not preplanned. These chance, informal hallway meetings were in many cases the most productive minutes in our whole day. They would often result in punctuated leaps in insight or progress due to the unstructured format of the meetings.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We have all experienced this "hallway effect" in the past and for the most part we took for granted how beneficial those meetings were. This is "Emergent Productivity". Simply put it's "Teamwork". But with the explosion of globalization and distributed teams this kind of "Emergent Productivity" is now almost an extinct animal. How do we recapture this effect without rolling back the clock and re-populating all those empty office buildings we all see with the "Space Available" signs in the windows?</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>A Solution(?):</b> The "Emergent productivity" solution I'm thinking of is something I call "Enterprise Chat Roulette". This solution would be a business-focused solution based on the popular, though controversial, consumer/personal internet service called "Chat Roulette". Chat Roulette is a free website for people who can, on their personal time, get connected randomly with other Chat Roulette users for webcam-based conversations. At any point either user may leave the current chat, by closing the current session. In doing that another random connection is started. As you might imagine, because of the lack of oversight, transparency and rules, there can be a wide variation in the "quality" and type of interactions that are enabled by this solution. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The idea for "Enterprise Chat Roulette"(ECR) is to take the same basic "Chat Roulette" concept and add in transparency, oversight and rules and apply it in a business collaboration context. The rules for ECR would be designed so each ECR solution could be leveraged in an professional, enterprise setting. Properly designed I believe ECR solutions could be used to recreate some of the benefits I discussed above that come out of unplanned face-to-face interactions in the workplace. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The main class of ECR solutions I'm thinking of would be used by businesses to automatically and intelligently connect distributed team members into semi-randomly generated audio/video/whiteboard chat sessions. These sessions would happen at semi-random times throughout the day of each worker. There could be no set agenda planned for these chats, or the system might have very broad topics set for a given chat session. This could simulate and stimulate a completely off the cuff and ad-hoc, face-to-face conversation of the type we used to experience when we all worked together in office buildings. It's perhaps a "non-PC" way to put this but it would be something of an "e-Harmony Speed Collaboration" service for co-workers who are not co-located.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The possibilities here are extensive. For example: The system might be designed to automatically schedule a certain amount of time for every team-member on their daily calendar as "virtual hallway" time. The users would sign in to the "ECR-bridge" and then be connected by the system to one or more co-workers via multimedia session. Before a session starts the system might display to each participant some basic data on the person(s) you are going to be connected to including initially name, role, etc. It could capture how many times you had spoken in the past and a summary of topics discussed on those past ECR conversations.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The system would also then provide some context on what the person or persons are working on in their role for the team. The two or more people brought together on the ECR chat would enter the chat sessions and start talking and/or typing about work topics of interest. Discussions on general personal topics would likely be welcome and even encouraged as part of the team building process. ECR sessions could even be scheduled at lunch/dinner/breakfast times of day if the team members are in timezones where meal times line up. In those cases participants could actually have a "virtual meal" together while chatting. For example you may have one person eating breakfast and another dinner if they are 10 hours apart. The chat sessions could be set for a variety of lengths depending on the desired collaboration and could be extended by certain amounts by mutual agreement if participants have a lot to discuss. </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This really is an online, automated version of the practice some businesses had in the past of doing "quad/trio lunches". These were lunches that were planned by randomly picking 3 or 4 coworkers in a large office to go to lunch together. The choices would be made randomly from a pool of workers in an office that signed up for the program. This would give coworkers who aren't normally "lunch friends" a reason to go share a meal and get to know each other better. The goal was to build strong coworker relationships and thereby build a stronger and more productive team.</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I believe that ECR collaboration solutions like these could be designed and implemented to recapture some of this same value using modern collaboration technologies. What do you think? Could you see yourself signing up with your virtual coworkers in an ECR pool that would automatically and intelligently help you build and maintain work and even work/personal relationships across continents, cultures and timezones?</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">What are some of the other scenarios you can think of for using this ECR concept to help you, your team and your company more productive? </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Looking forward to your ideas and comments.</span></div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-16019952224659948982010-03-29T16:36:00.000-07:002010-09-16T08:10:08.773-07:00Contextual Collaboration. (Part 2 in a Series) What Are Businesses Searching For?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cobbcat.org/images/Hatitude/OneSearchGlass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.cobbcat.org/images/Hatitude/OneSearchGlass.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(This is part 2 in the "Contextual Collaboration" series. <a href="http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/2010/03/contextual-collaboration-whats-that.html">Read Part 1 here</a><b>.) </b></i></span><br />
<br />
<b>The Question: </b>As business leaders we are constantly being asked to generate more value from the teams we lead. One promising way to do that is to engender a culture of productive collaboration. The challenge is how to make that happen. What are business leaders perceiving to be the key elements of great collaboration? This is the question I want to address today.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>The Background:</b> After the recession’s focus on trimming down the costs all business have had to become very lean on resources. All business leaders are being asked to get more done with their reduced workforces. The traditional approach to getting work done of "ramping up staff" and "sending the over the top" is no longer an option. Today's leaders have to find non-linear solutions that generate high productivity with small teams. This recession is forcing businesses to rediscover the non-linear leverage of productive teaming and collaboration.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To investigate this question I began researching what businesses are looking for in collaboration technologies and solutions. My jump off point for this investigation was to look at what people were searching for related to "business collaboration". Using Google's ad-words keyword suggestion tool I was able to identify the key themes people are searching. Here is what popped out as the top 25 most searched for keyword phrases related to "business collaboration":<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Business Collaboration</span></span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #500050; font-family: arial,sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-style: outset; border-width: 1.5pt;"><tbody>
<tr><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0.75pt; width: 16.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="22"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div></td><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0.75pt; width: 147pt;" valign="bottom" width="196"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0.75pt; width: 90.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="121"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">B</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0.75pt; width: 90.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="121"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">C</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0.75pt; width: 90.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="121"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">D</span></span></b></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Keywords</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Advertiser Competition</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Local Search Volume: December</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Global Monthly Search Volume</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="il">2</span></span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">technology</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">13600000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">16600000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">3</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">open source</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1500000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">4090000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">4</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">logistics</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">2240000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">3350000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">5</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">innovation</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1220000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">2240000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">6</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">supply chain</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1220000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="#99ccff" height="12" style="background-color: #99ccff; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1500000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">7</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">document management</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">368000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1220000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">8</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">procurement</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">823000</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1000000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">9</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">workflow</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">450000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">823000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">10</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">team building</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">368000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">823000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">11</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">challenges</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">0.93</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">823000</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">823000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">12</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">teamwork</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">301000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">673000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">13</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">content management</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">450000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">673000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">14</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">conferencing</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">550000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">673000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">15</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">collaboration</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">550000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">673000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">16</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">best practices</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">550000</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">550000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">17</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">supply chain management</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">301000</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">450000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">18</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">project management software</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">368000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">450000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">19</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">collaborative</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">0.93</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">368000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">450000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">20</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">business process</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">301000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">450000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">21</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">portals</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">201000</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">368000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">22</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">knowledge management</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">201000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">368000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">23</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">value chain</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">0.93</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">60500</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">201000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">24</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">web conferencing</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">90500</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">135000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">25</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">groupware</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">90500</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">135000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">26</span></span></b></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">collaborate</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">0.86</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">74000</span></span></div></td><td bgcolor="yellow" height="12" style="background-color: yellow; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">110000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">27</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">wikis</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">0.93</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">40500</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">74000</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">28</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">enterprise content management</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">33100</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">40500</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">29</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">collaboration software</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">1</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">33100</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">33100</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr height="12" style="min-height: 9pt;"><td bgcolor="#b0b0b0" height="12" style="background-color: #b0b0b0; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 13.5pt;" valign="bottom" width="18"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">30</span></span></b></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 117.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">sharepoint wiki</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">0.8</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">12100</span></span></div></td><td height="12" style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 9pt; padding: 0.75pt; width: 72.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="97"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">27100</span></span></div></td></tr>
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<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The highest ranking areas (Blue) show key areas where people are looking for better collaboration technologies with the keyword "Technology" right at the top. Everyone is looking for the "technology silver bullet". Right after "technology" are "open source", "SW development", "logistics", and "innovation".</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Next in the rankings we find the tools, methods and practices people believe will help to achieve better collaboration. Bundling closely related searches and ranking by search volume the key pain points are as follows.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) Work Flow and Business process </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2) Document and Content Management,</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3) Team work and team building,</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4) Conferencing</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5) Collaboration</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6) Knowledge Management</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">7) Portals, Wiki’s</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">8) Groupware</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The thing that immediately jumps out of this data for me is it looks like businesses are struggling with managing information and workflow in team contexts and are searching for solutions specific to team environments. I believe much of this is a result of a ramp up in use of highly distributed teams and the deep cuts in staff size. </div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the past a lot of information would get processed and problems solved by having face to face interactions in a common office location where communication fidelity was high. Even more important than face-to-face planned meetings it was the random "chance" meetings that are now fully lost and had something to do with a big part of business productivity. These chance meetings often were the most important meetings that allowed work teams and individuals to address issues before they even emerged as problems. Now we have globally distributed teams spanning continents and cultures and all that sorting through info that was done in these face to face encounters has been lost. It's clear businesses are struggling with teaming and process topics in the workplace. They are looking hard for technology to solve these productivity problems for them in the context of the new "globally distributed workplace".</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is the only solution a return to the days of large office buildings full of hundreds or thousands of centrally located workers? I don't think so. I think globally distributed and "virtual" workforces can work. But we need some new types of collaboration solutions for the enterprise worker and also some new "best practices" in using the collaboration technologies we already have. I'm convinced the teaming benefits of regular chance encounters, and the organic productivity those encounters delivered, can be recaptured.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In this series on Contextual Collaboration I started by talking about how "context" is critical for businesses and individuals in managing the information overload problem. In this post I looked at the specific areas in which businesses are suffering from a lack of collaboration productivity. The next step is to start looking at specific approaches to implementing collaboration using context as the key tool for delivering truly productive collaboration with small and/distributed teams?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What's your take on this topic? Do the collaboration technologies you have at your fingertips today actually address the problems you face? Or do they perhaps even make them worse? How do you think we can "think differently" about how we design, deploy, use and support collaboration technologies so we can "resolve" this age old problem? Is "context" the key" Will it turn loosely bound, distributed teams into powerhouses of productivity?</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Add your comments and continue this discussion. </span>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-72056374903755147522010-03-19T05:52:00.000-07:002010-09-16T08:10:08.774-07:00Contextual Collaboration? What's That? (Part 1 in a Series)<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/17/2009/10/500x_team_work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/17/2009/10/500x_team_work.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Executive Summary</span></b>:<i> Collaboration & communication seem to happen as individual events. For example: I make a call, I get an email. These are individual events. However from the user’s perspective they always happen in a context. Examples for context might be the person I am working with, a project, a workflow, a relationship I have, a customer, a meeting I am preparing. Communication becomes relevant through its context. And communication creates business value due to its context. Contextual collaboration is aimed at maximizing the business value created by collaboration. Collaboration gets more difficult due to the multitude of different collaboration technologies. Plus the sheer amount of information flowing in or on your disposal makes it more challenging. Contextual filtering becomes the key.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Details</span></b>: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Collaboration and Collaboration technologies have been a hot topic of focus in enterprise business discussion for more than 5 years now. That focus is now growing even more intense. With the economy driving businesses to go to even more highly distributed workforce models, collaboration technologies and solutions are no longer "nice to have" solutions. They are now becoming critical to business success as companies try and manage their far-flung workforces.</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">When people think of "collaboration technologies" they may think of a whole range of multimedia, real-time communication solutions. People can do affordable, real-time collaboration every day using one or more of the following collaboration technologies; email, instant messaging, telephones, cellphones, text messaging, voice conferencing, white-boarding, wikis, video conferencing, Skype, Google Docs, Sharepoint, Basecamp, Salesforce.com, Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIN, Google Buzz, Google Wave, etc, etc. This is only a partial list of all the various choices people have as they embark on surfing the real-time, hyper-dimensional state of the internet that Vonage co-founder and Twitter investor <a href="http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008934.html">Jeff Pulver calls "The State of Now"</a>.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">So what's the problem with this picture? Simply stated we now have a "Realtime Collaboration Overload" problem. Jeff Pulver's "State of Now", as exciting as that state is, is largely a "State of TMI"(Too Much Information). We have WAY too many overlapping and uncoordinated technology choices for real-time collaboration. We used to complain about "phone tag" as being non-productive. Now we have to play tag on dozens of collaboration channels simultaneously; (Cellphone-tag, desktop-phone-tag, Google Voice-tag, Skype-tag, Email-tag(X4 email addresses), IM-tag(X4 IM id's), Facebook-tag, GoogleBuzz-Tag, Wave-tag, Linked-Tag, Blog-comment-tag, etc, etc, etc.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">How do we stop this insanity? If it continues we may all start contemplating the thought of a shaving our heads, donning flowing orange robes and running off to live in one room shacks on mountain-tops to get away from the rushing flood of communication and information. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The answer I think lies in "context". Every communication session request you get and accept or decline and every piece of information information you bathe in each day has some small or large amount of context in which it lives for you personally. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Clay Shirkey has said <a href="http://web2expo.blip.tv/file/1277460">"The problem is not information overload, the problem is filter failure." </a>That's where context comes in. A focus on paying attention to and managing context, lets call it "Contextual Collaboration", has the potential to help us all achieve "Filter Success" in our many daily collaborations. So what is it?<br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Contextual collaboration is managed approach to collaborative technologies that involves embedding all the relevant applications, such as word processors, enterprise instant messaging (<a class="inline" href="http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci1098441,00.html" style="font-weight: normal;">EIM</a>), shared calendars, and <a class="inline" href="http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid4_gci212217,00.html" style="font-weight: normal;">groupware</a>, into a unified user interface to aggregate, coordinate, and thereby enhance, collaboration. This means that from within any of the applications people could communicate and instantly share any resources at their disposal without having to manage multiple independent thread of collaboration across multiple independent collaboration channels. The goal of contextual collaboration is to make online collaboration </span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">between people anywhere in the world </span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">as simple and intuitive and focused as it is to work with people in the same room.<br />
</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The concept sounds wonderful. But the problem is both broad in scope and deep in complexity. There are thousands of different collaboration scenarios and collaboration technology choices available to us. So how do we get started? </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">To explore this I'll be writing an entire series of blogs that start to dig into the roots of the collaboration overload problem and start to propose focused solutions that use "context" as the core filtering mechanism. In the next blog in this series I'll explore more about the specific pain points businesses are trying to alleviate with collaboration technologies.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Are you in a "State of Overload" with all the collaborations and collaborations technologies you have raining down on you daily? How is it affecting you and what remedies, if any, do you use in trying to manage this problem? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Let me know what your views and experiences are! Leave a comment on the blog or feel freee to send me email at <a href="mailto:reventlow@avaya.com"><u>reventlow_AT_avaya.com</u></a> or my personal email <a href="mailto:vonreventlow@yahoo.com"><u>vonreventlow_AT_yahoo.com</u></a>.</span></span></span></div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-43027569835448025052010-03-14T21:48:00.000-07:002010-08-19T05:41:43.422-07:00Did Microsoft Just Surrender as a 'Desktop OS' Monopoly?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalT9CWoscP0WfF0iVxb-8GVm8QXuj4DBJbT-Mtni0i0xF8-MqdJs8rZP-3ZhrrKO14VgbNHHFOmlOJpV3dwYGV-PAqgmFlYOsfvn_SrZmrILRnrYee_wn2pMjAyAwWGqbG-KRcp4IvpQ/s1600-h/microsoftmonopoly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalT9CWoscP0WfF0iVxb-8GVm8QXuj4DBJbT-Mtni0i0xF8-MqdJs8rZP-3ZhrrKO14VgbNHHFOmlOJpV3dwYGV-PAqgmFlYOsfvn_SrZmrILRnrYee_wn2pMjAyAwWGqbG-KRcp4IvpQ/s200/microsoftmonopoly.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>That's what I'm now wondering after reading <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2011255515_steve_ballmer_speech_at_uw_were_all_in_for_cloud_c.html">this article about Microsoft's latest announcement about it's future</a>. It's 2010 and Microsoft has dominated the desktop OS business as a virtual monopoly for over 20 years. But last week Steve Ballmer was quoted saying something that could be read as Microsoft as much as admitting that the PC desktop OS technology, and the desktop marketplace, are part of the Microsoft past and present but NOT part of it's the future.<br />
<br />
In the strongest language yet, Ballmer signaled the Redmond software company's total embrace of cloud computing, the evolution from a company still primarily known for its PC software Windows and Office to a cloud computing company. His comments came in speech to University of Washington students where Ballmer said... "This is the bet for the company," Ballmer said. "For the cloud, we're all in."<br />
<br />
Given the growing use of cloud computing services it's not a big surprise that Microsoft has finally decided to make this commitment. They have now been dabbling in cloud solutions since Ray Ozzie's famous<a href="http://news.cnet.com/Ozzie-memo-Internet-services-disruption/2100-1016_3-5942232.html"> "Internet Services Disruption" internal memo</a> he wrote in late 2005 so they have had plenty of time to make this committment. The big question for them though is, are they already too late to be able to compete effectively on the cloud computing "playing field". In this new market they are a late comer and now an underdog. For the last 20 years with Windows, Office and Exchange they have had the luxury to be the dominant, even de facto, desktop software solutions both for home and business users. But in the cloud computing marketplace that is about to mushroom, they have big challenges to overcome.<br />
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The biggest challenge I see for them entering the cloud computing arena is they can't just dump the responsibility of their exisitng desktop and server software products and customers and move all their resources into cloud-focused services and customers. So although Steve Ballmer may say Microsoft is "all in", the fact is most all of Microsoft's resources have to continue to be dedicated to the software solutions of their past and present. Microsoft will be supportings 100s of millions of licenses for the last 3 windows OS variants (XP, Vista and Win7) and their last 3 or so releases of Exchange and the Office Suite for many years to come. On top of that they have all the products and solutions they offer in gaming, smartphones, collaboration(Sharepoint), telephony(OCS 2010), HW devices("Zune", "Xbox" and soon "Courier") and all the Non-Office desktop "fat" application software products.<br />
<br />
With all this responsibility of a vast and deep product portfolio and customer base to watch over can Microsoft really go "All in" on cloud computing? Can they really compete to win against Google and the other cloud solution providers? Or is this "All in" statement more hype than reality.<br />
<br />
Are we on the verge of Microsoft starting to fragment and lose it's leadership position in computing. We've seen giant near-monopolies fall before (IBM). Is Microsoft about to go down the same path to the technology "tar pits" IBM went down back in the early 80s? And if so will they be able to find a way to survive at least as well as IBM? IBM crashed hard and fast and was lucky to get in a CEO that led a bold restructuring of IBM's entire business model. Can Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie teach the Microsoft <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2002/11/11/cx_ld_1112gerstner.html">elephants to dance the way Lou Gerstner did at IBM</a> and remake itself into a cloud computing contender/winner? It's possible, but I have serious doubts.<br />
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What do you think?Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-64486331600919079002010-03-07T16:34:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:41:43.423-07:00In a Down Economy, Businesses Are "Searching" For Something They've Lost. Productivity!<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.00k.net/images/search-top-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://www.00k.net/images/search-top-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Since late 2008 we've all been suffering, and by "all" I mean everyone who participates in the global economy, through hard economic times in one way or another. That is true for us as individuals and also true for the businesses people own themselves or work for as an employee/contractor. </span></span></span></div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">In these tough times, being in the business of selling communication and collaboration solutions to business customers has been, and still is, a big challenge. Businesses have been very reluctant to buy new equipment given their economic worries. In times like this both consumers and businesses stop spending and "batten down the hatches" in the hope of "riding out the storm below decks" hoping they don't get "blown into the rocks". </span></span></div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It's been over 18 months now with hatches battened down tight and at last it seems the equity markets are relatively stable. So people are wondering if we are at last on the road to recovery. But despite the market stability there are still big problems. Layoffs have slowed but still continue. Unemployment is at 20 year highs. Business revenues continue to be soft and shaky. The workers who still have jobs are being asked to do more with less resources and less staff. One result of this "do more with less" state of business operations is recent data shows that productivity "per worker" is up.</span></span></span></div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">But this increase in worker productivity is not turning into improved efficiency and success for businesses on an aggregate basis. The "per person" productivity numbers may be up but that is not translating into improved business productivity and equivalent increases in top line growth or bottom line results. This would seem counterintuitive wouldn't it? Employees are definitely working more hours and delivering more work per person. All the wasteful excess of travel, training, employee morale programs, pensions, benefits, heat, air conditioning and any other potentially "perk-like" compensation for employees is gone. Added to that savings it's safe to bet that all the the workers that these businesses perceived as "low producing" or "lower producing" have been let go during the layoffs. Shouldn't the result of all this "streamlining" and "rightsizing" be a lot of significantly more efficient and productive businesses? Why is that not happening? What's going on here?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">Human psychology is what is going on here. Despite the recent focus by CEO's on trimming waste, excess and fat, an undeniable reality of business success is the human element. Turns out that the old platitude we heard a lot from corporate leadership and HR in the booming 90s that "people are our greatest asset" is again being proved true. Another human truism is when we work together in collaborative teams in the context of high morale we become more powerful and productive than when we work as individuals in low morale environments. Yes, we are proving to ourselves once again through this downturn that to have successful and thriving and profitable businesses, people actually matter. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">The reason I think this realization is happening again is something I saw when I started doing some investigating this week into what people were searching for related to "business collaboration". In using Google's ad-words keyword suggestion tool I saw some very intriguing keyword phrases suggested for me when I entered "business collaboration" as a set of seed keywords. Here is what popped out as the top 25 most searched for keyword phrases related to "business collaboration". This list and the search rankings tell a very interesting story.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4AcVjUXaarxb9xtMUjTVpV2wuZ0mPX1ZpH48ZBk6JqoellpixTQf9PF_Y3FRNAANJpocowH0V-juQDXfQl8x9x-degR6Wwptr96br9PZuIQi6jPxR65T9BknWKxTdJhq1a-suJhKUY14/s1600-h/Collaboration+Keywords.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4AcVjUXaarxb9xtMUjTVpV2wuZ0mPX1ZpH48ZBk6JqoellpixTQf9PF_Y3FRNAANJpocowH0V-juQDXfQl8x9x-degR6Wwptr96br9PZuIQi6jPxR65T9BknWKxTdJhq1a-suJhKUY14/s400/Collaboration+Keywords.png" width="325" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The thing that immediately jumps out of this data for me is it looks like businesses are struggling with managing information and workflow in team contexts and are searching for solutions specific to team environments. I believe much of this is a result of a ramp up in use of highly distributed teams and the deep cuts in staff size. </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In the past a lot of information would get processed and problems solved by having face to face interactions in a common office location where communication fidelity was high. Another natural outcome of having teams physically working in a common location is "team cohesiveness" can be higher as people run into each other regularly/randomly in the physical environment of an office. These chance physical encounters very often result in very productive ad hoc meetings where workers make significant progress in solving a problem or agreeing to work together to produce a result. "Chance" meetings would allow people to more regularly collaborate and address issues before they even emerge as problems. Now we have globally distributed teams spanning continents and cultures and all that sorting through info that was done in these face to face encounters has been lost.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">The first 4 entries that are searched for most tell a story of people hoping to find innovative and free "open source" collaboration technology solutions to their "distributed and smaller workforces" productivity problems. The next 6 or 8 entries tell the story of where the problems are showing up, "supply chain, document management, procurement, workflow, team building, teamwork, content management". It's clear businesses are struggling with teaming and process topics in the workplace. They are looking hard for technology to solve these productivity problems for them in the context of the new "globally distributed workplace".</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">Is the only solution a return to the days of large office buildings full of hundreds or thousands of centrally located workers? I don't think so. I think globally distributed and "virtual" workforces can work. But we need some new types of collaboration solutions for the enterprise worker and also some new "best practices" in using the collaboration technologies we already have. I'm convinced the teaming benefits of regular chance encounters, and the organic productivity those encounters delivered, can be recaptured.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">But how do we do that given the economic and cultural challenges we face with the globally distributed workforce? I have some ideas I will blog about in a follow-on post with a working title "Planning for Unplanned Collaboration". </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">What's your take on this topic? Is your business suffering a loss of productivity due to loss of teamwork dynamics? Do the technologies you have at your fingertips today actually address the problems? Or do they perhaps even make them worse? How do you think we can "think differently" about how we use collaboration technologies to solve this problem?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;">Looking forward to your thoughts.</span></span></div></div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-50263457020631417442010-03-01T16:42:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:42:34.077-07:00Cloud Computing Security: "Cloud Nine" or "Lost in The Clouds"<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px;"> Image Credit: <em>Technology Review</em></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/files/19311/cloud_x220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.technologyreview.com/files/19311/cloud_x220.jpg" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This week the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) released their report </span></span><a href="http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/topthreats.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Top Threats to Cloud Computing"</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The CSA states the reasons for this new report being...</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">".. to provide needed context to assist organizations in making educated risk management decisions regarding their cloud adoption strategies. In essence, this threat research document should be seen as a companion to </span></i><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1267485337641"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Security Guidance for Critical Areas in Cloud Computing</span></a></i><i><a href="http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/csaguide.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">" </span></i></span></span></span></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The top threats as identified by CSA in the report are...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1. Abuse and Nefarious Use of Cloud Computing</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2. Insecure Application Programming Interfaces</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">3. Malicious Insiders </span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Shared Technology Vulnerabilities</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">5. Data Loss/Leakage</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">6. Account, Service & Traffic Hijacking</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">7. Unknown Risk Profile</span></span><br />
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</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">For each threat the CSA lays out for the reader a detailed Description of the threat, Examples of the threat, Remediation strategies to avoid the threat and links to Reference material on the web to learn more about the threat. I highly recommend that CIOs, CFOs and IT staffers read this document if they are using, or considering using, hosted Software As A Service (SAAS) solutions.</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There is no doubt at all that these threats, despite all the attractive technical and business benefits of cloud computing, should give pause to those businesses considering moving to SAAS solutions. In this world there is no "Silver Bullet", no "Free Lunch" and the Second Law of Thermodynamics says things tend to get worse if you don't pay attention. The same is true here. "Cloud Computing" is not a problem-free panacea for businesses looking to reduce internal IT cost while still delivering the reliable, scalable, affordable, manageable computing services a business requires.</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Having said that, one thing that immediately jumps out for me as I read through these well described and illustrated threat summaries was how every single one of them is already a security issue, either to a higher, lower or similar degree, for premises-based "in-house" solutions. So no matter your choice you are going to face similar problems.</span></span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In a prior blog post, where I discussed the concept of a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/2010/02/private-computing-cloud-balancing.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Private Cloud" approach to computing</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> I summarized one attractive benefit of "in-house", "premise-cloud" solutions as providing the CIO or CFO with the proverbial "throat to choke" when things go wrong either from a reliability, scalability or security standpoint. What this means basically is that with an internally-owned and operated infrastructure for computing there is always going to be some one or more persons inside the organization that can be held accountable. Job security is always one very effective way to guarantee that internal IT staff are personally engaged in insuring that corporate software solutions and the data stored on them are kept available to authorized users and secure from malicious use.</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">However, it is also true that a well-considered and well-written contract with an external cloud computing vendor, that includes specific legal remedies for lost, stolen or mishandled data and applications, can be a powerful means to make sure your vendors deliver on their promises. In fact, it might be argued that contractual incentives with an external vendor to deliver the security and confidence your business needs for it's mission critical applications can be much more powerful in making sure you "get what you are paying for" with cloud computing solutions.</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But once again, to do this right, there is no free lunch. If you are migrating to broad-based use of SAAS solutions in your enterprise you better do your homework and read reports like the one from the CSA. If you put the time in to research these threats, specific to how they show up in the cloud versus premises deployments, you'll know how to intelligently and creatively demand the security you need when you write contracts with SAAS vendors. That's your "Cloud Nine" scenario where you get to be a SAAS hero. But beware the trap of trusting the cloud vendors too much. If you fail to make sure your vendors are motivated by legal contract to insure you are getting secure solutions, your critical and important corporate data and applications, and your job, may well end up "Lost in the Clouds."</span></span></div></div></i></span>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-51558277494410583172010-02-23T21:49:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:42:34.077-07:00A Reliable "Cloud on the Horizon"?<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://static.open.salon.com/files/sm_eighth_day_at_sea_cumulonimbus_cloud_on_horizon1260816644.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://static.open.salon.com/files/sm_eighth_day_at_sea_cumulonimbus_cloud_on_horizon1260816644.jpg" width="212" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;">In my previous blog post <a href="http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/2010/02/private-computing-cloud-balancing.html">"The Private Computing Cloud. Balancing Control with Cost"</a> I explored some of the big picture issues facing enterprises as they consider whether to pay for hosted software services versus deploying them as premise software solutions. The issue I focused on there was the concept of how much control an enterprise would have over hosted software services versus those deployed in corporate data centers.<br />
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A related concern for enterprises considering hosted software solutions is the issue of reliability. Will a hosted software solution be more or less reliable than a premise based solution? Another factor affecting this choice is how much reliability is actually required for a given type of software solution?<br />
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There is no single answer to this question. It will vary from one enterprise to the next. A highly trained and well staffed enterprise IT team at one company may be able to deliver reliability in deploying and supporting software solutions that is superior to that provided by a cloud computing vendor for a hosted "cloud-based" solution. But another less well-staffed enterprise may not have that luxury.<br />
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Each and every enterprise will also have to factor in how important reliability is for each and every solution they deploy. Some solutions, such as "call center" telephony systems, require extremely high reliability and quality as they are often directly related to an enterprises ability to generate revenue.<br />
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Other solutions, such as a customer tracking database used by a company's sales force, while important, won't have as high a standard for reliability and up-time as the call center does. An example of a very popular cloud based solution for tracking sales leads and interactions is Salesforce.com. It is one of the most, if not the most, popular and successful cloud applications available today. But the requirements for reliability, while significant, don't extend to achieving the "gold standard" of "Five 9's" reliability required by a call center.<br />
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Cloud computing vendors will argue that you can get very, very high reliability in cloud computing through the redundancy of having the same SW running on multiple/clustered servers deployed across geographically distributed data-centers. The economies of scaling definitely add weight to that argument. Deployed properly, hosted solutions can be extremely fault tolerant. Google, Amazon, Yahoo and others have proven that they can support 100s of millions of users on a continuous basis with only very rare instances when their hosted solutions are not reachable and available.<br />
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However, those solutions are largely web-based solutions where the requirements to manage a lot of dynamic, real-time information that must be continuously synchronized between server and client, are minimal. These kind of applications are what are called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateless_server">"stateless applications"</a>. A stateless application server simplifies the server design because there is no need to dynamically allocate storage to deal with storing the entire past and peresent state of every client/server conversation in progress. If a client web-browser session dies in mid-transaction, no part of the system needs to be responsible for cleaning the present state of the server.<br />
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This kind of stateless interaction is the common case for the majority of internet hosted solutions. As an example; customer-facing banking applications. There are a massive number of cloud-deployed solutions in the banking sector while their are few if any purely "cloud-based" real-time call-center solutions is use by medium and large enterprises.<br />
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Bottom Line: Reliability requirements for one enterprise and software solution are likely to be very different from reliability requirements for another enterprise and their software solutions. Reliability, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.<br />
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One thing is certain though. Cloud computing solutions will only get more "beautiful" over time as the access reliability to the cloud and the redundancy of the cloud solutions continue to improve.<br />
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What does hosted software reliability have to look like from your enterprise's point of view?<br />
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Labels: Cloud Computing Reliability Server Salesforce.Com Call center Enterprise Software<br />
</span></div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-60119581393020927602010-02-19T06:43:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:42:34.078-07:00The Private "Computing Cloud": Balancing Control with Cost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://oitblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cloud-question-mark-cloud-computing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://oitblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cloud-question-mark-cloud-computing.jpg" width="201" /></a><a href="http://www.miradorcap.com/images/logo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just before Christmas I had the pleasure of attending a dinner event hosted by Ken Hausman from </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.miradorcap.com/">Mirador Capital </a>. I want to thank Ken for being such a gracious host for an excellent evening of discussion. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A highlight of the dinner was an excellent discussion on Cloud Computing. One of the<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> most interesting discussions was, "Is the cloud ready for the enterprise and is the enterprise ready for the cloud?" </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">There were attendees from all corners in this debate including enterprise CIOs, IT Professionals and Cloud Computing services vendors and System Integrators. Those attending who are providers of cloud computing services were<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate;"> strong in their belief that the "Cloud" is in fact ready for the enterprise. They claimed they are seeing very strong interest in their cloud computing offerings from enterprise CIOs and CFOs." One CIO from a major bank added some support to this claim saying, "cloud penetration will be in the high double digits in 2-5 years time." </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Both of these guests felt this adoption is certain to happen because you can, with cloud computing, more closely quantify and track the cost of an application. Today's average CIO, with purely premises-based computing infrastructure, has real issues answering that question. Given the state of the economy corporations are placing a heavy cost focus on IT spending and the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their computing resources and staff. One result of that push is it is now common in many corporations for the CIO to report to the CFO. Recognizing this desire for cost metrics and the "CIO reports to CFO" trend, many cloud vendors are now targeting their sales pitches directly to the CFO. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, several other attendees raised an very important issue that may be the biggest barrier to adoption: "Vendor Lock-in". Several in the audience elaborated on the challenges of vendor lock in in observing/questioning; "How difficult will it be is to export data from the cloud if you want to switch vendors?"</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My 2 cents: While it is true that "vendor lock-in" is a concern with Cloud Computing solutions, this problem is not a new one. "Vendor Lock-in" is always a goal of every enterprise solution vendor whether they are selling premises solutions or hosted solutions. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I see as the real barrier to cloud computing adoption is the issue of control. No matter how much a cloud software vendor argues that they "give customers full control of the SW and even HW elements of a hosted offering", the reality for an enterprise is a premise deployment will always offer more physical and management control. As a CEO/CIO, if you always run your own data center and manage your own software in-house, you always have someone in IT who works for you to hold accountable. This is the famous "throat to choke". </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cloud Computing is certainly a growing trend and it is certain to take over some large and perhaps even a majority share of IT spending from the current premises-based vendors. But this is not an all or nothing transition in how enterprises deploy IT solutions. Depending on their size, enterprises will continue for the foreseeable future to have attractive choices for premises-based AND cloud-based solutions. So enterprises should expect to have, and demand from IT professionals, a mix of cloud-based services and premises-based infrastructure that interworks in a way that works best for each enterprise. This blended mix of premises and hosted solutions is where the the optimal solution lies for almost every enterprise.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One form of that range of choice that is likely to be attractive to the large enterprise in particular will be what I call the "Private Cloud". A Private Cloud is a hosted architecture for your software solutions but the servers and software and IT staff will all be on your premises. Some of the staffing may be in-house and on your payroll, some may be contracted and some may work for your third party vendors.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course it's a very gray area in delineating what is really "yours" versus "theirs" when it comes to IT equipment and software and even employees. Cloud vendors will argue that they view your servers and data racks in their data center as "your" data center and the staff they assign to you as "your" staff. But as hard as they may argue that point, the equipment and software and staff that isn't directly on your books or rolls is always, at the core, under the control of a third party vendor.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What do you think? Is a "Private Cloud" approach a good compromise solution for your enterprise for balancing control with TCO? What other solutions have you found to this dilemma of hosting versus premise for you business solutions? I'm looking forward to your comments.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Tags: C</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 1px; webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 1px; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">loud Computing Mirador Capital CIO Enterprise Software Hosting</span></span></span></div><ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><ol style="margin-top: 0in;" type="a"><div></div></ol></ol>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-17554797176432302432010-02-07T19:04:00.000-08:002010-02-08T09:25:11.920-08:00Real Time Collaboration in a Virtual Desktop Environment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://static.briansolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/virtualworld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://static.briansolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/virtualworld.jpg" width="200" /></a><strong>The scenario</strong>:<strong> </strong> In a virtual dektop environment the users have only a thin client on their desk. The thin client (a web browser, citrix client or Wyse terminal) accesses the business and office applications running on a server in the data center or in the cloud.. Technical terms used for this are Desktop Virtualization (DVI, Microsoft Web Access) or Cloud Computing (Google docs and Apps).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In my humble opinion (IMHO) desktop virtualization is great when you want to ensure nobody can copy your customer data and walk away with it. There is simply no way to copy any data on a USB drive if you have no active USB connector, WiFi or bluetooth. Or get data by stealing the desktop PC/laptop with the data on the harddrive. Customers loving this are banks, financial instituations or any other highly regulated industry or security concerned customer.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><strong>The challenge: </strong>IMHO currrent VDI solutions with integrated voice and video don't deliver what's required to make this scenario a success. The voice and video quality is not good enough to deliver a good customer experience. That's a strong inhibitor for broader deployments.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><strong>The solution:</strong> IMHO, the solution is decoupling voice and video from the thin client functionality. There are various ways how this can get achieved:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">1) The simplest method is to place a VoIP desktop phone on the desk together with the thin client terminal. Using the ethernet switch in the VoIP phone the thin client terminal gets connected behind the phone. Great voice quality results.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2) Another way is to run a voice/video softclient on a desktop PC together with the thin client software. To satisfy the security needs you want to lock down the desktop PC so that no other SW can run and all USB interfaces are disabled.</div>Voice&Video and the thin client data then travel together over the ethernet to the datacenter. Here the thin client data gets connected to the virtualization servers while the real time voice/video packets hit the real time communication servers. Both get connected through Web Services or CTI Interfaces.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><strong>The Implementation:</strong> Is straightforward.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Please let me know what you think, and share your experiences with Real Time Collaboration in a Virtual Desktop Environment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Christian von Reventlow: <a href="mailto:vonreventlow@yahoo.com">vonreventlow@yahoo.com</a>, <a href="mailto:reventlow@avaya.com">reventlow@avaya.com</a>, twitter: vonreventlow, Skype: vonreventlow, linked_in: vonreventlow</div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-71736428367145297762010-01-27T11:39:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:43:09.983-07:00Apple iPad Tablet. Enterprise ready? At least not yet!Today Apple announced their ipad tablet. In my opinion its a device targeted to playback/display media (web, video, ebook) and gaming - leveraging its 10 inch screen, 1 Ghz processor, 3G and WiFi and integrated graphics controller. In addition the standard Apple office applications as iWork got demonstrated. Plus Apple presented a consumer oriented ECO-system with web-browsing, ebooks, e-newspaper and Games. Obviously a great product taking the ipod touch concept to a larger screen.<br />
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Lets compare this offering with the needs of Enterprise level collaboration.<br />
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My view on the requirements for enterprise:<br />
1) Multiple real time sessions. Multitasking is key to the day to day work in the enterprise. Thus an enterprise class collaboration device needs to allow multiple simultaneous activities in real time. For example i need to be able to talk to my assistant at the same time i am on a conference call with a supplier.<br />
2) Supporting all media used in collaboration at the same time. Look at what i am doing now: on a conference call, having a 2 way video chat with my industrial designer talking about Apple's announcment, using webconferencing to show him screen shots from the web taken during Steve Job's presentation, following the Steve Job's presentation on twitter, having an IM conversation in parallel to update my boss on the Apple announcment and guess what - typing this blog. <br />
3) Integration with the corporate data infrastructure. <br />
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My opinion: Apple ipad is a great consumer device. For an Enterprise level collaboration device one needs a dedicated multisession real time Software with the functionalities above. Plus you need to have sufficient horsepower to do all this at the same time - with high likelyhood too much for a 1 GHz CPU.Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-82606025172019035302010-01-20T05:47:00.000-08:002010-01-26T08:53:43.645-08:00Retail store managers. Use Cloud Computing and Desktop Virtualization (VDI) to bring them back to the shop floor.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJNyrpqf5qcocU2hrZ2AfTf6BXbwzDZ4T7k31KQlcQ1BwaQm0sui4xfbMu1x9dY751CPr5cTc56FNndiV8Ki1pRAVPmUqNSYbKjFXUOiIA2K-4GmPbZnEwr4NbYUfkCkzhGN7EBk7a-s/s1600-h/308171main_TMIE_feb09_untethered_226.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" mt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJNyrpqf5qcocU2hrZ2AfTf6BXbwzDZ4T7k31KQlcQ1BwaQm0sui4xfbMu1x9dY751CPr5cTc56FNndiV8Ki1pRAVPmUqNSYbKjFXUOiIA2K-4GmPbZnEwr4NbYUfkCkzhGN7EBk7a-s/s320/308171main_TMIE_feb09_untethered_226.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>Cloud computing / desktop virtualization together with real time communicaiton / collaboration allows exciting new solutions to business problems. <br />
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In today's blog we cover the challenges of the retail store manager.<br />
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(Picture copyright Nasa)<br />
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<strong>The issue</strong>: Establishing a great relationship between the customers and the store is the prime goal of retail store managers. That makes customers return - thus driving revenue. So the retail store managers should spend the majority of their time on the shop floor. Instead they spend a substantial part of their time in the backoffice in front of their PC doing administrative work. Thus there is need to untether the store manager.<br />
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<strong>The challenge</strong> is in my humble opinion: Current solutions to untether the store manager using PDA type of devices have substantial shortcomings:<br />
1) Ergonomics. The screen size and keyboards are too small to do backoffice work effectivly on these devices. The keyboard adds to the difficulty.<br />
2) Compute power. Backoffice software requires PC level compute power which is typically not available on a PDA.<br />
3) Deployment costs and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The callenges above force the IT department to deploy both PC's for the backoffice and PDA type solutions for the shopfloor. This doubles the deployment costs and the TCO.<br />
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<strong>A solution</strong> in my opinion is a combination of a larger tablet with the right ergonomics, cloud computing and desktop virtualization How:<br />
1) Ergonomics: A solution is a larger tablet (10-12" screen) to have the screen real estate to succesfully display backoffice applications. It should have either a good on screen keyboard or a real attached keyboard. With a bar code reader this tablet then can get used to do both backoffice and shopfloor work.<br />
2) Thus one can reduce the number of devices a manager needs: Move the backoffice software from the desktop PC back into a central data center. And then access the SW through a thin client on the tablet from the shopfloor through a real time link. (Cloud Computing, Desktop Virtualization). This eliminates the need to have a separate desktop PC in the backoffice of the shop. All work can get done from the tablet. Plus it reduces the CPU power needs of the tablet making it more light weight and/or giving it a longer operating time on a single battery charge.<br />
3) Reduce the deployment costs and TCO: The reduction in number of devices itself lowers deployment costs and TCO. In addition the proposed solution virtualizes the desktop PC in the store managers office. That eliminates the management costs associated with a desktop PC. Plus the centralization of the backoffice SW in the data center ensures the SW on the desktop PC stays always current. <br />
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In summary: Virtualization of the desktop PC of the retail store managers using a larger tablet will increase the effectiveness of a store manager. It will allow him to do a substantial part of the backoffice related work on the shop floor. This brings the store manager back to the shop floor. And it allows him to spend more time to build relationships between the customers and the store. Which is the biggest lever to have customers return to the store.<br />
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(Keywords: Retail store, retail store management, retail software, retail business software, Retail Management Systems (RMS), computer software retail, business POS software, Point of Sales (POS), Customer Interactions, store management)Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-76939378926594268742009-11-17T12:56:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:45:05.292-07:00Is Android a "Tower of Babel" OS?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Brueghel-tower-of-babel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Brueghel-tower-of-babel.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That's the question I'm thinking about after reading an in-depth and excellent 3 part series of articles titled </span><a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/05/inside_googles_android_and_apples_iphone_os_as_core_platforms.html"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Inside Google's Android and Apple's iPhone OS.</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The series analyzes the Android OS and how it compares to and contrasts with Apple's iPhone OS in three main areas. The first article is a <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/05/inside_googles_android_and_apples_iphone_os_as_core_platforms.html">comparison of the OS's as core platforms</a>. The second article <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/10/inside_googles_android_and_apples_iphone_os_as_business_models.html">compares the business models Google and Apple are implementing</a> for their mobile OS platforms. The final article </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">looks at how each platform <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/11/inside_googles_android_and_apples_iphone_os_as_advancing_technology.html">manages software updates and delivers platform advancement</a> in the form of new operating system features and bundled apps.</span> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you want a deep analysis of both platforms in these areas and have some time to dig in, the author 'Prince McLean' does an excellent job of covering a lot of ground. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The biggest takeaway from the series for me was the many ways each Android handset maker is going to be able to make custom modifications and changes to Android. Each vendor is naturally going to try and make the end user experience the most attractive it can. This means user experience from one Android device to the next could be VERY different. Now on the surface that sounds great! More choice for consumer's is always a great thing, right? On the surface that IS true. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But there is a devil in the details underneath the variability of the flying windows on your Android handset. That devil is the difficulty this creates for SW application developers </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">to develop Android apps that run across many devices on</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> all the different variations of Android deployed on all the various devices from competing vendors. The testing permutations will boggle the mind of even the best mobile app development company. Developers have been promised "write once, run anywhere" many times in the past and every time it's ended in a mess. No matter what Google promises I'm pretty certain the Android model will not achieve, "Write once, run anywhere." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Imagine trying to manage your 4 or 14 mobile apps you've written for mobile phones when there are 20, or 50, different Android handsets from a dozen different handset vendors and you have to test and certify that app to run on all 50 devices? Then imagine having to retest on every device every time an OS update gets pushed from Google. Then you have to retest and certify AGAIN every time the handset vendor issues it's layer of changes on top of the latest Google Android release.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now compare this to the effort for the iPhone App developer of retesting and re-certifying each time Apple issues an iPhone OS update. Then take into account the likelihood that Apple is going to move away from it's ATT exclusive and sell through other US vendors and all the major global vendors. As an App Developer, whether you love Apple or hate them, you'll have to think hard about how you spread your limited SW development resources between iPhone and Android. In the long run is it sustainable from a business perspective for the mobile app developer to take on the headaches building and scaling the Android "Tower"?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This devil has the potential to make the Android community suffer the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel">same fate the builders of the Tower of Babel suffered in trying to build a tower that reached the heavens</a>. There may be just too many Android "languages/dialects" to effectively sustain a combined effort to disrupt and compete with Apple's "iPhone Hegemony".</span><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm a big believer in the benefits of competition for consumers and for the businesses who are competing. So I hope Android is a success. That success, if it happens, will certainly drive innovation forward and improve the health of the industry as a whole.</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But to do that Google and it's vendor partners must do something to make sure App Development for Android is not going to be a mess? If they don't, SW Developers are going to feel like they are SW developer versions of </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_%28film%29">Bill Murray in "GroundHog Day"</a>;</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> redoing the same SW tests over and over and over and never getting it right? </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Am I missing something here? </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm curious to hear what people think.<br />
</span>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-90360366248858721802009-11-04T06:54:00.000-08:002010-08-19T05:47:07.480-07:00Power to the People: Flipping Your Business Communications Polarity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.johnelkington.com/weblog/fist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.johnelkington.com/weblog/fist.jpg" width="176" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As enter into 2010 we are going through a huge revolution in how "business communications" affect "business productivity". The changes happening in this revolution will empower people (your customers and your employees) more than ever before and fundamentally change how your company does business. </span><br />
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The biggest and most visible reason for this is the Social Media/Social Networking explosion and it's effects on how employees of your business interact with their coworkers and also with your customers, vendors and partners. Before the internet, business communications consisted mainly of telephone calls, mailed letters and traditional paper, radio or TV advertising. The internet added email and 'web-pages with mostly static content' to that mix. These changes increased the speed of communications but not it's fundamental nature. So the core model for businesses communications, and business organization, remained mostly the same. People still made phone calls, sent mail(email) and published content for customers (advertising and manuals on webpages). </span><br />
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But recently, something new is happening that is going to be much more disruptive to the model for business communications and business operations. That something is the rise of "Realtime Social Media" communications with social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a hundred other niche social networks designed to serve specific communities. This change is something <a href="http://twitter.com/jeffpulver">http://twitter.com/jeffpulver</a> calls "<a href="http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008934.html">The State of NOW"</a>. </span><br />
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Take a moment and watch this short, stunning YouTube video on Social Media, and you'll see just how important it is that your business recognizes this fundamental change. </span><br />
<object height="157" width="250"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sIFYPQjYhv8&hl=en&fs=1&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sIFYPQjYhv8&hl=en&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="250" height="157"></embed></object> <br />
<div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This "State of now" model brought on by realtime Social Media solutions is highly disruptive to the way you will do business. Instead of just enhancing the old model of what "critical business communications" looks like, Social Media is turning the old model on it's head. Instead of the most critical communications happening inside your business and flowing from the top your business down through the organization and out to the customers, the flow is reversing directions. The most critical communications for your business are now happening out in the customer communities on social networks like Twitter and other targeted specialized networks. </span><br />
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Conversations about your business and it's products in these forums can have large and immediate influences on the purchasing behaviors of other customers of your business. This makes it critical that your business monitor these conversations in realtime and engage in them. Your business needs to be in that social network in order to help or clarify or balance that conversation about your brand and products so that those conversations don't result in lost business. </span><br />
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Then after engaging in the conversation, the "State of Now" information you gather on your brand/products must efficiently flow back toward the top of your business so it can be acted on by company leadership. This critical "State of Now" information is naturally gathered in lower levels of the business hierarchy by "in the trenches" employees assigned to focus on social media. In the future that will not only be people you think of as "customer service" or "contact center agents". It will include every employee in your business because they all will have access to and engagement in social networks.</span><br />
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</div><div style="margin: 0px;">This "bottom up" versus "top down" polarity change in the model of enterprise communication flow and teaming is possibly larger and more disruptive than all the changes in the fundamentals of business communication that happened in the entire 20th century. What's stunning is these changes have happened mostly in the short span of 2000 to 2010, with the majority happening just in the past 4 years!When you combine these recent Social Media-based changes in how people interact and communicate with other cultural changes in the enterprise work culture (e.g., high employee turnover, multiple B2B partnerships, distributed "virtual" workforces, reduced workforces, rapid changes in market requirements, etc), the result is a near complete change in the old model of medium/large enterprise communication and productivity.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If your business is going to survive and thrive through this "Power to the People" Revolution you need to recognize this change and act on it. Flip your Communication Polarity from the top-down model that dictates to employees and customers to the new bottom-up model. It's time your business starts living, working breathing and succeeding in "The State of Now".</span><br />
</div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-29025076432098795842009-10-16T06:02:00.000-07:002010-08-19T05:47:59.474-07:00Is there Anybody "Out There"? - "Spearfishing" 4 People on Twitter Who "Get" You.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Spearfisherman_Ryu_Kyu_Islands_July_2007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Spearfisherman_Ryu_Kyu_Islands_July_2007.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> One of the most interesting and puzzling challenges I've run into since becoming a Twitter user is in finding people to follow who are going to be interested in the same topics and types of conversation that I am interested in. I'm interested mostly in 21st Century Communications Solutions and how the changes in that area are impacting the nature of work and life. But I'm also interested in Technology in general, Science, Organizational Management theory, Cross-Cultural teaming and a bunch of other related topics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> But the only way it seems I can find people who have common interests, at least given my current expertise on Twitter, is to dive directly into the ocean of Twitter information hoping to somewhat randomly run across people who have common interests. It's like deep sea fishing by being dropped physically and randomly into the ocean with only a snorkel and a speargun. Finding the "fish" I'm after then involves having to make a series of dives down into the "Twitter ocean" looking around on my own with only a single breath of air each time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> The primary way I do this "spearfishing" now is I set up keyword search columns in Tweetdeck and whenever I see someone who has tweeted something on one of my topics I follow them. But there are so many "fish" in the ocean, and so many tweets on nearly any topic you pick, that I know I miss most of the tweets by people who have similar interests to mine. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Overall this Tweetdeck/keywords approach is a pretty manual and slow process. What is also then manual is the process of figuring out whether or not people I follow due to the content of their tweets end up following me back. This whole process seems to me to be way too random and unmeasurable. German engineers like myself tend to get annoyed by random and unmeasurable things. ;-) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So my question is; Why doesn't Twitter make it easier for me to find the people, who I am certain are out there in the Twitterverse, that have very similar interests in what they want to do and share on Twitter? I've sampled a few third party tools like Mr. Tweet and SocialOoomph but none I've tried so far really has a killer model for doing what I'm looking to do. Any suggestions of tools you use that would solve this problem?<br />
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</span>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-57218521592605008512009-10-05T09:40:00.000-07:002010-08-19T05:48:26.970-07:00The Google Wave "Perfect Storm": Overhyped, UnderCooked or Misunderstood?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://riverdaughter.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/big-wave_surfing_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://riverdaughter.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/big-wave_surfing_01.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Last week the Google Wave invites started going out and everyone was anxious to hear what the first beta testers thought of it. Robert Scoble <a href="http://twitter.com/scobleizer">@Scobleizer</a> got an invite and blogged his comments saying he thinks Google Wave is <a href="http://scobleizer.com/2009/10/01/google-wave-crashes-on-beach-of-overhype/">"Overhyped for what it delivers."</a>. Robert's core concern is that <i>"It is noisy, and the noise happens way down in your inbox."</i> instead of new updates happening at the top of the inbox like it email, Twitter or Facebook. Robert went on to say that <i>"Google Wave was oversold as something you’d use with the public, or at least with large groups of friends, like you use Twitter, email, or Facebook.".</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I agree with Robert in one respect. If you use Google Wave as "yet another front end client for the current Facebook or Twitter social media experience" is likely going to be very noisy because Wave can aggregate both of those, as well as email and IM and more, into one user interaction space. Unfiltered, the concentration of all these streams of interaction are certainly going to be overwhelming to you and this certainly would create a "Perfect Storm" of information overload and lost productivity.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But is</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i>Robert's claim that<i>, "Google Wave was oversold as something you’d use with the public" </i></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">really true? I watched <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ%20">the entire 90 minute Wave demo video</a> and nowhere in there did I hear Lars, Jens or Stephanie say Wave was supposed to be primarily a front end tool for interacting with your social media "public" either on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else. Yes, they did show a Twitter integration. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But I don't think the goal of Wave is to try and be another Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is an open-ended information discovery tool that allows individuals to do a lot of shallow sampling at the surface of Twitter's information ocean. I realize there are people building third party tools that allow people to work together in plumbing those depths along vertical threads. But for the most part, interacting on Twitter is still all about each individual "swimmer" swimming around mostly on the surface of that Twitter ocean on their own personal timetable and agenda and it's a "random swim" for most people.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Wave is not something that just allows each of us as swimmers to swim more effectively on our singular and personal agenda. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I think Wave is something quite different. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Wave really is supposed to be a focused, team-oriented productivity tool for moderate sized groups of people working together on projects with focused goals. Can it be used to plan a vacation or party the way they showed in the demo? Sure. Or integrate a Twitter or Facebook stream searching on a related topic to augment a given wave? Sure. But even those are "projects" with focused goals. So if a Twitter stream feed is added to a wave it should be focused on a topic relevant to a given wave.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So Robert is I think both right and wrong in his assessment of Wave being overhyped. Wave I think was not hyped, at least by the leaders of the wave team, as being some superior way to go swimming about as an individual swimmer in the "Social Media Ocean". But Robert is also correct when he said.. <i>"(Wave could be)..great with your very close friends or very active coworkers but horrid for nearly everyone else."</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Thats <b>exactly</b> right. Wave has the potential to be a breakthrough productivity tool for focused teams of people working toward shared goals. This is something we desperately need right now as we are all currently lone swimmers in a perfect storm in the middle of a vast information ocean. This new tool from Google is exactly the type of thing needed so we can avoid drowning in the information "heavy seas" we are all bobbing around in. It will allow groups of us to work together to build some "catamarans" and "Catch a Wave" on a course toward superior productivity. As Clay Shirky (Author of "Here Comes Everybody!") said <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1254756415289">"It's not information overload that's is the problem. It's filter failure."</a></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://vodpod.com/watch/1172451-web-2-0-expo-ny-clay-shirky-shirky-com-its-not-information-overload-its-filter-failure-"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Is Google Wave Undercooked? Of course. It's a BETA!! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Is Google Wave Misunderstood? Yes. Everyone thinks everything new right now is or should be a social media exploration tool.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But, Is Google Wave Over-hyped? I think not, at least not by those building it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Wave is a framework that will allow people to build custom, </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">'Filtering and Focusing</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">' mechanisms that drive cooperating groups to productivity against shared goals. Could people build GWave's that kill productivity? Absolutely. Any powerful technology can be mis-used to the detriment of yourself and others.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My advice to people when they start using Wave...don't mis-use it. Build and use GWaves that enhance your productivity and start filtering the information firehose instead of just turning up the firehose pressure. <br />
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</span></span>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-35403309579122748082009-09-30T12:20:00.000-07:002010-08-19T05:48:26.970-07:00The Art of War - Telecom10.0(Google) vs. Telecom1.0(ATT)<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060907/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060907/1.jpg" width="123" /></a></div>What happens when a disruptive Telecom10.0 player like Google(Voice) starts looking and feeling like a burr under the saddle of an old Telecom1.0 Cowboy like AT&T?</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Alec Saunders of Saunderslog.com <a href="http://saunderslog.com/2009/09/28/google-vs-att-net-neutrality-or-the-end-of-free-conference-calls/">has an excellent and detailed blog summary</a> of Google and AT&T's recent <a href="http://www.internetnews.com/breakingnews/article.php/3841126">spat over “Net Neutrality”</a>. Alec explains <i>"Google Voice doesn’t pass calls to certain rural carriers because of the high cost of termination in these jurisdictions. That includes, I’ve been told, our <a href="http://www.calliflower.com/">Calliflower conference service</a> which is hosted at a rural carrier as well. AT&T is trying to convince the FCC that Google Voice is, in fact, a common carrier, and should have to abide by the same rules as they do. They’ve labeled this a fight over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality">Net Neutrality</a>, which is a mis-characterization."</i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Alec goes on to explain in detail the Telecom1.0 concept of telephone carrier arbitrage. Basically it's how phone companies pay each other when telephone calls cross invisible gates at carrier network borders (tariffs). Bottom line is AT&T wants to have the FCC start treating Google like a common telephony carrier. But AT&T isn't doing this because they really care whether Google gets affected by this trivial rural termination charges issue. Instead what AT&T wants is to position Google(Voice) into it's "home stadium" of Telecom1.0 competition. If ATT can get the FCC to stamp Google with Telecom1.0 label it will force Google to compete with ATT on it's Telecom1.0 "home field".</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Some forget that the original idea of "home field advantage" was a concept related to war and fighting battles. 2300 years ago Sun Tzu said in his book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War">"The Art of War"</a>,<i> "The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.</i><i> By holding out advantages to him, the clever combatant can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord." </i>AT&T is using precisely this strategy because there is actual advantage to be had by Google in siding with AT&T on this rural termination issue. Alec says<i> "..Google may be an (unwilling) ally, as they are facing the same issue – how to avoid paying higher than average termination fees in a business model that gives the customer unlimited long distance for no additional charge."</i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sun Tzu would be impressed by this battle ploy being attempted by AT&T. The question though is whether Google will allow themselves to be maneuvered in this manner. Who do you think wins in this fight? Does Google back away and remain in their Telecom10.0 <a href="http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/">"Blue Ocean"</a> or dive into AT&T's Telecom1.0 "Red Ocean"? There's blood in AT&T's "red ocean" waters and AT&T is circling like a shark waiting to hear a splash.</div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1112563732640886960.post-21386168268199557672009-09-27T21:01:00.000-07:002010-01-26T08:51:10.128-08:0021st Century Telecom - Disruptions in RealTime<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/1876_Bell_Speaking_into_Telephone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/1876_Bell_Speaking_into_Telephone.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hello! I'm Christian. Welcome to my blog "21st Century Telecom - Disruptions in Realtime".<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The conversation I'm looking to start, and have you join in, is all about the exciting transition that is happening right now from a 20th century model of telecommunication to a 21st century model. In reality the 20th century model is really a 19th century model. I call that old model "Telecom 1.0". <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Sorry for using the overused "SW versioning metaphor" for the old/new polarity but, it actually does work well.)</i></span><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Telecom 1.0" began March 10, 1876 when the first successful two-way telephone call was made by Alexander Grahmam Bell. Bell spoke into his newly constructed device, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." and Watson answered back.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">From that day until now we have been living in a 134 year long "Age of Telecom 1.0". Virtually all the telephone calls made since that day, and still virtually all phone calls made today worldwide, operate on the same basic model. A telephone caller initiates a call trying to reach a destination "phone number" hoping the person or persons they are trying to reach answers the call so a realtime voice conversation can happen. Just like 'Al Bell' and 'Tom Watson' did that day in March of 1876.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But we are now seeing the beginning of a series of fundamental and disruptive changes in how people communicate. The availability and affordability of high bandwidth access to the internet is resulting in new and richer communication models that are changing the way people think about communication. Those changes are focused around what is now being called "Social Media" or "Social Networks".<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Instead of people thinking about making a series of individual, person to person conversations with people, or even having group conversations on telephone conference calls, people are now focusing on communication modes where they are trying to engage in broadcasts of information to dozens, hundreds or thousands of people all at once. The two fastest growing examples of that today are Facebook and Twitter, but there are dozens of popular online communities that focus on enhanced communications. <a href="http://www.twitter.com/briansolis">@BrianSolis</a> put together a great summary diagram of what Social Media on the internet looks like today. He calls his multicolored, flower-like diagram "<a href="http://theconversationprism.com/">The Conversation Prism: The Art of Listening, Learning and Sharing</a>". <br />
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</a><a href="http://theconversationprism.com/convoprismembed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="http://theconversationprism.com/convoprismembed.jpg" width="329" /></a><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You may need a magnifying glass to see all the richness in this diagram but that illustrates just how different Telecom1.0 is from Telecom2.0. Actually calling it Telecom2.0 doesn't do it justice. It's more like "Telecom 10.0" because there is an order of magnitude more complexity in how people now interact in this new context of the Social Media "Conversation Prism".<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">People are no longer content to have a network of some dozen or so close friends they interact with regularly and perhaps 100 people they call colleagues or acquaintances. That is the "Telecom1.0" past. Today people count their "close" Facebook friends in the 100s or even thousands and Twitter "followers" in the thousands, 10s/100s of thousands" or in some cases, even millions. As a result, "Telecom 10.0", is a completely different animal.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/facebook-300-million/">Many, many people have embraced it</a>; some are wary of it and are keeping it at arms lengths while they try and figure it out; and some are downright terrified of what this change means and how it will impact their lives. One thing is absolutely certain, it will in fact make a huge impact on how almost all of us live our lives. If you don't believe me you need to watch this short video on Social Media <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8">"Is Social Media a Passing Fad?"</a> and I think you will be stunned by how fast social Media is catching on globally.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">With something that is growing this fast it's critical we figure out how to make sure this exciting, invigorating, stimulating and terrifying change is something that makes life better for the human race and not worse. I think this change, while painful and scary, is ultimately going to make the world a better place.<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What about you? Are you embracing this change; holding it at arms length; terrified of it; or all of the above?<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Listen, Learn and above all...please do <b>Share</b>. I want to know what you think.<br />
</div>Christian Von Reventlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100398180130007983noreply@blogger.com