Item-Level Recovery in SharePoint ... Mimosa's NearPoint for SharePoint enables item-level recovery of data; this expedites recovery processes in the case of inadvertent deletion. Eg, ""The day Mimosa came out with NearPoint for SharePoint, it was clear the company was way ahead of the game in terms of innovation. Mimosa NearPoint for SharePoint does things that no other single archiving application can do," said Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing. "Backup only protects the data, and just a few months ago we did a recovery that took 23 hours for us to get back a single document library that was lost. By using Mimosa NearPoint for SharePoint archiving, we performed the same recovery in just a few minutes directly to our SharePoint farm. This 'content-level recovery' is extremely important to anyone using SharePoint, and a big selling point in our recent recommendations to our customers of the product."" Mimosa is currently building its partner channel. More
The Three C's ... Ron says collaboration, coordination and communication are key to 21st century organizations. "But if we don't want to get ourselves and our customers stuck either in construction or process bottlenecks, we need to cut across the organizational boundaries and proactively pull things together. Just like "reading, writing, and 'rithmatic" were the three "Rs" of early 20th century education, we need to think of collaboration, coordination and communication as the three Cs of 21st century organizational simplicity. As John Chambers of Cisco points out, we now have technologies that allow us to dramatically improve our capacity to work with each other across space and time, no matter the organizational arrangements. But to do so we need to change our behaviors and mindsets." Didn't Lotus say the same thing in the 90s? More
Google Sync for iPhone and Win Mobile ... Google released Google Sync for iPhone, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices, extending over-the-air synchronization to Gmail. "Google Sync began as a beta service to sync Google calendar items and contacts to iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Series 60 phones. Owners of iPhones, iPod Touches, and Windows Mobile phones can now set it up to include Gmail messages as well. The phones will receive Google Sync messages through their native e-mail, calendar and address book apps. BlackBerry and Nokia Symbian Series 60 users won't have push access to Gmail yet, but they can still sync calendar and contact events to the phone's built-in address book and calendar." More
Zoho Discussions ... Zoho released it's first new product for 2009, Zoho Discussions. "Zoho Discussions allows organizations to create external and internal communities where problems are solved, topics are discussed and ideas are exchanged. Businesses can create a customer support forum where solutions to problems come not only from the company support reps, but also from other users in the same situation. Customers can make their voices heard and vote on what they like - and don't like. Employees can discuss important topics in an environment that fosters collaboration much better than e-mail." More
Tungle on iPhone ... Tungle released an iPhone application for its meeting scheduling tool. "The Tungle app for iPhone brings the full scheduling power of Tungle to the palm of your hand. Even if you don’t know someone’s schedule, you can send them an invitation proposing as many times as you want to ensure it gets booked quickly and easily. Want to share? You can do that too. Send and receive sharing invitations, no matter what calendar system they’re using. Then see, at a glance, when people are free or busy, and get meetings booked even faster." Available immediately. More
Wikis at Seagate ... Seagate is using the Atlassian wiki to support interaction and communication between IT staff and beyond. "For formal project management, Brewer and his IT team use CA’s Clarity portfolio management system. “We use it to track programs, projects, dates, costs, etc.,” he says. Recently, though, Brewer has become a believer in the power of wikis. For the last year and a half, he’s been using a wiki-cum-blog tool called Confluence, from Atlassian. He’s set up a wiki -- IT@Seagate -- which he contributes to two or three times a week. “I use it as a forum to communicate with IT folk.” Brewer likes the informality of the platform, that it encourages interaction and communication among the team and provides a greater sense of knowing what’s going on. “Things become a lot more transparent,” he says. Yet the wiki has formal roles as well. For instance, the data center team uses it to post bulletins about potential outages, and a group within IT uses it to “talk about everything related to data warehousing." The wiki/blog has expanded beyond the IT staff. Other corporate execs are using it to communicate with Seagate employees. Also, IT staffers have opened up the wiki so that they can use it to work with outside suppliers." More
Lehman's Problem: Too Much Collaboration (??) ... Some comments on the problems at Lehman, including that it had one of the strongest cultures of collaboration. "Fuld set out to build a culture where partners would be agreeable and loyal, to the point they would enact Fuld's vision together, embracing it as their own. In the end, it seems that Lehman's management team became too agreeable — and too loyal, content to follow even when they knew better. In the months and years leading up to the most recent financial crisis, dissent wasn't an option even for those insiders who had seen a trunk or a tusk (looming distress signals) but were afraid or insufficiently informed to identify the elephant in the room. In Fuld's view, you were with him or against him, and nobody wanted to be against him. Of course, if you were with him, and if you made it into the top ranks, he took care of you, and you and your family became very wealthy." That doesn't sound like a "strong culture of collaboration" to me.More
iPhone at Logica ... Logica's consulting staff are using the iPhone for a range of tasks when on-the-go, and are now helping customers develop iPhone applications. "With iPhone in their hands, Logica consultants quickly became experts. Soon the consultants began requesting custom-built iPhone applications to help them work even more efficiently. In response, the internal development team built several apps using the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK), including an automated voice conferencing application and a timesheet tool that lets Logica consultants record billable hours in real time while onsite with customers .... Having streamlined its own operations with iPhone, Logica has begun creating iPhone apps for customers as well. “It’s a logical extension of our portfolio,” Lünstedt says. “We offer consulting services that optimize workflow processes. Now we can also tie in the right application for iPhone.” As a result, Logica’s iPhone development projects have increased revenues and revealed new business opportunities for the firm." More
Telepresence Recordings ... TC&C has released a tool for recording Cisco telepresence meetings. "The Carin Recording solution is a full session recording solution - it captures both endpoints of a TelePresence conference as well as the secondary audio/video streams used for audio conferencing and presentation sharing. The video is captured in raw full HD and then later can be compressed to a more portable WMV files for playback from a web browser on a PC, internet device or even mobile phone. The live video streaming module can be used to stream TelePresence Sessions to people who cannot attend the meeting via TP but still have access to an internet connection and this allows users to make them available to a much wider audience." More
Yahoo to Dump Zimbra ... There are some reports that Yahoo may be trying to on-sell Zimbra. "A Yahoo! spokeswoman declined to comment on today's ATD story. But shopping Zimbra wouldn't be out of character for CEO Carol Bartz, who's working to slim the company down in more ways than one. According to ATD, Yahoo! is also shopping personals and online classified-ad businesses, but it's the loss of Zimbra that would continue Yahoo!'s slow transformation from tech outfit to ad-obsessed media mammoth." More
- At the time of the acquisition, I argued it didn't make sense.
Other Items
- A review of Ubidesk, an online collaboration tool.
Kristian from Australia has just posted his review of SharePoint Roadmap:
"If you play the role of a SharePoint functional consultant in the area of collaboration, then this is a must read. It is also an invaluable resource for SharePoint architects, program drivers and anyone else playing a key role in SharePoint collaboration rollouts. And needless to say that the governance workshop I delivered immediately after reading this book went very well. Sampson’s book really enhanced my ability to explain the central issues to both the business and IT."
Making Collaboration Work ... Cisco released findings from a recent study of collaboration tools and users. "The results from the Cisco collaboration segmentation study suggest that organizations experience the greatest productivity benefits from collaboration when they: (1) Recognize that personal attitudes and organizational culture regarding collaboration are as important as collaboration tools. (2) Begin by introducing collaboration tools to people and groups meeting the characteristics of Enthusiasts and Comfortable Collaborators. These people tend to be managers or supervisors, have held their job position for 3 to 10 years, and are already using Web 2.0 tools at home. (3) Encourage executives to model the desired collaboration practices. (4) Reward collaboration by including it in performance reviews, offering rewards for successful outcomes, or both. (5) Implement formal collaboration processes. Provide the tools, IT support, and training needed to foster increased collaboration." More
What's Wrong with SharePoint? ... Fred asks, "what's wrong with SharePoint?" As in, "give me specifics". "So this evening this led me to ask the question “What is wrong with SharePoint?” No, I do not mean I want a list of every nit picking, annoying little defect – every platform has defects and annoyances. I also do not want to know why SharePoint is note good for everything – no platform is good for everything. I also do not give a crap if your opinion is “it comes from Microsoft therefore it MUST suck” – it that is as deep as your analysis can go, well, you’re a moron. What I want to see from SOMEONE is an intelligent, well thought out description of why SharePoint sucks. Why is it a bad choice for anything? Why should you perform an exorcism on all servers running any version of SharePoint?" More
Secure Document Collaboration in SharePoint ... Cryptzone is hosting a webinar on September 23 about secure document collaboration in SharePoint. "A webinar series covering data loss prevention technology that provides first to market secure document management and collaboration within Microsoft SharePoint. Among other topics, we will explore the management of secure groups, Active Directory integration, access rights and authentication and the impact of regulatory compliance. This series is best-suited for IT management, security professionals, SharePoint managers, and others involved with the technical deployment and operations of SharePoint in an enterprise environment." Registration required. More
Thanks to a kind invite from Maish Nichani (PebbleRoad) and Jeffrey Lau (To The Point), I will be presenting a one-day Masterclass in SharePoint Collaboration in Singapore on November 5, 2009.
"Knowledge-based work, as we’re finally realising, is collaborative in nature. This is the primary reason we’re seeing a rush to implement collaboration applications inside the enterprise. But just installing an application does not mean that the magic we want will happen. It requires proper thinking, planning and governing to make collaboration work.
In this masterclass, collaboration and SharePoint guru Michael Sampson will take you through the steps required to make collaboration a success inside your organization."
Using e-Documents for Collaboration ... Dan released an ebook about using online documents for collaboration. "The Shortcut Guide to Using e-Documents for Collaboration offers an expert examination into the specific challenges of document creation, collaboration and exchange, as well as how e-Document technology features can be incorporated to address them. Both business requirements (cost savings, environmental concerns, productivity goals, etc.) as well as functional requirements (document creation, data collection, review and approval processes, etc.) are discussed. Lastly, the eBook offers a set of best practices to align business strategy with document and forms management, as well as establish supportive workflow processes and security policies for the entire e-Document creation process." More
Calling from Twitter ... Jajah released an application for making free 2 minute phone calls from Twitter. "Jajah@Call, a beta for Jajah users in the United States, lets users call others in the Jajah@Call program from anywhere they access Twitter, including mobile phones or PCs via Twitter applications such as Seesmic or TweetDeck. Why only 2 minutes? Jajah said it considers 2 minutes the "verbal equivalent of a tweet" or Twitter message, but free calls also cost the company a bundle if a lot of people use the service." More
Glowpoint for Video ... Glowpoint wants more businesses to use video conferencing and telepresence rather than travel for business meetings. "To assist businesses, Glowpoint’s campaign features promotional discounts on telepresence and video conferencing managed services, as well as an educational website specifying how video communications can be used to mitigate the risk of contracting the flu. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “if the severity of the outbreak worldwide increases in the fall or winter, public health officials may recommend social distancing strategies which include canceling non-essential travel.”" More
IntraLinks for Secure Documents ... IntraLinks said that many clients are starting to use its secure document sharing tools. "IntraLinks, the leading provider of critical information exchange solutions, is seeing businesses worldwide quickly adopt Document Locking & Protection, IntraLinks' comprehensive tool to securely share most commonly used business files including Microsoft Office word documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The newly expanded feature augments IntraLinks' current locking capabilities, making it the only software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to secure both native Office files and PDF formats." More
Who's Bending to Who? ... Michael asks whether collaboration applications bend to the will of the users, or the other way around. "What the IBM survey data really suggests is that there is still a high level of frustration when it comes to making enterprise applications bend to the needs of the business. Far too often, business users have to bend to the way enterprise software works. At the end of the day, that only serves to stifle business process innovation because, right now, it’s still too hard to get the software to execute the business process just the way you want it. So are we really making any progress when it comes to collaboration, or are we just spinning our collective wheels?" More
Ribbon in SharePoint 2010 ... Peter comments on some of the upcoming changes in SharePoint 2010. "SharePoint gets that spit shine in its upcoming new version. SharePoint 2010, now in beta, is a tremendous improvement in all respects. It's slick, sporting a new interface that pulls in the ribbon UI that has become a staple of the Office suite in Office 2010, and it's snappy, responding quicker than ever to design or administrative needs. It also logs solid improvements in the areas of central administration and site development." More
Justifying Governance ... Brien offers some suggestions about how to quantify the benefit of a SharePoint governance plan: regulatory compliance, legal protection, and fewer help desk calls, among others. "In a lot of ways, the justification for a governance document is a lot like the justification behind implementing SharePoint in the first place. If your organization is using SharePoint, you must have had some good reasons for employing it. If those rationales worked before, they will probably work now. Maybe your organization needed a good content management tool, or maybe it needed individual departments to be able to create websites on the fly. Whatever the reason, somebody used it as a justification for implementing SharePoint. You may be able to use similar reasoning to justify your SharePoint governance document." More
Collaboration Demonstration ... CubeTree is providing a collaboration environment for attendees at the SAP for Utilities conference. "UtilityCollaboration is divided into several topic groups, some of which will follow the subject matter at the conference. Through this technology, conference attendees will have real-time access to presentations, videos and special blog posts, wikis, chat, search, document sharing, links, tweets, polls, feeds and featured articles. Another set of topic groups will also be released, which will allow utility companies to collaborate freely on specific topics during the conference and beyond. Here, members will share experiences, develop best practices and work on common industry issues." More
Co-Working for Collaboration ... Co-working offers collaboration benefits. "The creative, knowledge economy thrives when cross-fertilization of ideas happens. Sharing a water cooler or coffee pot with people who have different backgrounds, jobs, and ways of thinking may spark new ideas and original solutions to problems. This is precisely what happens when groups of self-employed individuals and micro-sized businesses comprised of only a handful of people share office space or “co-work.”" More
Cisco's Collaboration Strategy ... A review of the philosophy underlying Cisco's internal collaboration strategy. "Cisco's betting big on collaboration that draws manager input from all levels as the main driver for its strategy to grab new markets. And it's taking a decentralized, rather than top-down, tack. The approach is stirring a sharp upturn in executive productivity and creativity. This hints that other firms may gain by following Cisco." More
- It's driven from the top ... John, the CEO.
- New executive boards make group decisions about Cisco's strategic direction.
- Cisco is able to make quicker, more informed decisions this way.
- Cisco promotes the internal use of web technologies to support collaboration.
Collaboration ROI ... Bob offers some ideas about demonstrating the value of collaboration tools, and cites some examples. "Clearly, the benefits of collaboration can be difficult to measure. For example, how do you assign a value to something like the increased productivity that results from more effective sharing of knowledge among employees? Or how do you know how much the company has gained from ideas generated by customers? One easy answer is: You don’t need to measure these things. Just put the technology in place that enables better collaboration and you’ll reap benefits in ways that don’t need to be measured. Take a leap of faith and assume that any technology that fosters better communication and knowledge sharing in the organization will ultimately prove to be well worth the cost. But in case that doesn’t fly with the finance people, there are more orthodox ways to measure and demonstrate the benefits of collaboration tools." More
US Bank Dumps SharePoint for Lotus ... US Bank is rolling out Lotus Quickr and Connections to its 58,000 employees, and removing SharePoint. "More than 5,000 sites running Microsoft Sharepoint will be converted to Lotus, according to US Bank. Redmond was IBM's rival bidder for handling the bank's social tools. US Bank will also upgrade all staff systems to Lotus Notes 8.5 - from a mishmash of older versions of Notes and Domino it had accumulated through acquisitions over the years." More
- US Bank was already a Notes/Domino customer (albeit with an old version).
Novell Teaming 2 ... Novell released Version 2 of Novell Teaming, its collaboration environment. "With new features including enhanced workflows, relevance dashboards and branded workspaces, Novell Teaming rounds out the company’s suite of collaboration solutions and allows employees to generate, act on and preserve ideas and information to maximize enterprise productivity." Available immediately. More
Phone and Email ... Forrester found that American workers use the phone and email as their primary means of business communication. "Instant messaging trailed behind, with less than 25 percent of workers using the tool with some frequency. About 10 percent of workers said they use video conferencing technology at work, and only 15 percent reported using social networks at work. This is interesting, especially considering that a large number of respondents (30 percent) said they work in teams where members are in different locations, and 11 percent said they work regularly with employees of other firms. The results suggest that IT managers may be out of synch with their workforces, and as a result, they should ensure that workers have the ability to work in distributed teams. IT managers also should find out why these new communication tools are unused, the article states, as the problem could be issues with training or the technology itself." More
IQJam in Beta ... Elguji released the beta for IQJam, its question and answer social networking software. "IQJam is the perfect solution for organizations looking to capitalize on the knowledge of their employees. The concept is amazingly simple - people ask questions and other people answer them. Questions and their answers can be voted up or down. Voting allows the IQJam community to identify questions that they would like to see answered. Voting on answers helps identify the correct answer as well as eliminate ones that may be incorrect. Once the correct answer has been entered, it is marked by the user as being "answered"." More, Product Page
Multi-Touch on Notebooks ... James questions the value-add of multi-touch capabilities on notebook computers. "Regular users will find the Windows 7 touch features to be cool, at first. Executing things by gesture on the screen looks pretty special, and is something new and exciting. The excitement only lasts for a while, however; then the reality sets in that it’s not comfortable to keep reaching out to the screen and touching it. Notebook ergonomics didn’t evolve with direct screen manipulation in mind, and you soon start to feel that. You find that you quickly go back to using the touchpad and keyboard to do things like before. In other words — the novelty wears off pretty soon and it’s back to business as usual, with the touchscreen rarely touched." More
AOL Lifestreaming ... AOL announced that its lifestreaming capabilities will be released into the AIM product line on September 22. "The lifestream is AOL's way of melding instant messaging with social streams from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube Digg, and Flickr. Initially it was just one-way, but recently AOL turned on two-way communications for Twitter and Facebook in the AIM beta so that you can update your status on those two services from within AIM. The beta is being used by about 150,000 people. On September 22, those features will be rolled out across the entire AIM user base of 20 million people." More
- The iPhone app for AOL Lifestream is now available.
My article for Messaging News (September 2009) is now up ... it's an update on the mobile and wireless access article I wrote three years ago.
"Three years ago I wrote about the state of play with mobile and wireless device access to collaboration systems, such as instant messaging, collaborative workspaces, and customer relationship management (CRM). By “mobile and wireless device” I was referring to small form-factor devices, such as smartphones and PDAs, rather than their bigger brethren, the laptop. The general rule I proposed was “whenever a group of users make a system their habitat for collaborative work, mobile access will probably be required.” At that time I ultimately concluded that mobile and wireless access to instant messaging and CRM systems was pretty good, but access to collaborative workspaces was pretty bad. The purpose of this article is to review what’s happened during the past three years and give a state of play as of August 2009."
I'm Michael Sampson - a Collaboration Strategist. Welcome to my web site. I advise clients on Making Collaboration Work, with an emphasis on culture, governance, and adoption. - View Michael's Profile - Read Michael's Blog
Michael's Books
Michael has written various books on strategies for making collaboration work. The three latest are:
Doing Business with IBM Connections
Opportunities for Improving Processes, Driving Results, and Achieving Great Outcomes with IBM Connections 4.5
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Doing Business with IBM Connections In-house Workshop
Doing Business with IBM Connections In-house Workshop