unstruc chitchatting about information delivery

Enterprise 2.0 - A Conference, Conversations and a lot of Common Sense

2009-11-06T16:19:00.000-08:00

This week the Enterprise 2.0 Conference made it's debut in San Francisco (it has been an annual event in Boston). I was only able to attend one of the days but got my fill of colleagues who work in the space that i have not seen for a while, vendors (expo hall had many new and 'old-timers') and got to attend some interesting sessions.

One of the things i love about Twitter is the value that it brings at conferences- both when you are physically there as well as when you are 'listening' in remotely. Commonly called the 'Back-Channel' attendees tweet their thoughts, location, what speakers are saying etc. The Enterprise 2.0 site has a handy 'Back Channel' page or a quick Twitter search on the #e2conf hashtag will let you read through some of the conversations occurring in the back-channel as well the 'reporting' that was done during sessions and post event. The days i was not there, i was tracking the conversation that way. Today i also spent some time reviewing various 'wrap-up' posts including:

Oliver Marks - The Enterprise 2.0 Value Propositions Agenda -
Andrew McAfee's Top Enterprise 2.0 No-No's - CMS Wire
Tony Bryne- Enterprise 2.0 Conference wrap up
Nenshad Bardoliwalla - Is Enterprise 2.0 a Savior or a Charlatan? How Strategy-Driven Execution can pave the path to proving legitimate business value (great post need to digest a bit more myself)

My own thoughts align with some of the criticism and frustration that can be heard about E2.0 that it is early, how do you define, what are the business values, etc. Do you have to give it a special name- or it is just for marketing purposes. Spending some time with the vendors in the expo hall- the business proposition is primarily productivity benefits, increasing sales, capturing knowledge- nothing new in the Enterprise software space but the key is that the user (enterprise user in the role of the consumer) is driving. Adoption is still a huge issue and although the 'wikification' method of enterprise penetration (Mary puts a wiki server under her desk, at 10 dollars for 10 users that grows to enterprise) has proven to be successful for some of these smaller vendors and it is still early on but the big platform vendors are quickly catching up.

From the start, the labeling of Enterprise 2.0 has been debated and for instance the panel titled "Is Enterprise 2.0 A Crock?" that featured internal evangelists from EMC, Eli Lilly, CSC Booz Allen, MetLife and Alcatel-Lucent was supposed to prove that it isn't- although it was good to hear these big name companies on a stage advocating and proving some benefits- i didn't manage to hear anything new and specific. That is why i enjoyed sessions like the one that Susan Bouchard from Cisco did on Enterprise Mashups Deliver Business Value: Cisco's Story (disclaimer Cisco has been a client of mine for a while).

Susan recently co-authored a book titled Enterprise Web 2.0 Fundamentals and the years that i have know her as been an advocate of adopting new technologies for Cisco- primarily sales teams. Susan's presentation had specific use cases on leveraging mashups (a technology that is included in the E2.0 'stack'). She also mentioned some of the work that my team has been doing around executive dashboards to deliver contextual data that incorporates mashup principles (Cisco is currently not a client of that solution).

Susan also made note of a recent publication by Cisco titled the Economics of the Cisco Collaboration Story: Case Studies of Web 2.0 Collaboration Initiatives where over $650 million in savings is sited based on their use of Web2.0 collaboration capabilities (this number includes things like reducing travel and the use of some of their own product lines (e.g. Webex)). Susan posted her slide deck on Slideshare (E2.0 presentations are locked down for attendees only-boooo) so here it is :

Enterprise Mashups Deliver Business Value

View more presentations from SusanBouchard.

Always good to be surrounded by like minded individuals and although i am sure i missed meeting many many many more because i was only on site for a day- i certainly enjoyed it and all the while making the brain juices flow which sometimes is hard to do when you are in front of a computer and talking to Enterprise clients about existing solutions (cause that is what they are ready for)- when the mind wants to explore and build the next thing!

Image|Flickr| Alex Dunne

November Equals Pumpkin, Taxonomy Bootcamp and Enterprise Search Summit

2009-11-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

I looked at the calendar yesterday and the realization that November is upon us hit me pretty hard. With November comes a lot of pumpkin (here is my new pumpkin addiction recipe for this year) and a few speaking spots before i go out on maternity leave (yeah yeah i can't believe it's already time either!).

Just like last year and the year before i will be attending and presenting at Enterprise Search Summit and Taxonomy Bootcamp which i am really looking forward to.

At Enterprise Search Summit West i have been asked to participate on a panel titled "Is Semantic Technology Real?" moderated by Rob Gonzalez from Endeca.

Is Semantic Technology Real?

10:45 am – 11:45 am

Moderator: Rob Gonzalez, Platform Product Manager, Endeca Technologies
Michael J. Cataldo, CEO, Cambridge Semantics
Daniela Barbosa, Business Development Manager, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones & Company
Lorenzo Thione, Founder / Principal Program Manager, Powerset / Bing Microsoft, Inc.

Semantic technology is all the rage, sometimes even dubbed “Web 3.0.” However, many people—especially those making technology decisions for enterprises—wonder whether semantic technology has meaningful applications in the enterprise. Based on hands-on experience working with semantic tools, this panel of experts will establish the boundaries between reality and hype and help you understand what enterprises can gain from semantic technology in the here and now.

At Taxonomy Bootcamp, i have been asked to be part of a panel that Wendi Pohs is running titled "From the Lighthouse: Visioneering Taxonomies’ Future which promises to be an engaging panel on the future of taxonomies. I have been in forward looking mode for the last few months so i have been thinking about this subject quite a bit.

From the Lighthouse: Visioneering Taxonomies’ Future

4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Moderator: Wendi Pohs, Chief Technology Officer, InfoClear Consulting
Daniela Barbosa, Business Development Manager, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones & Company
Jenny Benevento, Information Architect/Taxonomist, Sears Holding Company
Gia Lyons, Social Business Software Consultant, Strategic Consulting, Jive Software
Steve Ardire, VP Strategy & Business Development, Early Stage Semantic Technology Startups

Join Wendi Pohs and this panel of experts as they peer into the future of taxonomies. Each panelist concentrates on a specific area, including semantic management tools, consumer-driven taxonomies, social networking software, and emerging semantic technologies. We’ve asked these speakers to both enlighten and challenge you, so bring your thinking caps and questions.

It is not too late to register and you can use these codes for some discounts- Enterprise Search Registration with SPK5 code and Taxonomy Bootcamp registration with SPK5 code.

My sessions last year featured a Synaptica Case Study at Taxonomy Bootcamp titled "Proquest: Finding a Common Language: Bringing Complex and Disparate Vocabularies" (video available here) and at Enterprise Search Summit a presentation on Centralized Taxonomy Management for Enterprise Information Systems (video available here)

Looking forward to seeing everyone there including the Dow Jones Taxonomy Team (Dow Jones is a KMWorld sponsor- note: my speaking spots are not sponsored spots but by invitation of the moderators) and the Synaptica team who are exhibiting and sponsoring Taxonomy Bootcamp!

Image|Flickr| minipixel

Note this post is cross-posted on the SynapticaCentral Blog.

The ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit Thursday October 15th

2009-10-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

The list of attendees at The ReadWrite-Real-Time-Web Summit is certainly looking impressive and the event wiki already has a good list of topics that people want to discuss. The purpose of the event is to bring together some industry leaders to discuss the following:

The state of the art, science and business of the Real-Time Web;
Efforts to create standards and interoperability;
Challenges in user experience, technology and monetization.

I am really looking forward to attending and participating on Thursday. In my attempt to get smarter quickly :-), i have no doubt this event will meet my expectations- the combination of the RWW team, the participants listed and Kaliya Hamlin who is known for coordinating un-conference events it is sure to be worthwhile.

It is not too late to register and there is a discount code"RWWDiscount" that is good until end of day today, Tuesday Oct 13th.

If you are not located in the Bay Area you can also check out selected sessions throughout the day via a live video broadcast on ReadWriteWeb.

Twitter Cleanse. Back Refreshed but Dumber

2009-10-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

I kinda did it on purpose but definitely did it for longer then i originally anticipated- mainly because life got in the way- but i quit Twitter for a while (my last tweet was on August 23rd- WOW i can't believe it has been that long!!)

So every weekend for the last 3-4 weeks i have told myself, "Monday i get back on the bird"- but it has just not happened. I have also been less inclined to blog- all in the same cycle i guess. So what have i learned over the last two months with no Twitter participation? (every once in a while i would look at my stream to try to get myself back in the swing of things but with no avail):

I feel dumber. no honestly i do. much much dumber.
I went back to relying on Techmeme to keep up with what is happening in the industry- not 'real-time' because i don't visit the site 24/7 but definitely still a wonderful source to use (i also follow the stream on Twitter so i will go back to that)
Although i probably have spent more time reading longer, in-depth articles etc. without applying what i am reading with the community and listening/conversing about them it has less impact- so i felt dumber per my first point!
I crawled back to my Google Reader and noticed that many bloggers that i used to follow religiously aren't blogging as much- are they are on Twitter more? or like me on a cleanse with life in getting in the way? (yes there are many a blog post out there about the decline of formal blogging being replaced by Twitter)
I had a customer the other day dropped me a note- they were worried about me because i had been so 'quiet' - they missed my input because they followed me and subscribed to my blog and i had not been producing much. That was a nice reminder that i needed to motivate myself!
I have missed some major announcements- from people moving from one company to the next, new product enhancements, releases etc. eventually i find out but i was no longer one of the 'first' in the know
I miss it- i do. the conversations i have been having with myself are not as entertaining and provocative :-)

So...I am back on the bird. tweet. tweet.

Patrick Lambe's Survey on the Future of Taxonomy Work

2009-09-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

This post was originally posted on the SynapticaCentral Blog.

Patrick Lambe has been analyzing the knowledge, skills and experience needs of the taxonomy profession for a while and as part of this his work he is conducting a survey on the present and future of taxonomy work and the needs of taxonomy professionals. Patrick is the author of a great taxonomy development book titled "Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organizational Effectiveness" and an active writer on the topic of taxonomists and taxonomy development on his Green Chameleon blog.

Patrick, like some members of our own Dow Jones taxonomy team will also be Taxonomy Bootcamp in San Jose this November. Acording to his orginal request for survey responses, participants in the survey will also get a report of the results (which will include additional research beyond the survey). Patrick writes: "For those of you who believe that taxonomies still have a future, this might make interesting reading, and for those of you who believe a la Theresa Regli that “taxonomies are dead”, we’d like to hear from you on why!"

You can take the survey at http://tinyurl.com/taxonomywork

Image|Flickr|Jima

How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results

2009-09-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

Enterprise Web 2.0 is in the air lately which has lead me to two back to back posts on the topic. Yesterday McKinsey's report on 'How Companies are Benefiting from Web2.0' hit my inbox and today a bunch of bloggers, like Oliver Marks over on his excellent ZDNet Collaboration 2.0 blog and Stephen E. Arnold on Beyond Search have already picked it up for summary, comment and discussion.

The third in production this McKinsey report is focused on deriving measurable business benefits companies are getting from their Web 2.0 investments. The results are based on around 1,700 executive survey respondents and focused on deployment of these technologies in three ares:

Within their organizations
Externally, in their relations with customers
In their dealings with suppliers, partners, and outside experts

From the main summary:

"Their responses suggest why Web 2.0 remains of high interest: 69 percent of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues. Companies that made greater use of the technologies, the results show, report even greater benefits. We also looked closely at the factors driving these improvements—for example, the types of technologies companies are using, management practices that produce benefits, and any organizational and cultural characteristics that may contribute to the gains. We found that successful companies not only tightly integrate Web 2.0 technologies with the work flows of their employees but also create a “networked company,” linking themselves with customers and suppliers through the use of Web 2.0 tools. Despite the current recession, respondents overwhelmingly say that they will continue to invest in Web 2.0."

The results point to blogs, RSS, and social networks as important means of exchanging knowledge in the enterprise (i guess RSS is not Dead after all...at least not in the enterprise.) Below is a graph that outlines the technologies in play, with video taking the lead in use and things like tagging and Mash-Ups unfortunately trailing (could it be that the respondents where heavily business versus developer/technology types?). [click on image below for larger image]According to the report, adoption also continues to be an issue- which honestly is not that different then most enterprise initiatives around 'knowledge management'- just because you build it does not mean the people will use it.

Another focus on use of Web 2.0 technology that this report highlights is the use of technology to improve communications with suppliers and outside partners. I think this is an important aspect of the benefits of Web 2.0 for various reasons including ease and cost of setting up, familiarity of the technology by the users on both sides, and the ever growing need for companies to collaborate and build processes around suppliers and partners that are essential to their business continuity. Video, Social Networking, Blogs, RSS and Wikis take the expected lead in use for these business purposes: [click on image below for larger image]Some might be thinking- hey isn't Web 2.0 dead? Well remember it is only a marketing label and it definitely is not dead in the Enterprise as i have written before in various posts. Like Oliver Marks comments in his post on the report, the ‘Business and Web 2.0′ consulting landscape' continues to grow when you see the continuous attention of the big firms and the shoring up of smaller consulting outfits with super talent there is an obvious interest and need to use these technologies to enhance business operations.

Andrew McAfee New Book: Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges

2009-08-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago i downloaded the first chapter of Andrew McAfee's new book Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges that is scheduled to be published this fall (and i also joined the facebook group to move up the publication date because in today's world every week can make something like this less and less relevant!!). Since then i have talked with three different clients in which i make reference to the book because i think it would be a valuable resource for them.

I am and have been for a while a big fan of McAfee's work. Like him, i truly believe in the infiltration of consumer web tools into the enterprise. He however is a researcher and thought leader out of Harvard, i just get to implement information delivery, consumption and collaboration solutions within enterprises- and at times some companies that are quiet HUGE and slow moving. So having a resource like this new book with case studies is great value to me as i share and work with customers.

Reading through the first chapter and some of the reviews that he just posted from people that read the full book, i am really excited about the content and use cases that will be available that he promises will:

"show how leaders are applying new tools, new approaches, and new philosophies to challenges such as accurately predicting the future (in domains where traditional forecasting methods have a poor track record); creating, gathering, and sharing knowledge; increasing rates of innovation; locating answers and expertise; and identifying and solving problems more quickly."

Chapter 4 is going to be focused on how to succeed - because like with most projects in enterprises just because you build it doesn't mean the users will come, adopt it and receive value- planned rollout and adoption strategies post truly understanding user needs is required.

I am also very interested in learning more about McAfee's take on the industry that is bringing these tools to the market- a young industry that is becoming more and more embedded in the traditional application platforms (Microsoft, IBM, etc.).

If you are interested in reading more of McAfee's writing in addition to reading the introduction chapter you should subscribe to his Blog "The Business Impact of IT" i highly recommend it.

Flickr Slideshow Cures a Bit of Back Home Blues

2009-08-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Although i am lucky enough to live on the coast of California and am privileged enough to be able to walk down to the Pacifica beach and for example watch whales pretty frequently this summer, i still get a bit 'home' sick when i think about being back in Portugal especially because the coast line reminds me so much of where i grew up in Portugal (a bit south of Lisboa in a town called Paço d'Arcos). But a flickr slideshow cured it all this evening. (an early morning walk in 88 photos from our house to the beach pathway from Dec 2007).
Enjoy~

History of Business Intelligence

2009-07-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I was looking for some good business intelligence use cases as i worked on a client presentation on integrating external news, financial data, social media and internal business data to create what i am calling a 'one-page' executive leadership view and I came across this video presentation on the 'History of Business Intelligence' by Nic Smith.

Nic is a senior marketing manager for business intelligence solutions at Microsoft and obviously has some killer presentation skills. Definitely worth the 10 minutes- including a couple of chuckles.

View more documents from Nic Smith.

Where did i start my search? Slideshare of course. A great resource of smart people, with excellent presentation skills that feel that sharing with the community is more beneficial then hording their knowledge. thanks folks.

Bit.ly on This

2009-07-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

I have been using the URL shortener service bit.ly for a couple of months now and love it. bit.ly allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier when you are using Twitter or even sending links via email.

Aside from the convenience and usability issues it resolves, my favorite thing is being able to track the shortened links i publish. Great for seeing how many clicks i get from a Tweet post with a shortened URL but also for tracking who has clicked on the link i sent them. Recently i sent a shorten URL to a coworker, a couple days later in conversation i asked what they thought of the link i sent them, they answered that it was great. yes. i believe it that is, that is why i sent it to you. but not that you actually read it. nope according to my bit.ly tracker you never clicked on it. oops.

Image|Flickr|Janrito Karamazov

Speaking at eComXpo Free Virtual Show This Week

2009-07-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

This Thursday at 11:20EST, i will be conducting a session with Jonathan Kranz on day two of eComXpo which is virtual show for "e-commerce and affiliate marketers that addresses the latest trends and issues in marketing for retailers, affiliates and networks". [registration is free so join us!]

The title of our session is "Now You’re Cooking: How A Dow Jones eBook Boosted Brand And Tripled Lead-Gen Expectations" which is a case study of the ebook i published last June with Dow Jones titled "The Taxonomy Folksonomy Cookbook: Finding the Right Recipe for Organizing Enterprise Metadata".

Jonathan was instrumental in the copy writing and concept design of that ebook as well as the most recent one "The Conversational Corporation: How Social Media is Changing the Enterprise" that i cowrote with Robert Scoble, Shel Israel and Greg Merkle. Jonathan is spectacular to work with and in this session he will share with the audience some of the tips that he shared with us as we were putting together and publishing our own successful ebooks.

The session summary from the conference agenda reads as follows:

If content is king on the Web, then what’s the royal road to online success? For Dow Jones, the secret was an ebook strategy that positioned them for leadership--and resulted in three times the number of downloads and leads than they had expected. Co-hosts Jonathan Kranz, author of Writing Copy for Dummies, and Daniela Barbosa, Business Development Manager for Dow Jones’ Synaptica, share their insights on:
How a traditional company is reinventing its content/copy through ebooks
Uncovering opportunities for competitive distinction through thought-leadership
How to leverage expertise to build brand, generate leads and lubricate the sales process pipeline
The crucial power of killer graphics — why ebooks are more than mere whitepapers
Promotional power — leveraging Web ads, social media, webinars, personal appearances and more to accelerate success

I am really looking forward to conducting this session with Jonathan, he certainly has a lot to share with everyone based on what he has learned over the years in producing projects for various types of clients and we will be sharing some real stories that came out of the two ebooks i have written over the last year. 'See' you there!

Siri, a Virtual Personal Assistant

2009-07-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

Ever so often i see an iPhone application that makes me want to go off and buy one (i am still on Blackberry because it is the work standard). I have an iTouch in which i test and play with applications, etc. but since it requires wifi it is limited as to the universal use for applications.

I got to see the 2nd public demo of Siri, a Virtual Personal Assistance at the Semantic Technologies conference a couple weeks back that i have been mentioning to a lot of folks. I just found the slide deck that Tom Gruber used as well as the keynote video which is worth a view if you want to see what the future holds for us in regards to connected information retrieval and delivery.

During the presentation Tom Gruber outlines what it takes to put an application like the Siri Virtual Personal Assistant together and why the time is right for Siri and others. The enabling conditions that he outlines include: [@minute 6:49]

Location Awareness
Time Awareness
Task Awareness
Conversational Interface
Speech to Text
Text to Intent (natural language processing)
Dialog Flow
Semantic Data
Services APIS
Task & Domain Models
Access to Personal Information (data portability)

Video demo starts at about 8 minutes:

Interested in learning more? See additional coverage of Siri.

Making Money on Twitter US$1,441.62 per tweet

2009-06-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

This morning i read that Dell Sold $3 Million in sales through Twitter an accomplishment that should be acknowledged and is import for other B2C businesses to admire and try to replicate. $3 million is a small amount to Dell but still relevant (about .5% of their annual revenue of $61M )- since they are just getting started with the medium . {CORRECTION-thanks to Sandro: revenues 61B not $61M, and thus this is only 0.005% (one part in 20,000) of their revenue.] They use other social media channels as well so based on the viral nature of Twitter into other channels (Facebook, blogs, Youtube etc.) it probably is a combination of the originating points of the promotion codes on Twitter spreading out.

But let's say that the average PC purchase is $800 bucks. Using that average (i made that up) through Twitter they acquired ~ 3,750 customers. Depending on their retention and loyalty rates, long term these consumer acquisitions can be even worth more.

So i checked out their Dell Twitter accounts, and there are multiple Twitter channels- 34 of them on the Dell on Twitter page and that is not counting other Dell 'employees', 'fans' and 'followers' that are not listed that retweet. Just looking at the 'Dell Offers on Twitter' category, there are 10 separate accounts. Between theses 10 twitter accounts as of this morning about a total of 2,081 tweets had been published across those 10 accounts- so if my math is correct, Dell netted about $1,441.62 per tweet. Not bad for 140 characters.

Image|Flickr|striatic

Rutgers Drops “Library” from Name of School

2009-06-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Rutgers University Board of Governors approved a resolution April 2 removing the words “library studies” from the name of the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies. Effective July 1, its name will be the School of Communication and Information. The school’s faculty had voted 30–10 in favor of the name change at a February 4 faculty meeting. - posted on ALA site

As a graduate of the MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science) program at the Rutgers School of Communication, Information and Library Studies(SCILS) i am disappointed by this change. The article states that one of the reasons was that people thought that it was solely a library school- that is not a problem of the library studies program but a product of the school not being to define why Library Studies is just as important as the Communications and Information part of the program and that Library studies requires specific skills sets that the marketplace needs.

Image|Flickr|ksscils598s08

Semantic Technologies Conference in San Jose, CA June 14-18th

2009-06-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Just like last year, I am very excited about the upcoming Semantic Technology Conference in San Jose on June 14th-18th. The program looks great and aside from attending many sessions and i am also going to be very busy!

Starting on Sunday, June 14, 2009 from 02:00 PM - 04:00 PM we kick-off with the Semantic Code Camp, an event that is free for non-conference attendees as well (register here).

On Monday, June 15th from 6:00-8:00pm, The DataPortability Project is hosting a DataPortability get-together. As an added bonus, when you register to attend this meetup, you will get access to Chris Saad’s conference session "It's Time for Social Media to Become Personal Media" which takes place prior to the meet-up (5:00pm-6:00pm). You will have access to the full conference and you will be able to also network with all the other attendees. You need to register to get access into the conference center for the session and get-together. (contact me with questions)

On Tuesday, June 16, 2009 from 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM , i am super excited about being on a panel moderated by Paul Miller titled "Semantifying Social Networks" with Nova Spivack, Stephen A. Leicht and Amit Sheth. (for this session you need to be a conference attendee, please see below)

Interested in attending the full conference? Use the DataPortability Discount code: ST9DP . It will give the user $200 off a “full event” or “conference only” registration fee and $100 off a “tutorial day only” fee.

For example: If you are also interested in attending a full Semantic Search Day on Wednesday. Use the code to get you $100 off the day price of $195- costing only $95!

Here is what i look like, come find me if you want to chat~ See you in San Jose!

Conversational Corporation Roundtable Wrap-Up

2009-05-28T10:19:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon i had the privilege to moderate a panel discussion with David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Author of World Wide Rave; Shel Israel, Best selling author of Naked Conversations and the upcoming book Twitterville and David Spark, Tech Journalist and Founder of Spark Media Solutions as well as about 15 attendees from different verticals, job roles and levels of participation in the use of social media.

David Libby, one of the attendees has a detailed posted based on the notes he took that provides an excellent overview of the discussions that took place. We also recorded the session via Ustream.tv, which i have embedded below.

The Roundtable discussion was a chance to learn from the attendees and the panelists what companies need to think about and how they need to approach being a 'Coversational Corporation'. The title comes from a recent ebook that i published with Shel Israel (one of the panelists), Robert Scoble and Greg Merkle called the The Conversational Corporation: How Social Media is Changing the Enterprise'.

I started off the discussion with introductions, asking the participants to tell us what they would like to get out of the discussion, the list was diverse and included:

How invested do we want to be from the start?
How do we work with our legal departments? (we had a good conversation about legal being very good at focusing on 'risk' and that we still have issues going to trial)
What are some of the non-traditional ways to do business using social networking
How do you bring it all together? (tools, messages, initiatives)
How do you stay ahead of your clients? (especially important for professional services providers)
Transcending Time-zones with social media for global companies and clients
Non-profit use of social media
Social Media-> how different is it from PR?
Using Social Media to coordinate and promote events
How to get your Salesforce into the conversation?
Things to keep in mind when thinking about using social media in a regulated industry
Focusing on the Story.....instead of the Tools!

I think we covered most of the questions that initially were put on the board and was pleased with both the pace and the participation of all the attendees.

To watch the video of the roundtable discussion, make sure you turn up the volume both on your PC as well as on the player below because some of the people in the back are sometimes hard to hear.

After the roundtable discussion and some drinks and appetizers out on the lovely sunny patio we got to take the participants on a tour of the Palo Alto Wall Street Journal printing plant which is always a treat!

A big thank you to all the attendees, panelists and internal Dow Jones people that made this event happen!
More photos from the event can be found here.

VRM and Request for Taking Control of My Purchasing Power

2009-05-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended the VRM (Vendor Relationship Management) Workshop in Palo Alto. The workshop sessions were great and i left even more excited and invigorated about the possibility and opportunities with the concept of VRM for consumers and the marketplace in general.

One of the session topics was the Personal 'RFP' (Request For Proposal). I have been keeping an eye on the VRM conversation for a while and Personal RFPs is a topic that comes up often as a concept, so i was excited that Doc Searls was leading a session on the topic.

An early post from 2007 on the subject from an active participant in the VRM project Keith Hopper defines the Personal RFP as follows which i think it a good summary of our discussion yesterday:

The idea is simple: have the individual consumer dictate what they want and at what price. Let the vendors who can match this need come to them rather than the other way around. Product marketers currently have an annoying habit of telling us what we need and then inundating us with a sea of unsolicited communications around products we may not want. Removing this vendor behavior would reduce an unwanted advertising burden on the consumer (annoyance) as well as on the marketer (cost). This should decrease total unit costs, and by extension the cost to the consumer.

The idea of the 'Personal RFP' is to have an outbound channel (and we spent time in other sessions at the workshop defining some of those possible channels) that would allow the consumer to explicitly announce to Vendors what they are looking to buy. A simple statement such as:

I want ____ in ___(city,Lat/Long) between___&___(day&time) for $___.

During the session we discussed the different purchasing needs of a consumer- for example when buying a car, you may have a long list of specifics (i want a car that gets more then x miles per gallon, have X cylinders, leather interior, 3 yr warranty, etc.) or something more more simple which might not be as affected but product details (i want Linseed oil).

A consumer may also be at a different point in their purchasing decision- they can be looking for a camera and have done no research on what they need and therefore would put a very generalized statement ' I want a digital Camera in San Francisco by the end of the month for no more then US$250.00' or they have a specific camera model in mind 'I want a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a Car Battery Charger CBC-E6 in San Francisco by Friday May 22th for US$2,550'.

So during the discussion we spent some time talking about the different types of 'requests' that a consumer could possibly want to make of their vendors. Much like in a corporate enterprise 'RFP' process (which over the years btw i have answered hundreds of!!) there could be different types of requests based on where the 'buyer' is such as:

Request for Information- e.g. i would define this as a high level request for information from a vendor to understand what they offer, this could lead to a customized landing page for the consumer for example with the vendor's products
Request for Quotation - e.g. i would define this as providing price points for a specific product that the consumer knows they want- this could lead to a custom page that present a customized 'coupon' for that specific product for that consumer for a limited time
Request for Proposal- e.g. i would define this as the consumer defining their needs in detail based on their intended use of the product and having the vendor identify solutions that would meet those needs and help guide the consumer to buying the product that fits their needs.

One of the things that popped into my head that i certainly would want to make sure this process would avoid would be a 'Request for Spam' (although i realize that some consumers may actually enjoy shopping that way- all about choices!)

There of course would probably be other types of 'Requests' as VRM services are made available in the marketplace to consumers and during the day we discussed some of those models that are being worked on by project members. Workshop Notes will be posted on the wiki.

If you are interested in the topic as it continues to mature and become a reality (and trust me based on the workshop we will be seeing some real life example of VRM in action soon) please poke around on the Project VRM wiki and/or subscribe to the ProjectVRM Blog.

Image|Flickr|CarySkelton's photos|Why? Well the obvious message of the Kinks song titled 'You Really Got Me' but also that Bruce has been taking audience song requests that create this type of view in the front of the stage- personal requests for songs!

Real Life Twitter

2009-05-14T18:00:00.001-07:00

Lately my husband, in an attempt to obviously connect with me more over my Twittering habit has taken to yelling things out loud in a monotone voice like 'starting to make dinner by myself. lol' from the other room to get my attention away from the computer or 'OMG i just found the best shoes. and on sale!' when i pickup a new pair.

So of course, I just laughed hysterically as i watched this clip- on what would happen if the way we communicate on Twitter was the way we communicated in real life.

Hey at least we would talk to one another more- even if it was uni-directional!

Copyright Through the Ages

2009-05-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

This week at the CODIE awards dinner for SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) we got a preview of their newest anti-piracy campaign video- an updated version of their 1992 'Don't Copy that Floppy' classic video that certainly had everyone in the room laughing (either because we remember seeing it, we all really miss floppies or because the rapping 'Digital Protector' is just too much!).

Copyright laws are not new, it is just that as media evolves it different characteristics and capabilities that would have been unimaginable (even in 1992 when the floppy copy was an issue!). So it was with great interest that i came across this site about Copyright History which is a digital archive of primary sources on copyright from the invention of the printing press (c. 1450) onwards.

From the Scout Report Summary where i found the reference:

This website, initially funded by the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Council, uses primary source material from Italy, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States to trace the beginnings of copyright. For each of these geographical zones/jurisdictions, a national editor was responsible for "selecting, sourcing, transcribing, translating and commenting documents." Documents found here include "privileges, statutes, judicial decisions, contracts and materials relating to legislative history, but also contemporary letters, essays, treatises and artefacts." To get visitors oriented to the immense topic at hand, a compact interactive timeline has been provided. At the bottom of the page visitors should click on "The Timeline Interface" to view the full timeline. Moving the gray vertical bar over each 50 year time segment will show all the copyrights for that 50 year period. A high arc in the time period indicates a lot of activity for that time segment. There are colored dots to indicate the country the material is from, and rolling the mouse over each dot will reveal the full record. The site is loaded with information, and various ways to search for material. Searching by "date" and "place" is one way to search. See the menu on the left side of the page to see the available search and browse options, such as "country", "original language", "person", and "place".

The Conversational Corporation How Social Media is Changing the Enterprise

2009-05-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

If you are a longtime reader of my blog, you know that i have been writing about the intersection of consumer information tools and the enterprise since early 2006 and that the topic is one that is very dear to my heart- so i am very pleased to annouce this new ebook today.

Although it seems like only yesterday, it was in early winter of 2007 that the title of our new ebook 'The Conversational Corporation' came to mind based on an on-site visit to Sun Microsystems with Robert Scoble, Greg Merkle and myself, three of the four authors of our newest ebook 'The Conversational Corporation: How Social Media is Changing the Enterprise'. The fourth author Shel Israel was brought in later on when Robert suggested that we use this ebook as a follow-up to their Naked Conversations book published in 2006 that was focused on Social Media, especially blogging for mostly a corporate audience (and what a difference it made in corporate blogging- i know i personally gave over 20 customers copies!!). In addition to the previous collaborations with Robert, Shel had also been doing a lot of work with Enterprise companies and had interviewed more than 300 people in 38 countries on social media’s impact on culture and business that we were lucky enough to leverage for this ebook.

In the ebook which is available for free download, we look at ways that corporate employees are communicating and collaborating, and we discuss their impact on the 'Corporation'—particularly on the changing expectations of customers and employees. I am a believer that there is a very true intersection between business and social media in today's enterprise employee toolkit that is needed for their day to day work and i think that the ebook does a good job of outlining some of these opportunities.

Out of that session (the image is from the whiteboard that day), Robert's “Starfish Approach” is covered and it is a concept that i have been sharing with customers that certainly resonates with them as they begin to put together an information strategy that uses multiple tools : “...like a starfish, your organization should be able to grow, adapt and even abandon new tools (“legs”) without threatening the health of the larger organism”.

The ebook took a while to publish due to various issues (mostly time constraints on 4 plus people's schedules!) and even this weekend as I reviewed the final version there are many things that i would have liked to add which i will cover here on this blog in the upcoming weeks. The original idea was to do a themed design like my 'Folksonomies and Taxonomies in the Enterprise' ebook, the layout for this ebook however is simple- but hopefully you find the content and the ideas we explore useful and valuable enough to 'start' the conversation about how you can create a "Conversational Corporation' within your own companies.

We look forward to your thoughts and ideas on how to enable and drive a 'Conversational Corporation'- Enjoy!

Additional photos from the session (thanks to Carolyn Flynn) can be seen here.

Everything is Broken...Still

2009-04-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was on holiday in Europe for the last two weeks (with some work days with the local offices in some countries that i visited) and feel like i need a vacation from my holiday....anyway...i have tons to go through in my RSS reader but this one this morning was worth 20 minutes. funny real stuff. i agree with Seth Godin- not much has changed since he recorded this in 2006. enjoy.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Ada Lovelace Day Bringing Women in Technology to the Forefront

2009-03-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Last night on my way home i was thinking about Ada Lovelace. Ada Lovelace Day is today March 24th and the purpose is to have an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. A couple months ago i signed the pledge, to honor Ada Lovelace and promote women in technology.

So "Who was Ada Lovelance"?
Ada Lovelace was one of the world's first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

So why does it matter to me that Ada Lovelace was a woman? If the same work had been done by a man would i be just as interested to celebrate his success?

Probably not- they are hundreds and thousands of men who we celebrate for their historical and modern 'accomplishments'- but not a lot of women. Ada Lovelace, is one of the few whose name has become well known, but there are many others who i respect and admire, many who have had a direct impact on me either throughout the years or more recently through the various organizations i work with. Women like Clare Hart and Christine Connors at Dow Jones who affect myself and the company i work for day in and day out in how they help push our company forward by utilizing technology. And then there are all the great women i have met at events like She's Geeky like the woman who runs that conference Kaliya Hamlin who is involved and a leader in so many technology organizations- unselfishly pushing and advocating for what she believes in. There are so many other women that i follow, admire, and am inspired by....hopefully they know who they are.

Ada- i thank you.

See other post coming in from bloggers who made the pledge. (via google blogs)

Ada Lovelace|Flickr|Nefi
Ada Lovelace|Lego|Flickr|Dunechaser

They Don't Own It. You Don't Own It. But Perhaps We Need to Redefine and Standardize It.

2009-02-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

I just finished posting my first post over on the DataPortability Project Blog titled Redefining and Standardizing ‘Ownership’. The DPP Blog has been live since December and the guys have been doing a great job covering things that are important to the Project. Honestly, i haven't had the time in addition to all the other things i have been doing on behalf of the Project to blog, but this afternoon i went ahead (with some encouragement from the chat room) and posted my thoughts on the recent changes that Facebook made to their Terms.

The latest Facebook step (misstep?) occurred last week when they made some changes to their Terms of Service and one of the items of contention by many is the following statement:

“You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. “

The Consumerist Blog posted on the subject yesterday and today many have been commenting. and facebook themselves have made public comments and started a discussion board to address questions from users.

It is obvious that as a community we need to redefine and standardize the way we define and award rights to ownership of data and this is one of the reasons that i am involved in the DataPortabilty Project [and currently serve as the Chairperson of the Steering Committee]. I realize that it has been common in the world of the internet to let 'Vendors' own what goes into their EULAs and TOCs- but we shouldn't continue to let that be. More thoughts over there.

With the Web 2.0 Label At Least I Knew What to Look For

2009-02-14T15:32:00.000-08:00

Recently i had lunch with a customer that we had just finished delivering a taxonomy advisory project that focused on their 'retail employee' portal. I have known this customer for a while and the folks that work there are pretty tech savvy so of course during lunch a bunch of things came up in regards to the gadgets and tools we use in our day to day life and at work.

During lunch, one of them asked me a question that i had not been asked in a while- what was the "coolest and newest" application that i had been using and would recommend? After a couple seconds of awkward silence, I said that i really didn't really have an answer for something 'new'. In regards to services that i have been using more and more and find extremely valuable i mentioned things LinkedIn that have used for years (highlighting the new features which i love), SlideShare and Twitter (and Twitter apps) of course....but what else? We talked a little about the iPhone of course and even Facebook- but there wasn't anything i could point to that provided a great new service- especially for use by the enterprise user.

Today's post on the "Death of Web 2.0" on TechCrunch reminded me of that conversation. In that post, the author points out that more and more companies are not using the term as part of their pitch to get covered and and according to the Google trends analysis the author did it shows that less people are searching on the term. I have always used "Web 2.0" as a marketing label- not as a description of technology per say- so i wonder what are companies indeed labeling themselves? "Social Media" and "Social Networking" are probably used more and more, but what else?

So i still feel 'out-of-the-loop' so perhaps it is:

there is no new label like 'Web 2.0' to latch on to?
or maybe there just isn't a lot of services that are coming out that excite me?
i have my head in my arse?
the 'channels' that i am still dialed into are not doing their jobs and online coverage of new products and services are lacking
i don't know where to look [perhaps you can help me with this one?]

Lately, I don't find TechCrunch to be doing the same job it used to do in covering new services (there is too much drama lately maybe because i get suckered into reading stupid comments!). TechCrunch Enterprise which i had been waiting for since 2006 just hasn't gotten me excited as i wanted it to. i read other sites like ReadWriteWeb (a daily must read) and Mashable and the people i follow on Twitter are also invaluable to me to find new products services. But why am i just not that excited about most of products and services that they are covering?

Image|Flickr|An Era passed (record labels) by Olivander [i recommend visiting Flickr page]

Check With Your Local Library First With This Updated Bookmarklet

2009-02-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a connection i made at the She's Geeky Conference last month Judith Bush sent me a message on twitter this afternoon about the new xISBN bookmarklet that OCLC has updated and that now supports thousands of libraries. According to the announcement it will be updated on a monthly basis so if a library maintains up-to-date information in the Registry, its data will be automatically reflected in xISBN bookmarklet that has been installed by the user.

Is was only 12 months ago that i found this handy tool, and i can say that i have already probably saved hundreds of dollars by getting books from my local library that typically i would buy from the likes of Amazon. If i could find a combination of this and buying chapters and 'sections' of books that i would like to keep digitally for my digital devices like my laptop, itouch and 'dreaming of getting a kindle' - i would be in heaven!

So what does this Bookmarklet tool do? Here is an excerpt from my post on February17th 2008 on the subject:

So let's imagine that i am on Amazon.com and i am looking at David Weinberger's book 'Everything is Miscellaneous'. I don't have a Kindle so no easy download for me- and perhaps i am not sure i want to commit to having a copy in my book collection before i read it (well this book i actually do-and well marked it is!).

So before purchasing of Amazon.com, I decide to see if my local library system- in my case the Peninsula Library System (PLS)- has the book available. Clicking on the Peninsula Library Bookmarklet i installed- extracts the ISBN from the URL on the bookseller's page (Amazon in this example) and then goes to a library catalog and searches by ISBN.:
A search against the PLS Catalog shows me libraries in my Library System that i can borrow from that have the book in their collections. I can then cruise down to that location to pick it up, place a hold on the book if it is checked out, or put a request for interlibrary loan right from my browser. There are also many ebooks available from my PLS library system so i can get immediate access to those.