Michael Sampson on Collaboration

SAP StreamWork for Direct Relief International: To Focus and Accelerate Projects

2012-02-10T17:00:00+13:00

SAP StreamWork published a case study on how Direct Relief International is using SAP StreamWork for collaborative decision-making:

"Humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief International has been bringing critically needed medicines and supplies to people affected by poverty, disaster or civil unrest for more than 60 years. In 2010, the organization selected SAP software to help it get personnel and supplies to the right places and people as efficiently as possible. With thousands of clinics located in 72 countries and all 50 United States and hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment and medicines, SAP software helps Direct Relief track every item from its warehouses to the final destinations with a level of precision that has helped the organization consistently score 100 percent in fundraising efficiency as rated by Forbes magazine and the prestigious 2010 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation.

Recently, the organization opted to try a new SAP solution – the SAP StreamWork collaborative decision-making application – to help focus and accelerate projects among teams that are distributed across states and countries. Previously, the Direct Relief team members had been using Microsoft SharePoint for collaboration. However, while they found SharePoint useful as a general portal or intranet, when it came to managing the flow of communications and projects, especially for a distributed group, they preferred the more structured environment of SAP StreamWork.

"We were looking for a solution that could help us drive projects forward," said Ross Comstock, IT director at Direct Relief. "It helps us quickly get a group of people together and focused on working through a problem, even if they're in different countries. For that purpose, SharePoint was too general. SAP StreamWork was much simpler, with a lot of tools built into it to drive decision-making. When I have a meeting with stakeholders, I can pop into SAP StreamWork and illustrate where we are on a project. It offers a simple way to tell a story, and it helps our communication with stakeholders.""

I've wrote about this idea last year in an article called "Don't Buy a Filing Cabinet If You Need a Heartbeat." I'll have to post that up here sometime :-)

Rules for Effective Meetings - Now at Google (gMeetings?) #meetings

2012-02-10T14:00:00+13:00

Larry Page of Google fame laid down the rules about how to run an effective meeting:

"- Every meeting must have one clear decision maker. If there's no decision maker -- or no decision to be made -- the meeting shouldn't happen.
- No more than 10 people should attend.
- Every person should give input, otherwise they shouldn't be there.
- No decision should ever wait for a meeting. If a meeting absolutely has to happen before a decision should be made, then the meeting should be scheduled immediately."

Good to see some common sense being advocated from the top.

I wonder if these rules apply to conference calls, and mixed physical/remote meetings? And I wonder too, given all the technology available to Google, if they have explored different ways of making decisions - without using a meeting per se?

Avaya UC on the Apple iPad - Wider Device Support Coming #ipad

2012-02-10T11:00:00+13:00

Avaya released an iPad client for its unified communications system:

"Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services, today announced the availability of Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad tablets. Avaya Flare Communicator broadens the next-generation user experience of the Avaya Flare Experience currently delivered on the Avaya Desktop Video Device, to include the market-leading consumer tablet. Avaya Flare Communicator provides mobile workers with secure, next-generation, unified communications and collaboration capabilities over both Wi-fi and 3G networks.

Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad tablets is enabled by the Avaya Aura® unified communications architecture, which delivers integrated applications to a broad range of fixed and mobile devices. Today, Avaya takes secure mobile collaboration a step further by making the Avaya Flare Communicator a download from the Apple App Store, with plans to extend to additional consumer devices and operating systems later this year."

Key capabilities: view presence, start interacting with people, search the directory, etc.

Available immediately.

European Firms on Methods of Delivering Learning #useradoption

2012-02-10T08:00:00+13:00

In my book, User Adoption Strategies, I talk about various ways of delivering learning content about new collaboration technologies and approaches to staff. The book also reports on my 2010 survey about the usage and perceived effectiveness of different strategies in the context of user adoption for collaboration tools. Net-net from the survey is that the more human, direct, and relevant the training / adoption work, the better.

Along those lines, I was interested to see recent research from Europe on learning methods forecasts an up-tick in blending learning approaches:

"The study, which questioned 103 senior L&D managers, HR managers and business education staff, across Europe, showed that blended learning (50 percent) was the most important channel for delivering training content today. This was closely followed by classroom based learning (44 percent), mobile learning (38 percent), and social learning (12 percent).

However the way staff are trained is expected to change by 2014. The data showed that 71 percent of respondents stated that “blended learning” – a mix of e-learning, mobile learning and virtual learning – will be the primary method of delivering training (an overall increase of 21 percent from what is delivered now). Meanwhile classroom training will dramatically fall to only 17 percent (from 44 percent). The data also highlights that one out of five organizations expects that “social and informal learning” will play a greater role in staff development too."

There's a white paper available about the results if you want more information.

Being Effective on the Road #travel @jasonwomack

2012-02-10T05:00:00+13:00

Jason Womack travels a lot (a lot, a lot), and he's summarized his tips for making the most of travel delays in an article for USA Today:

"Womack, who flew on 140 flights last year and trains for triathlons and long-distance races while traveling, is well-practiced at knowing how to eliminate wasted time during trips — so much so that he almost welcomes flight delays and the time spent waiting around.
"The real trick is to turn these pockets of time into opportunities to get real work done," says Womack of Ojai, Calif. "Not only does it alleviate the stress of the delays, but it allows you to remain productive. I call it doing what I have to do so that I can do what I want to do later."
Becoming a preferred airline, hotel and car rental customer is the first step toward saving and maximizing time, he says. Such status may provide priority boarding for a flight, expedited check-in at the hotel and rental car counter, and quicker service to resolve a problem if something goes wrong."

Specific tips include:
- become a packing minimalist
- own duplicate items
- always be ready to use 15-minute pockets of time
- learn something new
- ... and more

A Call to Organizations with IBM Connections - How Are You Approaching User Adoption? #connections #useradoption

2012-02-09T20:00:00+13:00

I am currently running a survey on how organizations approach user adoption for collaboration tools. Many people have filled out the survey in the past couple of months, but I only have 25 responses from organizations using IBM Connections. I know there are a lot more of you out there ... and I'm very interested to read the pulse on your approach.

Here's an offer for organizations with IBM Connections. If I can get more than 100 respondents using IBM Connections to complete the survey, I will run a special webinar just for IBM Connections customers on the survey results. The webinar will report on what organizations with IBM Connections are doing from an adoption perspective. If I get more than 200 responses, I will write up the findings in a report ... and give a free copy to every IBM Connections organization that completes the survey (and leaves contact details).

So, if you use IBM Connections ... please take the user adoption survey now.

Thanks much!

Turning 40 ... and Celebrating It Traveling Home from London to New Zealand (But Not Until March 17)

2012-02-09T17:00:00+13:00

I'm turning 40 next month ... on March 17 to be exact. There's a few others that are turning 40 this year too ... James, Jason, and Stuart to name a few, but I'll leave it up to them to out themselves when the time comes. Ah, yes, 1972 was a great year :-)

For my birthday, at the conclusion of a day of meetings in London on March 16, and after the Collaboration Masterclass in London on the 15th, I'll be flying from Heathrow to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Auckland. With the trip taking about 28 hours, my entire March 17th will be spent onboard the Air New Zealand jet (aside from 2-3 hours at the beautiful Hong Kong airport). When I get back to Christchurch on March 18, there will be a family birthday of some description (yet to be determined - depends how shattered I'll be).

So for my 40th birthday wish, to Air New Zealand - please can we have the new Black 777 for that trip? That would be awesome.

NextPage Acquired by Proofpoint - New Information Governance Solution Available

2012-02-09T14:00:00+13:00

Back in 2005 in the days of Shared Spaces Research & Consulting, I really liked the work done by NextPage on reducing document chaos (see here and here - although the latter link through doesn't work anymore). NextPage redirected its focus in the subsequent years, and while it did cool and necessary work around document compliance, it had moved out of the area of direct interest for me.

Anyway, Proofpoint recently announced it acquired NextPage, and it has a new information governance solution available based on the NextPage technology:

"Proofpoint Enterprise Governance uses patented, Digital Thread technology to fingerprint documents and track their versions and destinations across disparate systems. This technology is available via the cloud and is expected to be an integrated component of Proofpoint's cloud-based platform and application suite.
"Today information is everywhere. It's not just in central repositories, but on laptops and desktops, cloud-based file sharing services, SharePoint and other collaboration systems," said Gary Steele, CEO of Proofpoint, Inc. "Effectively securing, retaining and discovering this proliferation of content is a tremendous challenge for virtually all enterprises today. With Proofpoint Enterprise Governance, enterprises can now fingerprint and track information across disparate systems, enabling proactive information governance for compliance, data retention and eDiscovery."
Proofpoint Enterprise Governance helps enterprises control the legal and financial risks and eDiscovery costs related to unstructured information by defining and enforcing enterprise information governance policies. Proofpoint Enterprise Governance also helps to improve document policy compliance, and reduce retention costs by identifying and disposing of documents that are no longer needed."

Does Social Business Help or Hinder Findability?

2012-02-09T11:00:00+13:00

Fredric contemplates if fundability will suffer as Enterprise 2.0 and social business tools become mainstream:

"For me being a Linked Enterprise Data enthusiast I would bet a coin or two on that pragmatic way of bridge different data sets and uses. The Mashup Enterprise needs to engage in Information Management and Data partnership with preferred suppliers of services online and demand interoperability and features and options to develop Linked Enterprise Data. Without full access and applied access principles into these domains. It will be extremely difficult to deliver decent findability and seamless digital workplace user experiences. There will also be a learning curve to tutor the end users what tools to apply and when. Especially when platforms, spaces and habitats blend without depicted borders.

A couple of living examples:

1. The widely used mix of Yammer and Sharepoint, which makes sense because microblogging eases the pain to get cross talk compared to document-sharing which is the upbringing of the Sharepoint platform. Even if Sharepoint struggles in every incarnation to become a more socialable fellow on the block. Silo conversations resurrected, different platform but same social path. It is a nightmare to integrate these two seamingly easy to use platforms into one coherent way of working. Simple things as sharing links from Sharepoint into useful URL’s that engage people in conversations on the cross talk channel (Yammer), or populate the mySite features with a blend of contribution in either platform. Not only a silo appearance in a building block from Yammer. Lastly searching across the channels to find peers based upon their expertise and contribution? How? The integration becomes lipstick on a pig. How do one apply information lifecycle management when conversations reside in another service? Same goes for social-tagging features incorporated in Sharepoint. A good thing in their latest incarnation, but if you work for a company not Microsoft ONLY, you want your folksonomies develop in a platform agnostic manner. That isn’t stuck into one space?"

Windows 8 - DOA?

2012-02-09T08:00:00+13:00

Steven gives five reasons why Windows 8 will be dead on arrival:

"1. No one needs Windows 8 on the desktop.
2. Metro: An ugly, useless interface.
3. Where are the Windows 8 Applications?
4. Vexed Windows developers.
5. Too little, too late for the smartphone/tablet market

Add it up. The majority of Windows users have only just switched over from XP to Windows 7 in, at best, November 2011. Microsoft is now asking for its users to switch to a platform with no significant improvements, a radically different interface, and which is very likely to have few applications. The result? Window 8 will be dead on arrival."

Shame (but we'll wait and see). I was quite looking forward to it.