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Fixing Enterprise Search

Blog1521: September 4, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

A few days ago the Enterprise 2.0 Blog published Venkatesh Rao's excellent post The Real Reasons Enterprise Search is Broken. When he hears ironic jokes comparing search on the public Web versus internal enterprise search, Venkatesh notes: "People move on because they seem to think that this is incompetence at work. Search is soo 1.0 right? It's been solved and we're just fumbling the execution, right?" He says: "I have reached a radical conclusion: broken search is the problem, but fixing search is not the solution. Search breaks behind the firewall for social, not technical reasons... Let's start with the blindingly obvious, and then draw some weird conclusions." I think they are perceptive conclusions based on sound analysis, and agree with most, but come at the problem from a different angle.

This is what Enterprise 2.0 means: 3D

Blog1506: August 24, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

What you can see x Who you know = What you can do
With thanks to Jessica Hagy
Who created her great This is what 2.0 means drawing on Aug 14, 2010.

29 July 2010 | Enterprise 2.0 and Observable Work: Brian Tullis and Joe Crumpler, Burton Group Catalyst 2010 Santa Diego

Blog1461: July 29, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Brian Tullis and Joe Crumpler did a lively talk on Enterprise 2.0 and Observable Work at the Burton Group Catalyst 2010 North America conference in San Diego. For those of us who couldn't be there in person, see their Abstract quoted below and the enthusiastic Twitter stream from 29 Jul 2010! I'll add a link to their speaker notes and slides when they become available. Update: Brian posted Enterprise 2.0 and Observable work slides and speaker notes. For slides see inline Slideshare below. Sounded like a super session!

catatweet RT @gialyons Traditional process took 4hrs, 3 times/wk w/10 ppl=loss of 120 hrs of project labor. New #socbiz process saves #cat10. WOW!!! 26 minutes ago via Twittelator in reply to gialyons

mikerollings "observable work" - anybody that ever experienced "death by meetings" would appreciate this approach #cat10 26 minutes ago via Echofon

lcannell Observable work also enables better focused meetings (not just reduces them), more productive use of (expensive) F2F time #cat10 28 minutes ago via TweetDeck

MikeGotta Alcoa took a project that normally takes up to 18 months in 7 months #cat10 (QAD implementation in China using Traction TeamPage) 41 minutes via TweetDeck

catatweet Meetings suck! One outcome of observal work is that status is apparent to anyone that needs it #cat10 41 minutes ago via Twittelator

Intertwingled Work

Blog1424: July 5, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Last week's post by Jim McGee Managing the visibility of knowledge work kicked off a nice conversation on Observable Work (using a term introduced by Jon Udell) including: my blog post expanding on a comment I wrote on Jim's post; Brian Tullis's Observable Work: The Taming of the Flow based on a comment Brian made on Jim's post, which he found from a Twitter update by @jmcgee retweeted by @roundtrip; a Twitter conversation using the hash tag #OWork (for "Observable Work"); John Tropea's comment back to Jim from a link in a comment I left on John's Ambient Awareness is the new normal post; Jim's Observable work - more on knowledge work visibility (#owork), linking back to Mary Abraham's TMI post and Jack Vinson's Invisible Work - spray paint needed post, both written in response to Jim's original post; followed by Jack Vinson's Explicit work (#owork) and Paula Thornton's Enterprise 2.0 Infrastructure for Synchronicity.

To be continued Jim, Brian, John, Mary, Jack, Paula, Mark, Gordon, Rawn, Jose, JP, Tom, Deb and the rest of the World - over to you. The best way to follow the evolution of the Observable Work trail is Twitter's #OWork tag. All of the participant's seem to use Twitter as a commons linking posts that either directly respond to the Observable Work conversation, or are related in some interesting way, such as Tom Peter's Strategy: Space Matters ("who sits next to whom in your office can make a huge difference"), JP Rangaswami's Musing about learning by doing, Deb Lavoy's Common Operating Picture - share facts, debate possibilities, John Tropea's link to Keith Swanson's excellent slide set, and John's soon-to-be-published post on Adaptive Case Management.

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Intertwingled Work and Adaptive Case Management

Tuesday July 6, 2010: As promised, John Tropea posted a comprehensive analysis and synthesis on observable work and Adaptive Case Management (and much more) titled: Have we been doing Enterprise 2.0 in reverse : Socialising processes and Adaptive Case Management It's a great post that's long for a very good reason: John pulls together many themes with well-sourced references and quotes [ another apology to the easily distracted ]. I won't use this comment to summarize all of the points I find interesting and valuable - there's a lot to come back to! I'll will try to summarize one theme John develops that seems directly relevant to Intertwingled Work.

1) Adaptive Case Management is a data rather than process centric way of looking at how people deal with situations centered around a particular problem, issue, or case. It's intended to support people who need to make decisions that depend on complex and unpredictable circumstances associated with the case that require judgment and knowledge work rather than application of a deterministic process. Think of a doctor treating a patient.

2) Observable work can be thought of as an object of Adaptive Case Management, focusing discovery, analysis, requests for advice or assistance and recording of outcomes on the work itself. This centers collaboration on the case (or work object) rather than trying to create a fixed set of business rules or a rigidly repeatable transactional process where none exists. John quotes Ken Swenson:

" ... Because the process is emergent, you have to model the process using something that people can read, add to, and manipulate readily while they are doing other things. With knowledge work, it is not the case that you have a dedicated business analyst to work and get the process model just right; instead the actual case worker needs to do it on the fly."

3) Connecting collaboration to the object of observable work rather than a formal business process lines up very well with what Jordan Frank calls Emergineering! or Social Process Reengineering. Jordan describes the difference between Social and Business Process reengineering as the difference between orchestrating a unique response to the circumstances of a case, versus a futile attempt to capture a response as a rigid business process. Jordan quotes a customers' experience:

"... She was a master of what Paula Thornton recently coined as B2.0: Orchestrated Improvisation. Peggy understood the piece parts of what her orchestra members do in their daily work life, understood the process context in which they worked, and, like a good conductor, was able to lead them, like any good conductor, to play together to the symphonic challenge of the day - which was sure to be ever changing but followed certain patterns and basic structures. Whether the technology was new-fangled or old didn't matter - the key was her ability to figure out What, How and Why. Then she could explain the new process (loosely described as a set of interleaved intelligence communities) and how people could use the technology to do their jobs better."

Summary: The idea of connecting collaboration to observable work is at the heart of what Doug Engelbart has taught for decades. One of the most important lessons I draw from Doug's work is that to support effective collaboration, work needs to be both observable and addressable. That seems to be a necessary condition to support Adaptive Case Management using software. Addressable Work might be a better term for what I've tried to discuss in Intertwingled Work - but Ted Nelson deserves a shout out too!

Greg Lloyd / Blog1452 / July 6, 2010 / 3:51:11 AM EST

Intertwingled Work and Adaptive Case Management Tuesday July 6, 2010: As ...

Greg Lloyd / Blog1452 / July 6, 2010 / 3:51:11 AM EST

Enterprise 2.0 and Observable Work

Blog1351: June 23, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

I really like Jim McGee's Jun 23 blog post Managing the visibility of knowledge work. Jim makes the excellent point that "Invisibility is an accidental and little-recognized characteristic of digital knowledge work." and points back to his 2002 post Knowledge Work as Craft Work to reflect on what Jim calls a "dangerous tension between industrial frameworks and knowledge work as craft work". Early in his 2002 post he says:

I believe that principles of open, observable work – like open book financial reporting to employees - is a simple and powerful principle that people at every level of an organization can become comfortable using. In my opinion, wider adoption of observable work principles can succeed with support and encouragement from true leaders at every level of an organization - as Peter Drucker defines that role: "A manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant--and that applies fully as much to the manager's boss as it applies to the manager's subordinates."

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Friday June 25, 2010: Observable Work discussion centered on Jim McGee's original blog post Managing the visibility of knowledge work, including a comment and blog post: Observable Work: The Taming of the Flow by @briantullis and a comment and analysis with several well sourced examples by @johnt, including this:

"Yes, the real learning is in all the nuances of how we work, not reading a manual, it’s a skill, a capacity to act….it’s experience. I agree that the digital era has allowed for invisible work to happen, but at the same time there is great opportunity for your work to be even more visible than it was in the pre-digital era. Now anyone (not just people involved on the task) can come across your work if you use social tools rather than email and attachments…indeed raw interactions are recorded (searchable).

I also think that the constraints of geography and time in virtual teams, kind of means that you have to pay more importance to working more visibly, but not just in a synchronous way like tele-cons…we can use other social tools for when we aren’t all in the same room…and I’m not talking email." - John Tropea

Here's a summary of Twitter chat using tag #OWork, including tweets that weren't shown using Twitter's built-in search - arghh!

@roundtrip is me.

? @VMaryAbraham: Open/Visible work? I need to be persuaded. See this morning's post. http://bit.ly/9VVSVE

@roundtrip: Several differences with Observable Work (#OWork) model:

1) It's discretionary. You don't *have* to watch or follow, you can look or search

? @VMaryAbraham: So it's an optional, discretionary source of additional info?

@roundtrip: More a discretionary way of working "with your door always open, and most of your desk browsable by (trusted) folk"

[That is] an #E20 way of working "with your door always open" without disturbing others. They can follow, search or see a link

Observable Work can be an individual or a group norm. At NRL it was the way our branch worked for years http://bit.ly/qXVyM pre-Web

2) You're opening up your working in progress and analysis process to people you know and trust for a valid business purpose

3) Observable Work - learn by observing - is aligned with traditions of legal, medical and other teaching and learning

4) People who become excellent models based on OWork gain reputation and recognition in a virtuous sense IMO

? @lehawes How does #OWork relate to Social Business? (Asking w/o reading/thinking; sorry!)

@roundtrip: We're using #OWork as a norm that may be a specific example (perhaps a best practice) for Social Business as a topic

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@TractionTeam: "People learn best by watching what you do." ~ @jobsworth http://bit.ly/qXVyM nice 2007 #quote refed in trail on Observable Work #OWork

@roundtrip: Tom explains why who sits next to whom in your office can make a huge difference in this new video: http://is.gd/d3BlY @tom_peters #OWork !

@roundtrip: Strategy: Space Matters @TomPeters http://bit.ly/cSu63Q Who you sit next to @ work +++ With #E20 and #OWork, distance is not a barrier

Next Things Next: Observable Work: The Taming of the Flow @briantullis http://bit.ly/dmQ3U8 +++ #OWork #E20

Greg Lloyd / Blog1387 / June 25, 2010 / 10:13:36 PM EST

Friday June 25, 2010: Observable Work discussion centered on Jim McGee's ...

Greg Lloyd / Blog1387 / June 25, 2010 / 10:13:36 PM EST

Monday July 5, 2010: For an update on the Observable Work conversation, see ...

Greg Lloyd / Blog1447 / July 5, 2010 / 5:48:15 PM EST

gwt-traction project on Google Code

Blog1343: June 22, 2010; Posted by Andy Keller;

While building our new GWT-based Proteus skin for Traction TeamPage 5.0, we created some widgets and utilities that we thought other developers would find useful. Most of these are pretty simple, but we hope they save other GWT developers some time. As we factor out code that can be shared with others, we'll add more to this gwt-traction Google community project.

Emergineering!

Blog1326: June 18, 2010; Posted by Jordan Frank;

Since introducing the idea of Social Process Reengineering? earlier this week I've socialized it virtually and personally (at E2.0 Boston) with at least a dozen customers, bloggers, analysts and other leading thinkers.

Consensus on the concept was generally positive with a variety of feedback ranging from the matter that the "facebook" approach doesn't just work in the enterprise to the matter that the social, structural and business pain have to be taken into account for successful E2.0 efforts.

Welcome to Traction TeamPage 5.0!

Blog1318: June 15, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

On Tuesday June 15, 2010 we'll introduce Traction TeamPage Release 5.0 to the world at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. TeamPage Release 5.0's new generation Proteus interface technology is fast, simple, and looks great. TeamPage 5.0 leverages this technology to add extensible personal profile pages, Twitter style personal status, group live blog technology, slick and simple Feed summary and more as a natural part of Traction's award winning Enterprise 2.0 platform.

Social Process Reengineering?

Blog1316: June 13, 2010; Posted by Jordan Frank;

As much as I hesitate to introduce this term into social software lingo, I think it's exactly what Enterprises are doing with social software on the road to Enterprise 2.0 - striving for a fundamentally new way to work.

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The title of this entry had three goals. First, I wanted to convey and play ...

Jordan Frank / Blog1329 / June 18, 2010 / 9:09:52 AM EST

Q: How do I link to an Excel file? A: Why Would you Do That?

Blog1312: June 11, 2010; Posted by Jordan Frank;

I talked to two customers yesterday, both who came to me with some questions about attaching and linking to excel files. Easy enough, but before responding with a simple answer I challenged them: Why are you using Excel?

The spy who came in from the code | O'Reilly Radar | Carmen Medina interview

Blog1306: May 4, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

See The spy who came in from the code for James Turner's excellent O'Reilly Radar interview with Carmen Medina who recently retired from the CIA after 32 years after serving in roles including Deputy Director of Intelligence, and Director of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. Carmen was the keynote speaker at Traction Software's Oct 2009 Traction User Group meeting, speaking on Enterprise 2.0 and the Context of Work (see slides and video). She'll speak at the Gov 2.0 Expo on May 26, 2010 Washington DC on A Match made in Heaven: High Reliability-High Risk Organizations and the Power of Social Networks. Don't miss her talk, and follow @milouness on Twitter!

Return On Information

Blog1299: April 14, 2010; Posted by Jordan Frank

Rather than thinking about communication, collaboration and KM software in terms of Return on Investment, isn't the real goal to achieve Return On Information?

Ada Lovelace Day | Fran Allen, IBM Fellow and A.M. Turing Award Winner

Blog1287: March 23, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

For the second annual Ada Lovelace Day, March 24, 2010 - celebrating women in science and technology - I've chosen to write about Frances E. Allen, IBM Fellow, Turing Award winner and pioneer in the theory and practice of optimizing compilers. I've never had the honor of meeting her in person, but I'll take the liberty of referring to her as "Fran", as she's referred to by everyone I've known who talked with personal knowledge, respect and admiration about Fran and her work.

Social Media Policy Almost = Blabbing Policy

Blog1286: March 18, 2010; Posted by Jordan Frank

After reading 10 Social Media Commandment for Employers, I was reminded of Blogging Policy = Blabbing Policy, a blog entry I wrote back in 2006 when the the "conversation" in the blog-o-sphere started to center on corporate blogging policies.

Garry Kasparov on Computer Chess and Enterprise 2.0

Blog1266: February 19, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Professor Andrew McAfee posted a very good business analysis of points made by Garry Kasparov in his Feb 11, 2010 New York Review of Books article on Diego Rasskin-Gutman's book Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind. Kasparov's summarized of his own thoughts as a Chess Grandmaster and world chess champion playing against - and losing to - IBM's Deep Blue chess computer. But the interesting part comes when Kasparov talks about a recent match open to grandmasters who were allowed to use computer chess programs of their choice to augment their own chess skills: "The surprise came at the conclusion of the event. The winner was revealed to be not a grandmaster with a state-of-the-art PC but a pair of amateur American chess players using three computers at the same time." McAfee quotes Kasparov and continues:

Doug Engelbart | 85th Birthday Jan 30, 2010

Blog1246: January 30, 2010; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

"DOUG Engelbart sat under a twenty-two-foot-high video screen, "dealing lighting with both hands." At least that's the way it seemed to Chuck Thacker, a young Xerox PARC computer designer who was later shown a video of the demonstration that changed the course of the computer world." from What the Dormouse Said, John Markoff

Facebook: A Carnival Midway not a Neighborhood?

Blog1232: December 17, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Oliver Marks wrote a very good post: Facebook: The Legal Rumblings Start Dec 17, 2009, on the Facebook's potential legal exposure due to its controversial changes to member privacy capabilities and settings. My comment: Oliver -- Very good followup on Facebook's awkward (to put it mildly) changes to selective privacy capabilities which were a large part of their differentiation vs Friendster and MySpace.

With over 70 million folk apparently hooked on "social" games like Farmville, targeted ads that seem to belong on late night TV, and incredibly lame attempts to nag folk get their friends to use Facebook more (giving "viral" a new and flu like meaning), I see Facebook becoming a downscale carnival midway more than a neighborhood. They certainly have a right to do that.

Originally I thought the equally lame and manipulative privacy changes would just contribute to the downmarket feel of the place.

But as you point out - EU privacy laws may land them in legal entanglements too.

Facebook is becoming a bad example rather than a good example for use of social software in the enterprise - or anywhere for that matter. Look out below!

How big a deal is Enterprise 2.0? What do you mean by "Big"?

Blog1207: November 22, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

I'm flattered that Professor Andrew McAfee cites Enterprise 2.0 Schism in his Nov 20, 2009 blog post Enterprise 2.0 is Not THAT Big a Deal, kicking off a neat discussion on serious points behind my tongue in cheek analysis. McAfee agrees that Enterprise 2.0 is a big deal - but "... I don't see E2.0's tools, approaches, and philosophies making obsolete managers, hierarchies, org charts and formal cross functional business processes". There's no need to use a 2.0 version for the Enterprise, but:

Peter Drucker and Enterprise 2.0 | Drucker Centenary

Blog1185: November 19, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Earlier this week Oliver Marks wrote an excellent post on his Collaboration 2.0 Blog: 'The Purpose of a Business is to Create a Customer' - Peter Drucker Centenary. Oliver celebrates the Nov 19, 2009 Centenary of Peter Drucker's birth with two of his favorite Drucker bumper sticker quotes: " ‘Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes‘ and ‘There is an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job‘, which somehow seem to fit together very well." then uses these quotes as context to discuss the disturbing findings of the 2009 Shift Index report and followup analysis by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davidson of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation. Please read Oliver's full post - you'll like it. Oliver was also used kind words to build on my earlier Enterprise 2.0 Schism post. Here's a slightly extended version of the comment I posted in reply, along with my two favorite Drucker bumper sticker quotes and several links to celebrate Drucker's birth and life.

Enterprise 2.0 Schism

Blog1163: November 9, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

I have to confess that I've enjoyed watching recent rounds of Enterprise 2.0 discussion and mud wrestling. The fact that so many people enjoy debating definitions, values, doctrinal principals - even the existence of Enterprise 2.0 - makes me think that E2.0 might best be framed as a religious debate. With that in mind, I'd like to introduce a new and exciting element: schism.

Introducing Proteus (demo)

Blog1157: November 2, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Traction Software Director of User Experience Michael Angeles introduces Traction's new Google Web Toolkit (GWT) based Proteus user interface with a brief tour (video below).

TUG 2009 Providence | Thank you!

Blog1154: November 2, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

I'd like to thank all of the Traction customers, partners and friends who traveled to Providence last month to make TUG 2009 Providence as enjoyable as it was enlightening. Special thanks to keynote speakers Carmen Medina, Chris Nuzum, Stewart Mader and all of the customers and partners who participated in the Oct 14 Main event. And my personal thanks to everyone on the Traction Software team who worked so hard to bring TeamPage R4.2, the Oracle RDB backend, Attivo Advance Search, and the Proteus Google Web Tookit (GWT) UI to life. I don't know what we'll do to top TUG 2009 next year - but TUG members provides some excellent ideas! See TUG 2009 Providence | Keynotes by Carmen Medina, Chris Nuzum and Stewart Mader for links to TUG videos, slide shows, interviews, tech talks and more, along with how become a TUG member and join the conversation. TUG registration is free and open to the public.

Where's Greg?

Blog1135: October 21, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

You may have noticed a slow down in blog posts by Jordan and myself, and attributed that to our work for TUG 2009 Providence last week, and you'd be partially right (but it was fun - as you'll learn). You can also blame our slower blog posting to time spent on Twitter, both as individuals: @roundtrip (Greg Lloyd) and @jordanfrank and using the Traction Software corporate feed @tractionteam (which broadcasts the title and a shortened link to new content posted on http://www.TractionSoftware.com as well as original tweets).

Structuring for Emergence

Blog1130: September 23, 2009; Posted by Jordan Frank;

Enterprise 2.0 Social Software is appealing for many reasons, but a core value is the facilitation of emergence. Many in our community may quibble with McAfee's definition of Enterprise 2.0 but I think all will agree that the need to support emergence is a key trait. However, an emergent discussion shines a light on the interacting role of structure and emergence.

2.0 Adoption Council | Neat Tweet!

Blog1127: September 22, 2009; Posted by Greg Lloyd;

Susan Scrupski (aka @ITSinsider) tweets Sep 22, 2009: reading a great preso by a Council member. great testimony for e20 vendor Traction Software @TractionTeam

11 May 2009 | Collaborative problem solving at KUKA

KMWorld quotes Tom Woodman, enterprise applications manager at KUKA Systems on use of Traction TeamPage to track, manage and report on issues across project groups. Woodman says: “TeamPage helped us document what wasn’t working, collaborate around potential solutions and turn on a dime to fix them. Then, it helped us spread the word about those improvements to the rest of the company very quickly. As a byproduct, we are also able to meet compliance requirements, because auditors can easily review the issues and determine if there are any that would need further scrutiny from a financial reporting point of view.” » Read More

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