Should Software Vendors Also Sell Professional Services? YES!
This conversation started with Stewart Mader and continues with Bill Ives. While most of our customers run the easy installer and are up and running readily, many benefit from our front end advice as well as more formal professional services engagements. This exchange offers two simple benefits that are strategic to the customers and to the software producer (and, in turn, to the customers).
re: Explaining Twitter - One of Three Places for People
Update: Steve Buttry Information Content Conductor of Gazette Communications posted an excellent tip sheet: Leading your staff into the Twitterverse for a workshop he'll be leading for the American Society of Newpaper Editors. It's an great introduction to Twitter which covers linking, following, tools and ethics. I believe Steve's advice is just as valuable for neighborhood (Facebook) and workplace (Enterprise 2.0) microblogging. Steve writes:
I Can't Tweet & Trusting Online Services
Last fall, I pointed out an issue of trust as part and parcel of Web 2.0 security (See What Web 2.0 and E2.0 Security Means to Me). When we accept social services like Facebook and Twitter as Two of Three Places for People, we entrust them to manage our data securely, to keep consistent terms (i.e. they don't suck us in and then suck us dry by starting to charge for basic services), and to be there when we need them. Today, I felt muzzled as I was touched by the uptime issue. I got this "over capacity" memo when I went to Tweet an answer to Dave Lamp's Question. I've received the "over capacity" messages several times and will continue, for now, to trust they'll iron things out over at Twitter HQ.
Reading blogs at 800 MPH
I took a long needed vacation last week and came back to the usual firestorm of post-vacation pile-up that makes one pause before entertaining the idea of another break. Anyhow, after meeting a few high priority deadlines, I had time this afternoon to review everything posted to our TeamPage server in the last 2 weeks.
Ada Lovelace Day | Professor Lee S. Sproull, Stern School, NYU
For this first Ada Lovelace Day I've chosen to write about Professor Lee Sproull an internationally-recognized sociologist whose research centers on the implications of computer-based communication technologies for managers, organizations, communities, and society. Professor Sproull is a pioneer and visionary in the rigorous study of what we now call social software.
Explaining Twitter - One of Three Places for People
Last week a friend who just signed up on Twitter said: "... just like Jon Stewart, I can't figure out how it works or why anyone would want to tweet or get anyone else's twitter. I had no idea what grunt and stalker is but I am assuming that is reality too. I put this all in the pocket with second life (stupid bulky awkward and totally useless)." So I reluctantly joined the crowd attempting to explain why people who have a job and have a life might be interested in Twitter. I decided to describe Twitter as one of three distinct places on the Web where I socialize every day: the public commons. The others two are my neighborhood and my workplace.
re: Kuka Systems TeamPage Case Study
A customer story about giant orange robots - for real! How good can it get?
KUKA Titan Largest and strongest 6-axis industrial robot in the world. Payload capacity: 1000 kilograms
Kuka Systems TeamPage Case Study
See Kuka Systems for an excellent TeamPage story Jordan wrote in cooperation with this Traction TeamPage customer. KUKA is one of the world's leading suppliers of robotics as well as plant and systems engineering and has been in the automation technologies business since 1898. They build robotics systems for factory automation and are a leading worldwide supplier of assembly and welding systems, and other related machinery, servicing the automobile, aerospace, and energy industries.
re: Reinventing the Web
For an excellent first hand history of the Web - and a linked data proposal which seems to share many of the simple, scalable properties of his original invention - see Tim Berners-Lee's Feb 2009 TED Talk on the 20th anniversary of the Web:
Providence Geek Talk | Frank and Nuzum speak out: How Pages Crush Documents
Chris Nuzum and I had a chance to speak to the Providence Geeks about what we've done with Traction TeamPage and how "Pages are Crushing Documents." I do a history of our company and transition into a history of communication and collaboration that runs the course from stone tablets to books through email and documents and finally culminates in wikis and blogs. Now that wikis and blogs are becoming the new currency of collaboration and communication, my presentation focuses on how "packaging matters" with particular focus on the ways pages can be re-used and distributed in ways that can improve communication performance and enable innovation like we've never seen it before. Caught on "film" are my talk followed by a video podcast interview.
Water Cooler ROI - Putting Social Software to Productive Work
Matt Hodgson's the ROI of Being Social at Work points to recent MIT research suggesting 40% of productivity for creative teams is a direct result of communication and employees with the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive.
re: I Love My iPhone
Joel (Chief Geek at Geek.com) loves his iPhone too. He called me after I'd left my Providence Geeks presentation to tell me he'd been walking around like a wet dog in the rain in search of his car. We used our iPhones to find eachother and then used his to find his car. Good fun.
Clarity Amid the Hype
Mike Gotta posted Enterprise Twitter: Clarity Amid The Hype analyzing - and generally agreeing with - points raised by Adina Levin (Socialtext) in her excellent post What's Different about Enterprise Twitter? I agree with Mike's analysis and Adina's thoughtful points (read them both) but want to focus on Mike's conclusion:
Traction TeamPage: The One System to Rule It All
Needless to say I'm delighted with Michael Sampson's Currents: "TeamPage - the One System to Rule It All". I like One System to Rule It All angle, butassume that would make me a metaphorical Elven-smith of Eregion rather than Sauron of course. Hmmm
re: Why Software is a Good Investment
What Jordan meant to say: Send us your money and you'll be happy and save more than you spent!
Why Software is a Good Investment
In tough economic times organizations are faced with hard budgeting choices as they weigh the cost and benefit of investing in durable goods, people, marketing and software. Here are some reasons why software should be at the top of the list:
re: Ask an Engineer: What do you think of the Facebook Terms of Service Flap?
For a good example, see Nicolas Kolakowski's Feb 20, 2009 eWeek story Facebook Launches Social Widget for Facebook Connect :
Ask an Engineer: What do you think of the Facebook Terms of Service Flap?
If you haven't been paying attention to this week's flap on Facebook's revised terms of service - posted three days ago and retracted today - Andrew Lavelle of the Wall Street Journal published a good recap today. The controversy relates to what rights does Facebook get to content that an individual Facebook user posts? There are a lot of good arguments about what rights people think Facebook should be able to retain, but there's a second level of discussion that relates to how people expect Facebook privacy settings to work, and how these expectations make it difficult to craft an agreement that seems fair, makes sense, and corresponds to what Facebook actually implements and enforces.
President 2.0
We've seen our US Government and state level customers seek out and achieve great success as they make their own migrations to "2.0" style collaboration with TeamPage. While "grasss roots" action at the agency level is encouraging, top down involvement and mandates tend to accelerate the proces. With Obama's Transparency and Open Government mandate, perhaps we have it!
re: Searching for the Perfect Fried Clam | Rhode Island
For a longer list of Providence RI restaurants I like, see Providence Rhode Island Restaurants: A Local's Favorites contributed to Bill Ives' list of restaurant picks.
re: Email isn't dead - It's only sleeping ...
In yet another conversation on "is email dead?" I settled on: No - it's just a "strange legacy idea" that's tragicomically inept for collaboration.
What are you good at?
I like what Seth Godin says in What are you good at? Where he talks about the distinction between content (domain expertise) and process (emotional intelligence skills you have for managing projects, visualizing success, dealing with priorities and so on).
At What Scale Can Web Services Survive?
One more data point in line of my Whither Web 2.0 Social Networking Discussion which questions the revenue models of web services (with web social networking as a focal point): An on-line service the scale and scope of Microsoft's Online Services is running into red ink of proportional scale. It lost $471 Million per last quarter. The clear and present issue is not whether a profit may be turned at some even-large scale, but what will change about the business model and how will that affect users?
Reinventing the Web
John Markoff wrote a really good Jan 11 2009 New York Times profile, In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates on Ted Nelson and his new book, Geeks Bearing Gifts: How the Computer World Got This Way (available on Lulu.com). Markoff notes that Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, but: "Lost in the process was Mr. Nelson’s two-way link concept that simultaneously pointed to the content in any two connected documents, protecting, he has argued in vain, the original intellectual lineage of any object... His two-way links might have avoided the Web’s tornado-like destruction of the economic value of the printed word, he has contended, by incorporating a system of micropayments."
Searching Content for People
By moving communication and knowledge exchange to web pages, social software breaks down the walls that traditionally divide e-mail communication and traditional folder based document sharing. As discussed at the conclusion of So, What About Enterprise Social Networking?, this style of interacting online opens avenues for content enrichment and exploitation.
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