Collaboration "in the Wild": Some Observations

An Enterprise 2.0 dream scenario: implementing a complex project across multiple sites, in two different time zones, with a large team (well over 100). The team was reasonably savvy with collaboration tools; core team members were quite comfortable with Instant Messaging, and we have been relying on SharePoint for many months. A centralized, coordinated document [...]

Underwhelming experiences with Google Wave

Took some time today to work with the new communication meme – Google Wave. I wouldn’t call it a fundamentally new way to communicate – well, not yet. I think Google is safe to continue with a “preview” label – clearly not even “beta” yet. No horrible bugs – at least on the Windows platform [...]

Real Business Users and SharePoint

Introducing buzzword-compliant technology like a wiki, or integrated collaboration spaces like SharePoint, will typically go well with a motivated audience like your internal IT department. But if you really want to understand how this stuff works, try it with “real people” – line employees in sales and marketing, operations, and finance.Sure, you’ve heard complaints from [...]

Business Benefits of Social Networks Exist, but …

When I see / read articles like this, or hear the breathless claims of vendors, pundits, and True Believers, I’ll privately chuckle to myself. All of this stuff – social networking, collaboration, and innovation – are 21st century takes on good old Knowledge Management (KM), circa 1998. Do these sound like presentations from your recent [...]

Is SharePoint WSS dangerous to SharePoint contractors?

Firing Up Internal OpportunityIt was true last year, but even more so now; SharePoint is very important for corporate IT, both strategically (medium- and long-term) and tactically (short-term). Sure, it’s a terrific way to iterate on collaboration, internal portals, document management, etc. – “enabling innovation” in every buzzword-compliant sense. But there is solid benefit for [...]

Zodiac of Knowledge Capture

The start of a new year gives me a rare chance to measure my knowledge capture output over time. I maintain electronic journals for the various projects I am driving, business units and functional areas I support, and people I work with. This results in a hundred or so separate MS Word documents, with generally [...]

Back to the Future: Twitter "microblogging"

“That’s pretty good, Johnny, but that ain’t the way I heerd it. . . .”I recall when all this “blogging” talk started, way back in 1999 or so (thanks to Hallett for a decent history). The idea was to post thoughts and feelings, observations about technology, society, or whatever – anything from a daily diary [...]

Dueling Collaboration Portals

I noticed an interesting phenomenon this afternoon; we are experimenting with SharePoint as our internal project management / collaboration portal. A nice platform to choose, because it’s popularity is growing, and there are a wide selection of add-on products and development partners ready, willing, and able to help us spend our money to make it [...]

A Plea for Empathetic Communication

It’s impossible to over-communicate
Sounds a bit strong, but if you think through your real-world experiences, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. No matter how hard you try, your message will be missed by someone …
Problem: It’s all their fault!
Rely on Web 2.0, and …

… they won’t subscribe to the RSS feed; they don’t understand the concept, and [...]

On the Road: Business Travel, Fall 2008

I don’t travel a significant amount in my current position, but when I do, it seems to come in chunks. I’m about half way through a round of travel this fall – mostly business, but with some personal travel mixed in. Six cities, three countries in less than four months. Some observations at the halfway [...]